On June 30, 2022, a Meta spokesperson tweeted that it has begun testing NFTS on Facebook for select US creators, which run on Ethereum and Polygon. Soon, it will also add support for Solana and Flow NFTS. Before that (in May 2022), Meta's Instagram had already opened up NFTS to some users.

NFTS, also known as non-homogeneous tokens, run on blockchains (such as Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, etc.), each of which is unique and immutable. An NFT is essentially a piece of data that can be owned by individuals, as opposed to the current situation, where all data is basically in the hands of an Internet platform.

NFTS come in all shapes and sizes. In the future, a Facebook post, a picture on Instagram, a piece of music you upload could be NFTS. And unlike in the past, each NFT you post online comes with its own price, and it belongs to you only. This innovation overturns the current business model of the Internet from the bottom up. Internet entrepreneurs no longer seek to monopolize data and expand their scale. Instead, they seek to have data owned by individuals and serve people to better trade and circulate data.

The failure of Libra, a cryptocurrency project launched by Facebook that sought to overturn the sovereignty of nations' currencies, taught Mr Zuckerberg that aggressive tactics were unrealistic and would provoke a hard-line backlash from traditional powers. But Mr Zuckerberg's ambition has not gone away, and he has opted for a more conciliatory approach.

NFT, the first step in the metaverse

How to take the first steps in the metaverse?

Some people choose AR, VR, some people choose the Internet of Things, and some people choose Web3 (the next generation Internet based on blockchain). As the head of the world's largest Internet company, Zuckerberg doesn't have to choose. He wants both.

"The current NFT team should be in Reality LABS," Wang Miao, a doctor working in Meta, told Hu Xia. Wang Miao is a member of Meta. Although she studied artificial intelligence and machine learning during her doctoral studies, she started to pay attention to Crypto and Web3 five or six years ago and still has a strong interest in it.

He's not alone. In the United States, not only Silicon Valley talent is pouring into Crypto and Web3, but also Wall Street elites and SEC officials are eyeing Web3 as their next stop.

NFTS are one of the sexiest app tracks in Web3. Meta Product Manager Navdeep Singh shared what NFTS look like on Facebook in a Twitter post on Wednesday. Users will have a place on their Facebook profile for an "NFT collection" where they can display their NFTS. NFT, which stands for your ownership of certain data.

Users are able to connect their cryptocurrency wallets to their Facebook profiles. They can also convert their NFTS into Facebook posts, which people still like, comment on, and share just as they did before.

The metaverse represents an inevitable trend in the digital age of human beings. Wechat, Douyin, Taobao...... In fact, they are "primitive versions of the metaverse," which means people can chat, enjoy and shop online. If Metaverse 1.0 was crude and only partially immersive, Metaverse 2.0 takes it a step further and makes it more immersive.

People can do a lot of things that they couldn't do on the Internet (Metaverse 1.0) before, through the progress of technology, they can do in Metaverse 2.0. NFT is one such technology.

The contemporary Van Gogh may be a young man who creates on the computer. What he creates is extremely subversive in art and humanity, and NFT can confirm the right of his works and make his works unique.

Jay Chou in the new era is a young man who releases music works on the Internet. Its music will still be available for free, but the value of its first NFT will rise with its music status. Internet natives will have a strong need for immersion in the metaverse. NFTS can do that.

The metaverse is a "mapping" of the real world. In the real world, people have economies, create and collect, and every object is unique and has a price. So, in the metaverse, the same is true. While digital currencies (FT) correspond to separate economies, non-homogeneous tokens (NFTS) correspond to every work in the meta-universe.

Tencent's Q-coin is not a substitute for digital currency, and no major company has independently made a unique and consensus NFTS. This is the core value of blockchain, not big factories, not centralized institutions, not countries, it can.

The fusion of FT (digital currency) and NFT (non-homogeneous token) became Web3. Web3 is an indispensable building block for an immersive metaverse.