NFTs. They’re nothing new at this point. Even your grandma has heard all about them from that zealous cousin last Thanksgiving dinner—or maybe that zealous cousin is you.
Fluctuating markets aside, NFTs appear to be working their way into every corner of our digital lives, and Meta head honcho Mark Zuckerberg is not going to be left behind.
To answer the ever-present question of “what do you even do with your NFTs?,” Instagram will soon launch an NFT gallery space for collectors to show off their best digital assets.
See also: The 20 Top-Selling NFT Artists to Collect Right Now
According to the official announcement, users and artists need only connect their profiles to their digital wallets. Then, they can post their NFTs to the IG feed, though those posts will stand apart from the rest with an eye-catching shimmer effect and a more thoughtful info pull out that offers more details about the piece.
NFTs on Instagram
— Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) May 9, 2022
This week we’re beginning to test digital collectibles with a handful of US creators and collectors who will be able to share NFTs on Instagram. There will be no fees associated with posting or sharing a digital collectible on IG.
See you next week! pic.twitter.com/VuJbMVSBDr
The move is meant to help NFT artists and collectors move their conversation to a more open platform, sort of how Instagram has become a marketplace for creatives of all types who hope to get their music, wares and fashionable designs into front of a targeted marketplace of interested buyers.
The new feature is in full-on test mode, and folks who would like to see the special NFT posts in action need only check out the feeds of famed NFT artists @adambombsquad, @bluethegreat, @bossbeautiesnft, @c.syresmith, @cynthiaerivo, @garyvee, @jenstark, @justmaiko, @maliha_z_art, @misshattan, @nopattern, @oseanworld, @paigebueckers, @phiawilson, @swopes and @yungjake.
“I feel excited to be able to share my NFT journey with the community I’ve been cultivating on IG for over ten years,” @maliha_z_art is quoted in the announcement. “I love how this new feature will let collectors trace the art back to the artist and be a part of the community that they have been building on IG for so long. I also love how it bridges my traditional art community and the Women Rise NFT community.”
View this post on Instagram
Not to be left out, Zuckerberg promises similar developments over on Facebook’s app.
“We're also going to work on augmented reality NFTs,” he said in a post on Instagram, basically 3D NFTs, that you can bring to Instagram Stories with Spark AR, that's our software AR platform, so you can put this kind of digital art into 3D spaces and kind of project it onto physical spaces as well.”
Read more about the exciting developments on the social and digital frontier in the official release, and look for shimmering NFT Instagram posts in your feed, coming soon.