In an unsurprising move, Meta joins the NFT gold rush

When the NFT boom was in its nascent phase, one would usually encounter information regarding digital collectibles through some sort of limited collection or as a standalone piece of art (whether the art in question was good or not is another matter entirely). As we moved further into the mania, NFTs have started to seep into our everyday lives — Ubisoft launched an in-game NFT project for an unamused fandom, Gamestop has created an NFT division for its own marketplace, and worse still, some companies have embarked on NFT initiatives that appear to be full-on scams.

With companies trying to get in on the ground floor of what may very well end up being a speculative bubble, another heavyweight has entered the fray. As first reported by the Financial Times, Meta, the parent company behind Facebook and Instagram, “is working on plans to allow users to create and sell non-fungible tokens.”

These plans boil down to a few things, including a feature that would allow users to display their NFTs on their respective profiles, a minting prototype, as well as a marketplace to buy and sell NFTs.

Metaverse-adjacent — Investing in NFT proliferation would be in line with the direction that Meta intends to take as a company — establishing a sprawling virtual world where users roam about as avatars and deck themselves out in the digital equivalent of their favorite products. Meta is apparently “investing $10bn annually” to this vision so digital art would serve as something to bolster this market.

There’s also money to be made in owning a thriving marketplace that specializes in NFTs. OpenSea, the most recognizable one at the moment, takes a nice commission from every transaction that takes place on its platform (a 2.5 percent cut to be exact) and is currently valued at $13B.

At this point, these plans have not materialized into anything concrete as of yet and could still be subject to change. Regardless, I would expect to see more announcements like this in the future as a number of industries that aren’t necessarily in the tech realm seek to dip their toes in the NFT waters.