• With NFTs, Meta eyes a billion-dollar opportunity as it works to build the much-awaited Metaverse.
• The company pushes further its NFT plans as it seeks to bring new monetization tools for creators.

Facebook-parent Meta is quite confident about its next move with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and is moving boldly in that direction. Despite the major slowdown in the crypto market and the NFT space, Meta is keen on getting digital collectibles to its Instagram and Facebook platforms.

Stephane Kasriel, Meta’s new head of fintech, reaffirmed the same during his latest interview with Financial Times. He said that the company’s plans around non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have not changed “in any way”. With NFTs, Meta is seeing a massive opportunity in the rapidly expanding creators’ economy. Speaking about the same, Kasriel said:

The opportunity [Meta] sees is for the hundreds of millions or billions of people that are using our apps today to be able to collect digital collectibles, and for the millions of creators out there that could potentially create virtual and digital goods to be able to sell them through our platforms.

Helping FB and Instagram creators

Meta is seeing NFTs as an opportunity to incentivize creators on its FB and Instagram platform that otherwise might shift to TikTok. Last month, Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg made a major announcement about getting new monetization tools to creators. Zuckerberg also explained how creators can leverage NFTs. He said:

We’re expanding our test so more creators around the world can display their NFTs on Instagram. We’ll bring this feature to Facebook soon too — starting with a small group of US creators — so people can cross-post on Instagram and Facebook. We’ll also test NFTs in Instagram Stories with SparkAR soon.

Facebook has been facing major challenges in terms of new user growth recently. Thus, the company is planning for a major shift into the Metaverse due to which the company rebranded itself to Meta last year. Facebook also plans to leverage NFTs as tradable assets in its Metaverse.

Meta shuts down Digital Wallet Novi

While Meta accelerates its plans with NFTs and Metaverse, the company has decided to shut down its Digital Wallet Novi. As the result, the company has asked its existing customers to withdraw funds “as soon as possible” before Novi goes out of service on September 1, 2022.

Also, users will no longer be able to add funds to Novi after July 21. In case someone forgets to withdraw funds, Meta will attempt to transfer those funds back to their bank accounts. This seems to be the end for the company’s much ambitious cryptocurrency project Diem which failed to see the light of the day following heavy regulatory actions.

Meta spokesperson Lauren Dickson said that the company will use the technology it developed while building Novi. They will leverage the tech “on new products, such as digital collectibles,” as it looks towards “building the metaverse”.