Instagram to Start Testing NFTs in May

In early May, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Meta Platform Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) Mark Zuckerberg announced that there would be the testing of integrating non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Instagram beginning within weeks.

It came just days after Meta announced that the photo and video sharing platform, Instagram, will be supporting NFTs from Flow, Solana, Polygon, and Ethereum blockchains.

Widely used cryptocurrency wallets MetaMask, TrustWallet, and Rainbow will be the go-to wallets for Instagram in its journey of supporting digital collectibles.

Zuckerberg pointed out that the building of NFTs is not only intended to draw the company to the metaverse, but to expand its non-fungible token ecosystem to Meta's family of applications.

He added that after the successful integration of NFTs on Instagram, Facebook would be next in line to enjoy this feature.

Why is Instagram’s Integration with NFTs important?

As of March 2022, there are more than one billion active users of Instagram. Although NFTs were first created in 2014 and became popular in 2021, millions of people still ask questions about what digital collectibles entail.

Several people have heard about the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), CryptoPunks, Axie Infinity, NBA Top Shot, Meebits, Cool Cats, and CryptoKitties, but do not know how to get their hands on some of these collectibles.

Others have seen Beeple sell digital art for more than $69 million and could not wrap their head around such a news story.

Instagram NFTs will play an invaluable role in introducing billions of active platform users to several collections.

As of writing, popular NFT marketplaces known to stakeholders of digital collectibles include but are not limited to OpenSea, LooksRare, Rarible, and Nifty Gateway, among others.

The complexities of registering for a crypto wallet and using several digital currencies have not boded well for the adoption of NFTs by the mainstream.

With an Instagram NFT Marketplace, billions of users will trust Meta’s platform as one of the best NFT marketplaces to buy digital art.

One of the key areas you have to consider is the blockchains that Instagram NFTs will be integrating with.

As of May 2022, Ethereum is the biggest NFT blockchain by sales volume. Solana has surpassed Flow in terms of periodical NFT sales volume. Flow, the blockchain that holds NBA Top Shots, is in third place when sales volume is considered, and Polygon makes up the top 10 NFT blockchains by sales volume.

Should 100 million users on Instagram take a stake in digital collectibles, there could be an average of $100 million weekly sales volume from NFT art on Instagram alone. This can contribute substantially to the more than $1 billion in volume recorded as total NFT sales weekly.

Finally, seeing NFT Instagram posts that entice people to buy using the three aforementioned crypto wallets bodes well for the adoption of digital wallets in the mainstream.

As of May 2022, TrustWallet had more than 5 million users, and MetaMask had more than 10 million active users. Although Rainbow wallet is relatively new, it continues to register new wallet addresses daily.

Instagram NFT Marketplace will see a minimum of 100 million users daily. This means that each crypto wallet can be projected to see five times the current number of users.

Once this happens, MetaMask might be soaring to around 50 million users, TrustWallet’s active users could reach 25 million, and Rainbow could see at least 10 million users in the long term.

What next for Meta Platforms Inc. and NFTs?

Aside from Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook are part of the Meta family. Per the words of Mark Zuckerberg, the success of Instagram NFTs will lead to the integration of Facebook into other NFT blockchains.

Once that is successful, there is a huge chance that WhatsApp could be next to join the non-fungible token (NFT) train.

As of writing, WhatsApp and Facebook have almost 5 billion daily active users.

With billions of people relying on Facebook ads to promote their products purchased by billions of people, NFT ads could be seeing the same reaction.

In the end, digital art from millions of developers could rake in billions of dollars in sales volume.

The resultant effect of this will be a positive reflection in cryptocurrencies backed by NFT projects.