Amid massive layoffs from Meta, the social media giant is still making pushes towards web3 by continuing to integrate additional networks into their metaverse platform. The newest partnership between Instagram and Solana comes as the network has struggled in recent weeks with NFT sales continuing to plummet across all networks. 

The Latest in social media adoption

This latest addition from Meta shows that work within web3 is still ongoing even as jobs around tech and blockchain are starting to shrivel up due to poor execution, marketing, and acquisitions. Unfortunately, because of the rough market conditions for many working in the tech space right now, the benefits of this partnership are easy to overlook. 

A major aspect of this partnership between Meta and Solana is how the company claims it will allow Instagram users to create their own NFTs directly through the app which reduces a lot of barriers for many people in the space that want to start a collection but lack the technical knowledge to do so. 

Why Solana?

Meta has been clear about which blockchains they’re interested in with announcements about Polygon coming out multiple times this year. It’s obvious that they need a network that is able to handle a large scale of transactions per second while also providing lower gas fees to encourage users to experiment with the new feature. 

Prior to Ethereum’s merger, low TPS and gas fees were one of Solana’s major selling points and a big reason why adoption of their network was an easy choice for Meta; but, now that the merge is complete, Solana really only has low gas fees to set it apart from Ethereum.

However, Polygon also offers the same benefits as Solana with low gas fees and high transaction speeds; so while the news is good for Solana, they will need to improve the stability of their network (which has been shut down multiple times in the past in order to remain as one of the preferred blockchains to mint NFTs on through Instagram.)

Meta Layoffs and backlash

The biggest issue however, is the massive layoffs being conducted at Meta following a substantial loss in their company valuation because of the extreme backlash to their Metaverse platform.

With NFTs and cryptocurrencies bleeding nonstop this year, the concept of a metaverse that runs on blockchain networks is losing steam fast with many users and critics voicing their lack of interest; but this could change soon with the new NFT features finally being unveiled and rolled out in the near future.

By giving users a chance to interact with NFTs without the added risk of losing money (similar to what Reddit did), the ability of Meta to convince and onboard users towards their ambitious project becomes more realistic. 

Hesitancy about the technology is rooted in fear of scams and misunderstanding of what tokenization really means, so providing an upfront experience in a more casual manner can create a new opinion on NFTs and the way they are perceived with Meta’s adoption of Solana.