Meta plans to wind down its work on NFTs “for now” to focus on other ways of supporting creators and will continue working on Meta Pay

- Meta is ditching its NFT efforts, for now, according to executive Stephane Kasriel. — Meta is ditching its pursuit of NFTs as the company looks …

The Block 2023-03-14 Adam Morgan McCarthy

Context & Ripple Effects

Meta had outlined NFT support as a route to cross-platform creator memberships and subscriptions in its earlier creator-monetization plan. This reversal follows the shutdown of the Novi wallet pilot, while preserving work on Meta Pay rather than the NFT layer.

First-order effects

Creators who expected Meta's NFT features to support memberships or subscriptions lose that planned monetization route as Meta winds down the work.
Meta retains Meta Pay development, separating its payments effort from the NFT initiative led by fintech head Stephane Kasriel.

Second-order effects

Meta's creator-support teams must steer creators toward the unspecified alternatives Meta says it will prioritize, rather than an NFT-based membership or subscription product.
The split between Meta Pay and NFT work narrows the role of tokenized assets in Meta's creator-payment strategy while leaving its payment infrastructure in place.

Third-order effects

If Meta's approach persists, large platforms may treat payments as durable creator infrastructure while making NFT features optional, shorter-lived experiments rather than a core monetization layer.

The trend: Creator monetization platforms are separating broadly useful payment rails from NFT-based products whose strategic priority can be withdrawn quickly.

Discussion

@skasriel Stephane Kasriel on x
Some product news: across the company, we're looking closely at what we prioritize to increase our focus. We're winding down digital collectibles (NFTs) for now to focus on other ways to support creators, people, and businesses. 🧵[1/5]
@dave_krugman @dave_krugman on x
Such a short sighted move. Inclusion of digital collectibles has so much potential to help creators engage their communities and counterbalance the pitfalls of attention based advertising economies. You guys quit before you even started. A real shame and undoing a lot of really s…
@skasriel Stephane Kasriel on x
And we'll continue investing in fintech tools that people and businesses will need for the future. We're streamlining payments w/ Meta Pay, making checkout & payouts easier, and investing in messaging payments across Meta. [5/5]
@skasriel Stephane Kasriel on x
First: a big Thank You to the partners who joined us on this journey and who're doing great work in a dynamic space. Proud of the relationships we built. And look forward to supporting the many NFT creators who continue using Instagram and Facebook to amplify their work. [2/5]
@skasriel Stephane Kasriel on x
Let me be clear: creating opportunities for creators and businesses to connect with their fans and monetize remains a priority, and we're going to focus on areas where we can make impact at scale, such as messaging and monetization opps for Reels. [4/5]
@punk9059 @punk9059 on x
FB winding down their NFT product on Instagram. Sad to see it. My sense is that the on-ramp process for bringing normal people into this collecting world is just too difficult and not worth it at this point for companies that aren't fully committed to the space. https://twitter.c…
@smdiehl Stephen Diehl on x
Zuck: “Love them or hate them, NFTs are here to stay.” Narrator: NFTs were not here to stay. https://www.reuters.com/...
@merts_eth @merts_eth on x
Wow this is sad to hear 🫤 Meta is ending their NFT support on Instagram. It has not even been a year 🔹 https://twitter.com/...
@wongmjane Jane Manchun Wong on x
It's like when Meta launched a Clubhouse clone and then shut it down when it isn't as cool anymore https://twitter.com/...
@skasriel Stephane Kasriel on x
We learned a ton that we'll be able to apply to products we're continuing to build to support creators, people, and businesses on our apps, both today and in the metaverse. [3/5]
@nickstatt Nick Statt on x
Fast exit from the crypto market. Meta says it's winding down NFT support less than a year after launching it for Instagram. Back in November, the company was even testing ways to mint and sell NFTs on its platforms. https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@chrismessina Chris Messina on x
It's incredible that Meta/Instagram is so big that they can run an entire product cycle on NFTs and digital collectibles and yet I never encountered related features despite the frequency of my use. #RIPInstagramNFTs https://twitter.com/...
@tante @tante on x
NFTs are so toxic, not even Meta wants to touch them anymore. https://twitter.com/...
@tomfgoodwin Tom Goodwin on x
It's nice seeing the world become more sane slowly https://www.theverge.com/...
@bayc2745 @bayc2745 on x
Instagram & FB removing NFT features on their platforms is likely related to either 1. lack of user adoption or 2. concerns about regulatory clarity on NFTs/Tokens/Securities. May be a mixture of both.
@pixiekate13 Kate Irwin on x
Meta did not explain to creators, “Hey guys, here's a way to monetize all the photos you already post on IG for free” because that would probably hurt their broader profit motive, which is to profit off of users creating content on IG for free.
@ryy_wills Remy Ryy on x
Thank God, they had no clue what they were doing 😂 https://twitter.com/...
@jebus911 @jebus911 on x
Dont let the virtual door hit you on the way out https://twitter.com/...
@farokh @farokh on x
I remember being told not to waste my time building a web3 native media ecosystem because once big traditional media companies and platforms would enter the space, we'd die. Now more than ever is the time to keep going harder and to keep building. 🫡 https://twitter.com/...
@samsantala Sam Santala on x
Comments full of people evangelising nfts abd saying theyre the future of the internet, but not one can come up with a good use case for them 😂 https://twitter.com/...
@joshconstine Josh Constine on x
Facebook/Instagram abandons NFTs. It's once again been [0] days since Fb killed off a program it promised would help creators monetize. https://twitter.com/...
@nkumar23 @nkumar23 on x
The web3 team at Meta was ahead of its peers, even if they never got to fully execute their vision. Teams like @primitives_xyz @saydialect @exchgART and more are building the future of social, with web3 native features impossible elsewhere. Creators, you have a home on @solana
@bertugoymak @bertugoymak on x
Seems like both. When NFTs are legally recognized as collectibles, not securities, @Meta will turn back to NFTs with the custodial wallets as vaults + a way better experience in their expected user behavior without a web3 element in frontend but heavily living in the backend. htt…
@sergitosergito @sergitosergito on x
Tourists leaving web3... we saw it in broad crypto and defi as well last year. At least all their drops but one sold out, so it wasn't lack of demand that killed this. https://twitter.com/...
@aeyakovenko @aeyakovenko on x
This is quite sad. Instagram is nearly the perfect social platform for small and medium artists. It would have been an awesome opportunity for web3 to give artists a new way to monetize. https://twitter.com/...
@samfbiddle Sam Biddle on x
this is an interesting move for a company that changed its name to reflect a total commitment to the notion that people want to buy virtual items like NFTs
@jacquescolimon @jacquescolimon on x
If people are genuinely concerned about Meta and IG's slow adoption of NFTs it's fair to assume they aren't truly in it for the livelihood of the artists that make up this space...or at best they are incredibly compromising and limited in their conceptions of what progress can be…
@tomwarren Tom Warren on x
of course they are. Not even 12 months after jumping on the bandwagon 🙃 https://twitter.com/...
@pixiekate13 Kate Irwin on x
Meta launched these features without promoting or explaining to creators what the point was. Also, keeping the early rollout to a very limited number of pre-selected creators killed any excitement IMO. Meta could've have a Reddit moment with NFTs, but their execution flopped. htt…
@tomaxwell Thomas Maxwell on x
First SVB falls and now Meta is killing off its NFTs, worst few days of my life https://twitter.com/...
@mgsiegler M.G. Siegler on x
https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@tier10k @tier10k on x
RIP NFT's on Instagram 2022-2023 https://twitter.com/...
@lakoz_ @lakoz_ on x
This was short lived! Surprised it's still not being worked on based on Zuck's huge focus on the metaverse. Seems like a disconnect. https://twitter.com/...
@rjcc Richard Lawler on x
Next up: Starbucks and Nike. I don't know if Reddit will ever quit NFTs, or if it will just change the name again and get a bunch of its user's accounts hacked again. The NBA seems to like being associated with an unpopular system created to (allegedly) commit securities fraud ht…

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