15/03/2023 Meta gives up on NFTs for Facebook and Instagram

Image of Meta’s logo with a red and blue background.

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Vergenone

Meta is “winding down” its work with NFTs on Facebook and Instagram, Meta commerce and fintech lead Stephane Kasriel said in a Twitter thread on Monday. The decision means Meta will end its tests ofminting and selling NFTs on Instagramas well as the ability toshare NFTs on Instagram and Facebookin the coming weeks, Meta spokesperson Joshua Gunter confirmed in an email toThe Verge.

“Across the company, we’re looking closely at what we prioritize to increase our focus,”Kasriel said. “We’re winding down digital collectibles (NFTs) for now to focus on other ways to support creators, people, and businesses.” Instead, the company isfocusing on“areas where we can make impact at scale,” like messaging and monetization on Reels andon improving Meta Pay.

The NFT integrations seem to be one casualty of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s drive to make 2023 the “year of efficiency,” along with theReels Playbonus program. But their end also follows the shutdowns of theMeta-backed cryptocurrency DiemandMeta’s Novi digital walletlast year.

Still, even as Meta exits NFTs, other companies are rushing into a market that collapsed in 2022 and shed billions in value after stratospheric levels of hype in early 2021. Reddit continues to promote its“digital collectible” avatars that are NFTs, Starbucks recentlysold out a selection of 2,000 $100 NFTsin its Odyssey customer loyalty program, andSesame Streetjust announced an NFT collaboration.

Arts

https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/13/23638572/instagram-nft-meta-facebook-quits-digital-collectibles

Interesting NFTs
The Harvest
An anthropomorphic figure stands, wide eyed, staring at the viewer; its body masculine, muscular, and humanoid. Its “mind” dissociates into a conglomerate of structures resembling feathers, grain, teeth–as well as a radial flower “node”, casting linear rays throughout the composition. To his left, a vat of bodies gesture and writhe in a kind of amniotic soup, attended by a video game robot. The bot's red display reads “uWu”. Behind the robot and filling the left side of the composition is an archaic figure composed of a variety of vintage objects and symbols. Among them are a hardbound book with ancient cuneiform scripts, indicating barley, beer, bread, ox, house, and sky, behind which is a grimacing, salivating jagged toothed maw; and an old Commodore floppy drive. The figure’s head tilts toward an illuminated crescent moon, suggesting the Egyptian Sacred Bull. The archaic figure is composed of a variety of mutating cells, which shift in color, and pattern; eventually breaking free into an ephemeral broadcast of bubbles which move across the background. The work came into being against a psychological introspection, which included associations to pop culture such as alien abduction and pod people, as well as quite a bit of reflection on grains as a symbol of civilization, agriculture, sustenance, life, and imbibing (mainly whiskies).
No Future #9/15
None
Okay Bulls #2271
Okay Bulls is a clean collection of 10,000 bulls building a bullish community that will transcend the internet into the real world.
Meebit #8598
The Meebits are 20,000 unique 3D voxel characters, created by a custom generative algorithm, then registered on the Ethereum blockchain.
#85699
By OthersideDeployer