Back in May of 2022 Instagram began rolling out tests that involved allowing NFTs with select creators. The platform allowed for the posting and sharing of digital collectibles without fees.
The sharing of the collectibles was supported by the Ethereum and Polygon Chains with Solana and Flow on the way in the future. The third party wallets were Rainbow, Metamask, and Trust Wallet. Plans for Coinbase, Dapper, and Phantom wallets were also in the pipeline.
NFTs could be shared in Feeds, stories , or messages. Adam Mosseri of instagram noted that his company is a centralized platform and that the web3 sphere focuses on trust and distribution of power so a slow growth was necessary to learn from the space. Artists on instagram that were included in the beginning of the rollout of included talents already on instagram such as @adambombsquad, @bluethegreat, @bossbeautiesnft, @c.syresmith, @cynthiaerivo, @garyvee, @jenstark, @justmaiko, @maliha_z_art, @misshattan, @nopattern, @oseanworld, @paigebueckers, @phiawilson, @swopes and @yungjake.
These creators were first in testing the offering of Instagram before the current international rollout. This past Thursday Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Meta announced the company is ready to begin the international expansion of its support of NFT on the Instagram platform. This international offering will allow more than 100 countries to participate with the new capability. The countries will be in Africa, Asia-Pacific, The Middle East, and the Americas. This is an expansion from the U.S only offering from months prior.
The company also included a note stating support for additional wallets- Coinbase and Dapper, is officially rolling out with NFTs from the Flow chain being supported as well, still no news on Solana at the moment.
In order to utilize this ability you will need to connect your wallet to your instagram account. The NFT will then have a shimmer effect and clicking on the NFT will allow users to see the information about the digital asset. Zuckerberg also released information regarding his Spark AR platform which is the augmented reality platform being used on Instagram. Currently NFT holders can show off their digital assets as AR stickers in Instagram stories.
Zuckerberg and Meta are dedicated to web3 and with the introduction of AR stickers the company is staying committed to its promise of working on augmented reality NFTs or 3D NFTs.The next step will be to provide the same utility for users of Facebook as Meta continues its push for web3 Dominance.