Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirms Instagram users could soon mint NFTs

• Mark Zuckerberg says Instagram will bring functionality such as minting Avatar clothes into NFTs
• The social will support natively minted NFTs and imported ones

CEO and co-founder of Meta (formerly Facebook) Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed a long-running rumour that the mammoth tech firm is looking to explore initiatives around NFTs. Zuckerberg was speaking at the ongoing South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas, during which he confirmed that the digital collectables would be coming to Instagram.

The internet entrepreneur did not provide any specific date by which he expects the collectables to launch on the media-sharing app. He, however, indicated that it should be within the coming months.

The new feature will likely allow Instagram users to display NFTs they currently own and newer ones.

"We're working on bringing NFTs to Instagram in the near term," Zuckerberg said. "I'm not ready to kind of announce exactly what that's going to be today. But over the next several months, the ability to bring some of your NFTs in, hopefully over time be able to mint things within that environment." 

NFTs will be part of the metaverse

The Meta CEO envisions a future where users would be able to mint the clothes dressing their avatars in the metaverse into NFTs. However, there's seemingly a lot of work that must be done before Meta can actually turn this 'dream' into a reality.

 "I would hope that you know, the clothing that your avatar is wearing in the metaverse, you know, can be basically minted as an NFT, and you can take it between your different places. There's like a bunch of technical things that need to get worked out before that'll really be seamless to happen," Zuckerberg noted.

While it won't be the first time Meta gets involved in blockchain tech-related products, it would be the first concrete march into NFTs.

All there's been in the past are unconfirmed reports, especially with the boom of the NFT space in the last year. Meta, being a tech giant that's already looking into developing its native metaverse, would have eventually made a stab in this market space, anyway.

Zuckerberg's speech also confirmed a report that the Financial Times published back in January. People familiar with the matter had said that Meta planned to establish an NFT marketplace that would allow users on Facebook and Instagram to mint, display and sell the digital tokens.

Last December, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said that the social media platform was "actively exploiting" NFTs to make them more accessible and also help creatives.