Integration of NFTs declared unsuccessful, Meta announces shift to Meta Pay, focusing on monetization for creators and communications payments.

From CEO Mark Zuckerberg's first reveal in March last year to Meta's announcement of integrating NFT-related features in May last year, it took Meta nearly a year to realize they were heading in the wrong direction. NFTs seem not to be the best application for creators to monetize, and they will now shift their focus to developing Meta Pay.

NFT Audience Too Low, No Longer a Priority for Integration

Stephane Kasriel, Meta's Head of Business and Financial Technology, tweeted on March 14 that Meta is gradually reducing its integration with NFTs on the social platform.

He emphasized that establishing connections between creators, businesses, and fans to generate revenue remains Meta's top priority. In the future, Meta will focus on areas that can have a larger-scale impact, such as the communication transmission of short video Reels and the potential monetization opportunities.

Last May, Meta first announced features integrating NFTs, including users being able to link crypto wallets like Rainbow, MetaMask, TrustWallet, display and verify NFT collections, share NFT collections, and initially support Ethereum and Polygon, with plans to expand to other blockchains like Flow and Solana in the future.

In November, they opened up the platform for some users to purchase NFTs and announced an integration with storage protocol Arweave.

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]

— Stephane Kasriel (@skasriel) March 13, 2023

Shifting Focus to Meta Pay

Stephane Kasriel mentioned at the end of the post that they are working on simplifying Meta Pay, the payment app formerly known as Facebook Pay, and will invest in and develop Messaging payments for cross-platform communication across Meta.

A Meta spokesperson also confirmed to TechCrunch that the development focus is shifting from NFTs to products like Meta Pay, aiming to make it easier for creators to earn revenue on the platform seamlessly, for example, by testing ways for creators to earn ad revenue on short video Reels.