NFT Adoption Cools as Meta Shelf’s future plans

From April 11, Meta will discontinue the NFT sharing feature ‘Digital Collectibles.‘ Marking the end of a project that allowed users to display their NFTs on Instagram and Facebook

Originally launched in May 2022, the feature was conceived as a way to better integrate the platforms into the digital collectibles ecosystem. Users can connect to a crypto wallet and share the compatible image or video based NFTs as a special type of post. These include a small shimmer effect and automatically tag both the owner and creator of each digital item.

Existing Digital Collectible posts will be converted to regular Facebook and Instagram posts and Meta will no longer connect to third-party wallets.

It may come as a surprise to see Meta discontinue the program less than a year after its launch. As recently as November, the Big Tech firm launched integration for Solana wallets. Suggests a continued commitment to NFT compatibility. But the initial enthusiasm seems to have died down.

Also, Meta isn’t the only company to dial back support for NFT integrations.

Other platforms are also scaling back

After a wave of hype that characterized the space earlier, in July 2022, Microsoft-owned Mojang Studios announced that they would not support NFC compatibility on Minecraft. In a single move, the studio essentially de-platformed projects like NFC Worlds. Who had built their own metaverse by tokenizing virtual plots on custom Minecraft servers.

Alongside platforms abandoning third-party support, many companies that initially jumped on the NFT bandwagon have since scaled back their ambitions in the space.

For example, in another case of a short-lived project, CNN announced in October that it would be shutting down its NFT marketplace Vault. Launched in June 2021, Vault allows users to buy and sell “moments” – NFTs based on some of CNN’s historically significant coverage. And while it still operates as a peer-to-peer marketplace, the firm has stopped minting new tokens.

UK shelf NFT plans

But some NFT projects never got off the ground. Potential developers include the Royal Mint in the UK.
Which in March revealed it would not be going ahead with plans to mint an ‘NFT for Britain’ any time soon. The Treasury’s Economic Secretary, Andrew Griffith stated:

“The Royal Mint is not proceeding with the launch of a non-fungible token at this time but will keep this proposal under review,”

While some naysayers will point to the past few years’ spate of defunct NFT projects as evidence of a bursting bubble, a better analogy is a thinning of the herd.

Just as the 2010s witnessed a boom in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). This too was eventually reduced to a smaller number of cryptocurrencies actually used. The young NFT space still carries some puppy fat. When it reaches maturity, those platforms that prove their worth and gain traction with users will survive. But many will fade away into obscurity.