Meta Winds Down Support for NFTs: What’s Next?

Facebook’s parent company first dipped its toes in NFTs in the spring of last year, declaring brave intentions to embrace the Crypto World. This made many NFT fans very happy because they thought NFTs would go mainstream. They were also delighted to display their assets on social media. 

Less than a year later, Meta announced that it would drop NFTs in search of greener pastures. According to Stephane Kasriel, head of fintech at the corporation, there has been a change in priorities and the focus is now on “other ways to support creators and businesses.” 

The real reason Meta dropped NFTs

In the heyday of NFTs, these digital assets were selling for billions of dollars. We remember the colossal amounts being paid for Bored Apes and Beeple’s stuff. At the end of last year, the crypto market started to struggle with a number of high-profile bankruptcies, most notably that of crypto exchange FTX. Cryptocurrency prices crashed and the market ultimately bottomed out. 

The recent collapses of Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank did nothing to reverse the trend. Both of them had crypto-related portfolios.

NFT hype swept the world wide web in 2021, leaving a few unexpected millionaires, but also quite a bit of destruction in its wake. While the asset subcategory hasn’t disappeared – some of the finest examples are even on display at some contemporary art museums – it is no longer among Meta’s priorities.

Kasriel assured Meta would not stop investing in essential fintech products and services. Meta Pay was given as an example. Supposedly, the payment tool will make withdrawals and checkout easier. The company will also make efforts to improve messaging payments. 

Some NFT enthusiasts are frustrated by the company’s move, calling it “short-sighted” and criticizing Meta for not believing in the market and the people behind it. NFT creators are downright livid, accusing the company of dropping the assets because it realized it couldn’t exploit businesses and creators. All the work was done on a public network. 

They accuse the company of winding down support because it couldn’t monetize the assets sufficiently and was not happy about giving creators profit and power. 

Interesting fact: additionally to the decision of leaving NFTs behind, Meta announced it was cutting another 10,000 staff on March 14, bringing the grand total to tens of thousands in what has been its biggest round of redundancies ever. The most recent layoffs are part of Mark Zuckerberg’s “efficiency” plan, which involves reducing expenses against the backdrop of soaring interest and plummeting income from ads. 

Is the metaverse still on?

What’s next for Zuck? Apparently, the metaverse is not more important to Meta than artificial intelligence at the moment. If the company succeeds in this area, its financials might improve, and it will then have the money to advance its metaverse ambitions in the near future. Meta’s CEO recently stated that their biggest investment would be in improving AI and integrating it into the company’s offerings. He only mentioned the metaverse in the context of Meta’s AI-related plans:

Zuckerberg posted on Facebook that AI would allow users to find new content and give their creativity free rein, adding that the metaverse would enhance the realism of experiences and encryption would provide much-needed privacy. It is quite interesting that Mark’s opinion about the potential of AI is now similar to Bill Gates’, when he mentioned AI as a “big one” and metaverse as something “not revolutionary”. 

Why the sudden affection for AI? 

One reason for Meta’s seemingly unexpected shift in the direction of AI is the hype created by ChatGPT, Bard, and Bing. Another reason, which is more significant, is the rivalry between Meta and TikTok. TikTok became what it is thanks to its “For You” platform, which is powered by AI and gives users access to an endless series of attention-grabbing videos. Meta wants to be able to compete with TikTok in that respect.  

According to experts, the metaverse and AI may be key to the corporation’s long-term development strategy, but Meta might not have enough time left to realize its aims. It needs results, and quickly, for investors’ patience is wearing thin.  

Zuckerberg wanted to make Meta a metaverse-first company, going so far as to change its name, which had become synonymous with social media. However, the returns on his massive investments have been lackluster, to put it mildly. The company lost a lot of money on research and development of apps, software, headsets, and other products needed to drive the metaverse vision. The division Reality Labs, which is responsible for Meta’s metaverse development, lost more than $10 billion in 2021 and almost $14 billion in 2022.

By shifting its focus to AI, the metaverse can remain among the company’s priorities and investors’ concerns will be assuaged. Every Meta stakeholder hopes this plan will work because returns on the metaverse are years away, realistically speaking.  

Insiders agree that for all intents and purposes, the NFT experiment is over and the AI one is on. The company will invest to improve ad measuring instruments and Reels recommendations. They will use AI to create creative content for automated ads and integrate deep learning algorithms into messaging.

What is the future of AI? 

AI is expected to continue to advance and impact almost every aspect of human life, from healthcare to finance, transportation, education, entertainment, and more. Stakeholders in Meta can only hope the company manages to capture the key trends in AI’s future, which include increased personalization, smarter decisions, better automation, and improved safety. A little later, artificial intelligence will be able: 

1. To personalize interactions and experiences for individual users based on their preferences, behavior, and history;
2. to analyze complex datasets and provide insights to help people make better decisions;
3. to automate routine tasks and jobs, which will lead to increased productivity and efficiency;
4. to detect and prevent fraud, cyberattacks, and other security threats;
5. to improve natural language processing, enabling more natural and human-like interactions with machines.

AI-powered robots will become more sophisticated and capable of performing complex tasks in various industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, and logistics. Finally, it is hoped there will be increased focus on ethical considerations, such as privacy, transparency, bias, and accountability.