Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s company, will store non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from its Instagram platform on Arweave (AR), the blockchain that offers perpetual storage thanks to a very unique architecture. As a result of the news, the price of the AR cryptocurrency rose by 80% in 5 hours.
Meta chooses Arweave for its NFT
We told you this morning that Facebook’s parent company Meta has revealed that Polygon sidechain (MATIC) has been chosen as part of its program to enable non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Instagram. Also, the social network with over 35 million monthly visitors will allow its users to mint their NFTs directly in its own application.
We learn that it is the Arweave blockchain (AR) that has been selected by Meta to store these NFTs. The announcement was made directly by Sam Williams, CEO and founder of Arweave:
Major announcement: @Meta is now using Arweave to permanently store digital collectibles from @Instagram
Instagram users are now able to issue digital collectables for their posts, stored on Arweave.
Some thoughts pic.twitter.com/Y0xjhDwHid
– sam.arweave.dev (@samecwilliams) November 2, 2022
” Major announcement: Meta now uses Arweave to permanently store Instagram digital collectibles. Instagram users can now issue digital collectibles for their posts, stored on Arweave. “
Arweave is a fairly unique blockchain that offers perpetual storage via an innovative protocol, much like a hard drive with no lifespan. To learn more about this blockchain and its Blockweave, read our dedicated Arweave fact sheet.
Following this major announcement, the AR price jumped by 80% in the space of 5 hours, an increase of 51.5% over the last 24 hours. As a result, the cryptocurrency is currently trading around $15.
AR token price over 24 hours
The cryptocurrency prices of Filecoin (FIL) and Storj, similar blockchains, have also seen a notable, though less impressive, increase.
Meta persists and wants its place in Web3
Meta persists and signs: while the company has published very bad results and its share price has lost 71% since the beginning of 2022, it could logically decide to refocus its efforts on what makes it live for many years now.
We remember its Diem (formerly Libra) project, which was aborted in January and then sold to Silvergate Capital Corporation.
And yet, Mark Zuckerberg persists: as a result of the unpopularity of its Horizon Worlds metaverse, which was criticised for its poor user experience, the firm even obliged its own employees to use Meta’s virtual world with a very explicit message: “Get on board or get out”.
Thus, billions of dollars are practically thrown away by the emblematic conglomerate of the biggest social networks of the moment, which wants to get a foothold in virtual worlds at all costs.
Will the arrival of NFTs on Instagram finally provide a way out for Meta? We should find out in the near future
