Instagram announces support for NFTs in 100 countries and territories

Instagram has entered the next phase of its NFT rollout. Mark Zuckerberg announced on his personal Insta account that users in 100 countries can now share NFTs on their profiles. To facilitate this push into the crypto world, Instagram has announced partnerships with Web3-native companies like Coinbase and Dapper.

During an interview with Tom Bilyeu, Zuckerberg discussed Meta’s growing interest in digital collectibles. “I think a big part of what we need to do is really lean into all of the different ways that creators could make money,” Zuckerberg said. “So some of that will be things like supporting commerce, part of that will be NFTs and ownership around that.”

One of the blockchain assets that will be shared on Instagram will be based off Zuckerberg’s own youth baseball card. See for yourself:

A blog post provides more details about the ways Instagram is “bringing digital collectibles to more people.” Users in the 100 eligible countries can share their NFTs by connecting their crypto wallets to their profiles. In addition to Coinbase and Dapper, enabled wallets include Rainbow, MetaMask, and Trust Wallet. Instagram also supports the Ethereum, Polygon, and Flow blockchains. Once a wallet is successfully linked, the associated user’s NFTs will be verified with a checkmark

Though some tech companies have expressed skepticism about digital collectibles, Meta has been quick to endorse and adopt the technology. Instagram’s top exec, Adam Mosseri, has teased an NFT rollout for more than a year. That initiative began in earnest in May, when Instagram worked with Polygon to begin verifying blockchain-based assets. NFTs also started showing up on Facebook in June.

Why is Meta so bullish on a volatile technology? One answer concerns the technology in the corporation’s name, since many metaverse spaces run on cryptocurrencies. Though Facebook has pumped the brakes on its metaverse plans, it still sees value in letting its users display their prized collectibles.

There’s another sneaky advantage of bringing more NFTs to Instagram. Since many of those tokens are images, users will now be incentivized to post more photos, not just videos. If you’re one of the people who has been begging Instagram to return to its roots, you may get your wish — sort of.