Meta's head of commerce and fintech, Stephane Kasriel, revealed on Twitter that the company is planning to shut down its digital collectibles and NFT features on Instagram and Facebook.

Some new product news: from a company-wide perspective, we're taking a closer look at our priorities so we can focus on them more. For now, we're closing digital collectibles (NFTs) to focus on other features that support creators, people, and businesses. [1/5]

— Stephane Kasriel (@skasriel) March 13, 2023

“Creating opportunities for creators and businesses to connect with fans and monetize remains a top priority, and we will focus on areas where we can make an impact at scale big, like messaging and earning options on Reel,”

Kasriel wrote.

Kasriel also added that Meta is planning to continue investing in fintech tools that will be essential for both individuals and businesses in the future. This includes efforts to simplify Meta Pay payments, improve payment and payout processes, and explore text payments across Meta's platforms.

As it pursues its metaverse goals, Meta will cut costs across the company. Metaverse division Reality Labs lost $13.7 billion in 2021. In November, Meta laid off 11,000 employees, and last week the company announced even more layoffs. Meanwhile, the NFT craze has faded, despite the potential crossover of digital collectibles with Meta's metaverse plans like allowing users to mint virtual items for their avatars under NFT format.

Zuckerberg called 2023 a “year of productivity” for Meta, and to follow this direction, the company decided to discontinue NFT activities, which Zuckerberg no longer considered productive.

Meta's VR expert John Carmack resigned before the end of 2022, saying he no longer wanted to work for an underperforming company.

Meta launched NFTs last May for select Instagram creators and some Facebook users in June. By July, Meta had increased NFT support on Instagram for 100+ creators. nation. However, less than a year later, Meta decided to remove this NFT feature.

As a major player in the tech industry, Meta's support for NFTs could have helped popularize digital collectibles to a wider audience. Without Meta's support, other companies may be less likely to invest in NFTs and may even follow suit by discontinuing their own NFT features.

The post Meta closes digital collectibles on Instagram and Facebook: a step backward for the NFT market? originally published on  Metaverse Post.