[{"id":"641c4a8669c3cb00017e5396","uuid":"41e7536b-3067-49c0-b354-6a7b34abd4ea","title":"The Importance of Communities in Web3","slug":"untitled","html":"

If the “community” is the backbone of a successful project… Why do so many teams suck at managing them properly?

Introduction

If you’ve been in the Web3, NFT or cryptocurrency spaces for any amount of time — you’ve probably gravitated towards one or more projects that interest you. You may have even taken the leap and joined one of their communities (via Discord, Twitter, Telegram, etc.) in an attempt to bond with like-minded people, get closer to the source of information, and have direct conversations with the team and founders behind the project itself. Sometimes, you get lucky and the projects team are openly (and frequently) engaging with their community — but this is the exception… Not the rule! Most projects teams show little interest in engaging with their communities!

“But Kai… What about all the Tweets from the team..? And the announcements in their Discord..? and… and…”

…I hear you… But No.

That kind of engagement is usually a means to give the community just enough information to get them to back off of wanting more communication from the team. It isn’t true engagement. The importance of a projects community cannot be understated. They are the lifeblood of your vision — taking the time to interact with them is something all teams and founders should strive to do better at. Think about it this way — if a projects team is great at communicating… Then, by extension, the community will be much more active organically!

I think you get the picture now… So how can we use this info?

The Complexities of a Network and Community

Community engagement is complex. The variance in what people deem to be “quality engagement” from a projects team can be huge from person to person. But there are some attributes that can be widely applied to differentiate good levels and attributes of community engagement from bad. The problem is quantifying them based on importance. Here are a few research-based attributes that separates good community engagement from bad:

Daily updates from the Founders of a project
Consistent levels of daily interaction by the Founders and team of a project (they make to be as visible and accessible as possible)
Ease of access: In-Discord AMA’s, Twitter Spaces, answering questions via tickets or in chats
Meaningful interactions: Founders and teams who regularly interact with their community start picking up on details of individuals that stand out to them
Announcements, Tweets and Newsletters with prudent information (and not just for farming engagement!)
Making community interactions fun and worthwhile: by hosting games, asking questions, requesting feedback, making small talk, etc.
Having the ability to be directly included in decisions made by the project (such as being part of a projects DAO)

This isn’t an exhaustive list — but should give you an understanding of a few aspects of community engagement that most people would find favourable. Quantifying these attributes is something entirely different! This is where it gets subjective and open to interpretation — but having some sort of a visual framework is something that usually helps!

I’ve spent hours in various Discords (both actively interacting and passively watching) and have a lot of criteria. However, I for the purposes of this article I have condensed and distilled everything into 3 general categories in order to assign a ranking:

How well does the community engage amongst themselves?
How well does the team engage with each other?
And how well does the team engage with the community?

To that end, I created a quick infographic that illustrates (in my opinion based on my personal experiences) where certain communities currently rank — from the “Gold Standard” (10) all the way down to “Red Standard” (1). Take a look and feel free to debate or discuss— that’s one of the joys of making lists like these!

Community Engagement Tier List — March, 2023 (by Kai “The King”)

What is “Gold standard” Community Engagement?

It’s a tall order to have high quality community engagement… Especially considering how busy a projects core team tends to be! But it’s easy to spot teams and founders that are really interested in engaging with their community. Boomlands is my current example of “gold standard” community engagement as their team and founders are constantly engaging with their audience! They make a point of consistent daily interactions, asking questions and getting feedback, hosting fun events, and releasing meaningful updates to keep their community engaged and up-to-date. Their approach constantly gets the community talking and their Discord is one of the busiest (and happiest) I’ve been a part of for a long time! Check out their Discord and get involved with their testnet game that’s currently live!

What is “Red Standard” Community Engagement?

Unfortunately, this is extremely common in Web3 (especially when it comes to NFT projects) due to the nature of the space. While anonymity and real control over our assets are some of the big factors that draw people towards crypto and NFTs — it also draws in people that have less than honourable intentions! The “red level” of community engagement can be much more difficult to spot, especially if you lack experience within a genuinely good community. However, there are some tell-tale signs to keep an eye out for such as:

Little-to-no engagement from the team or project founders within their community (e.g. poor levels of interaction in Discord)
Generic engagement (the infamous “coming soon” being overused when you ask questions about developments)
Engagement with no purpose or substance
Lack of responsiveness to feedback (and by extension a lack of willingness to take on board suggestions from their community)
Bad Discord etiquette (not clearing out offensive messages, allowing bots to run rampant, not responding to tickets, etc.)

Keep these things in mind when you venture into a project and start observing how the team interacts with their community. Quiet teams aren’t always indicative of a bad project — as some teams with amazing narratives are heavily focused on building which often leads to unintentionally leaving the community in the dark. However, you’ll quickly realise how much the team cares about its community by keeping an eye on the quality and levels of their interactions.

A Visual Representation of The Gold Standard Vs Red Standard

What can Projects do to Improve Their Engagement?

While communities involved in Web3 and NFT projects should demonstrate some understanding of how hard some of the teams in the space are working — this shouldn’t be used as an excuse for the projects teams to not be making an effort to communicate with their audiences. If you’re struggling to find ways to accomplish this (as a member of a community, a team member of a project, or a project founder) and want to ensure your community starts to flourish then here are some tips to help you improve your engagement:

Have More Meaningful Engagement: Fostering a great community is like trying to develop a relationship — people respond when they believe they are being listened to and their concerns are being addressed. If people have questions, do your best to answer them! If people want to know what the team is currently up to, update them in an appropriate way!
Practice Transparency: During my time in the space — I have noticed that almost nothing makes a community incite FUD more than a lack of transparency. This is especially true in the NFT space, as there are a large number of untrustworthy projects, which keeps peoples guards up. Being a bit more open about what you’re doing, when, how and why will transform how your community interacts with the project immediately! You may even find that they want to spread the word!
Be Reachable to your Community: Very little is worse than a projects team completely ignoring questions, conversations and suggestions from their audience. Make a point of being accessible and visible to the people in your community in order to foster better relations and build trust
Ask for Feedback: A powerful, yet underutilized, benefit of having an existing community is that they can see things you may not have thought about! Remember — Community is your biggest asset… Use them wisely!

Summary

There’s such a drastic difference between projects with teams that emphasise building a great community and those that don’t. As the Web3 and NFT spaces continue to evolve — there will always be one true constant: Community is the biggest asset you’ll ever have!

Projects often learn this fact too late and fail because of it. But those that succeed in this aspect usually succeed everywhere else. There are some traits that these projects exhibit (such as daily updates, meaningful interactions, asking for suggestions and feedback, etc.) that push them towards the “Gold Standard”. However, projects that neglect their community, or simply use them as a form of farming engagement, are the “Red Standard” and often fail because of it.

If you hope to run a successful community — be sure you treat them with respect and include them in the project. A few simple interactions go a long way to building the rapport you need to realise your visions of future success!

","comment_id":"641c4a8669c3cb00017e5396","feature_image":"https://moon.ly/blog/content/images/2023/03/Moonly-Title-Images.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-03-23T12:48:06.000+00:00","updated_at":"2023-03-23T13:08:47.000+00:00","published_at":"2023-03-23T12:54:15.000+00:00","custom_excerpt":"Community. It's one of the fundamental aspects of success in any business - and Web3 is no exception! But just how important is it to foster a good community?","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"url":"https://moon.ly/blog/untitled/","excerpt":"Community. It's one of the fundamental aspects of success in any business - and Web3 is no exception! But just how important is it to foster a good community?","reading_time":6,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"6419b49c69c3cb00017e5389","uuid":"1c0c015f-b153-4796-af05-5fc6ac8eb5c9","title":"Moonly weekly progress update #41","slug":"moonly-weekly-progress-update-41","html":"

Hello, how is everyone? This week we are adding market data for ETH projects and we are adding over 40 thousand new ones which will be monitored.
Staking as a service and Portfolio tracker are still in the testing phase but this week we started experimenting with the new feature!
We have positive experiments and results, and after SaaS and PT are implemented, we gonna work on buying automation, AKA sniping bot. We are excited to see how that will work on Moonly.

Weekly developer progress:

Worked on adding currency filed on admin UI
Finished highlighting fields
Fixed the backend resolver issue
Find ways to save tons of data
Checking what is wrong with the Twitter Alpha scraper
Debugged the reasons for RPC server crashdown
Added collection address inside the NFT form for the Ethereum & Polygon chain
Fixed the merge issue for published NFTs on the MatchNFT page
Fixed the production currency icon issue

Holder Verification Bot (HVB):

Implemented metadata retry logic
Worked on Any-trait search
Fixed \"unauthorized error\" on search NFT
Implemented the search NFT feature on HVB
Changed DB structure to support any NFT on HVB
Resolved HVB issue, tested, and deployed to staging

Staking (Locking):

Created Special Staking Access for Moonly author
Implemented Stake Count Authentication on the server side
Fixed stack overflow issue on CollectionInfo>Attributes
Better info message for multiselect
Fixed reward not reduced after the claim
Fixed negative reward value when stake
Showing total loaded NFTs on the Page
Implemented \"verify NFT\" from DB metadata
Found & Fixed some issues related to authority staking
Fixed trait not loading issue

Portfolio tracker:

Added metrics server to Portfolio tracker
Add proxies logging to PT
Experiment with saving transactions to different backends
Fixed indexes on the Portfolio tracker
Experimented with saving logs
Found and removed a bug that led to endless crashes/restart
Tested saving logs into SQLite DB
Attempted to track issue causing runaway CPU consumption

Sniping Bot:

Worked on merging the buy NFT button and testing it in staging
Organized the code for the NFT Sniping bot
Added filter and support for old transactions

Work on the Ethereum collections market data:

Included auto-created & published NFT suggestion feature
Fixed admin MatchNFT's page

Check out our latest blog posts:

https://moon.ly/blog/moonly-is-testing-a-buy-button-releases-holder-verification-tool/

https://moon.ly/blog/sony-cross-system-nft-trading-framework/

Upcoming NFT collections:

https://moon.ly/nft/deer-club

https://moon.ly/nft/camp-cosmos

https://moon.ly/nft/iced-out-bulls

Minted projects worth mentioning:

https://moon.ly/nft/wolf-capital

https://moon.ly/nft/oogy

https://moon.ly/nft/the-bastards

https://moon.ly/nft/taiyopilots

","comment_id":"6419b49c69c3cb00017e5389","feature_image":"https://moon.ly/blog/content/images/2023/03/Thumbs-for-the-blog--41.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-03-21T13:43:56.000+00:00","updated_at":"2023-03-21T13:45:08.000+00:00","published_at":"2023-03-21T13:45:08.000+00:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"url":"https://moon.ly/blog/moonly-weekly-progress-update-41/","excerpt":"Hello, how is everyone? This week we are adding market data for ETH projects and\nwe are adding over 40 thousand new ones which will be monitored.\nStaking as a service and Portfolio tracker are still in the testing phase but\nthis week we started experimenting with the new feature!\nWe have positive experiments and results, and after SaaS and PT are implemented,\nwe gonna work on buying automation, AKA sniping bot. We are excited to see how\nthat will work on Moonly.\n\nWeekly developer progress:\n\n * W","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"6418085169c3cb00017e5297","uuid":"a272dce6-2a3f-4079-9112-57125385b499","title":"Sony Introduces Cross-System NFT Trading Framework","slug":"sony-cross-system-nft-trading-framework","html":"

Hands in the air for gamers as Sony, the official maker of the PlayStation gaming console, introduces a new web 3.0 framework that allows players to buy and sell digital assets (NFTs) across different gaming platforms.

According to a patent filed by Sony in September 2022 and published on March 16, 2023, the new framework will allow users to send gems, weapons, and other in-game assets collected on their game platform to players on other platforms. Hence, if you've acquired a new gun or upgraded your weapon in Apex Legends on PlayStation 5, for instance, you can now share or sell that to a friend playing a similar game on Xbox Series X using Sony's new whip.

In citing the reason behind this move, a statement extracted from Sony's patent summary says:

💡

\"As recognized herein, in some applications such as computer/video games, an NFT might represent the artwork or an asset in the game (such as a character or weapon or other game assets), but current systems are technologically inadequate for the owner to use the asset across different games and/or platforms. Accordingly, as further recognized herein, the functionality of the game may be enhanced by enabling gamers and/or spectators to exclusively use the asset and possibly transfer its rights to others via NFT.\"

Besides selling in-game collectibles, Sony also says players can sell off their levels or scores to other players regardless of their platforms. The recipient of the sold level can then continue from where the seller left off. In another usage example, Sony also says players who won a boss in a game can transfer or sell and use the hunter-damaging weapon in another game type (cross-game and cross-platform).

Interestingly, Sony also says in-game NFT transfer can be trans-generational; \"In some examples, the NFT can be used cross-generationally (e.g., from PS4 to PS5).\"

The possibilities seem endless, and we all look forward to trying out this new feature when it finally unrolls.

However, Sony hasn't released an official statement about implementing the initiative. This is still only a published patent and doesn't imply implementation. So you might not expect such functionalities in gaming yet.

Although Sony had earlier implemented a digital collectible rewards system for players in September 2022, according to the PlayStation blog, it doesn't back the innate picture of NFTs as rewards aren't sellable.

","comment_id":"6418085169c3cb00017e5297","feature_image":"https://moon.ly/blog/content/images/2023/03/Hand-holding-a-game-pad.jpg","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-03-20T07:16:33.000+00:00","updated_at":"2023-03-20T16:26:41.000+00:00","published_at":"2023-03-20T12:23:57.000+00:00","custom_excerpt":"Hands in the air for gamers as Sony publishes a new web 3.0 framework that allows NFT exchange cross-platform. ","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"url":"https://moon.ly/blog/sony-cross-system-nft-trading-framework/","excerpt":"Hands in the air for gamers as Sony publishes a new web 3.0 framework that allows NFT exchange cross-platform. ","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":"Hand holding a game pad","feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"64121ee669c3cb00017e51bc","uuid":"eafcc498-8a7f-4e2b-a7dc-b2c5d0f40287","title":"Moonly Is Testing a Buy Button: Releases Holder Verification Tool","slug":"moonly-is-testing-a-buy-button-releases-holder-verification-tool","html":"

As Moonly NFT releases its verification tool, it's now testing a buy feature on its NFT aggregator and analytics tool test net.

Stefan, Moonly's founder, revealed in a tweet on March 15 that he had been self-buying some of the firm's NFTs because they're testing the feature that allows users to buy NFTs directly from Magic Eden and Hyperspace.

FYI,
If you are wondering why @kinder_moonly is buying and selling with himself, it's not wash trading, but actually testing in production the "Buy button*", where u can buy NFT directly from Moonly, using MagicEden and HyperSpace API.
A step closer to Moonly sniping bot ! pic.twitter.com/arLfaerKAR
— Moon.ly ┇ NFT Tools (@moonlynft) March 14, 2023

\n\n

The team didn't give further information on this feature. But the buy feature is one of the many secret additions the team has in store for Moonly NFT holders and the entire NFT community.

Moonly's verification tool went live on March 6, 2023, to compete with Matrica by adding more functionalities. All you need is to log on to Moonly and relink your wallet to verify your role. The verification tool isn't limited to Moonly NFT holders only. Stefan says the firm will offer its verification tool to other projects.

Are you a Moonly holder?

Yes?

1. Go on https://t.co/CPLm8gQd9K
2. Re-link your discord

And some magic will happen when you will go back on our discord
— Moon.ly ┇ NFT Tools (@moonlynft) March 10, 2023

\n\n

In a Discord server announcement, the founder asked the community to \"Please visit https://moon.ly/ and log in. Then you should get a popup to re-link Discord again in your profile, and also the wallet that holds your Moonly NFT in case you didn't. You should get @Holder by Moonly Bot role after you re-link Discord, and later on, I will introduce other roles for people who hold more NFT or even specific traits. It's gonna be fun.\"

Among other perks, Moonly says it's venturing into staking-as-as-service and a tokenization-as-as-service. Stefan revealed this in an announcement on Discord; \"we are releasing a simple but useful no-code Token Creation Tool that will come in handy for many upcoming projects.\"

Although Moonly has been in the Solana NFT business since it launched, it's also extending its web into the Ethereum blockchain. So expect to start getting upcoming and current Ethereum NFT updates soon.

","comment_id":"64121ee669c3cb00017e51bc","feature_image":"https://moon.ly/blog/content/images/2023/03/Moonly-landing-page.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-03-15T19:39:18.000+00:00","updated_at":"2023-03-16T15:30:43.000+00:00","published_at":"2023-03-16T13:45:17.000+00:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"url":"https://moon.ly/blog/moonly-is-testing-a-buy-button-releases-holder-verification-tool/","excerpt":"As Moonly NFT releases its verification tool, it's now testing a buy feature on\nits NFT aggregator and analytics tool test net. \n\nStefan, Moonly's founder, revealed in a tweet on March 15 that he had been\nself-buying some of the firm's NFTs because they're testing the feature that\nallows users to buy NFTs directly from Magic Eden and Hyperspace. \n\n> FYI,\nIf you are wondering why @kinder_moonly\n[https://twitter.com/kinder_moonly?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] is buying and selling\nwith himself, it's not wa","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":"Moonly landing page","feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"6411980869c3cb00017e51b1","uuid":"db764a95-0462-4324-bf82-e2318c28961d","title":"Moonly weekly progress update #40","slug":"moonly-weekly-progress-update-40","html":"

I want you to meet Kai \"The King\", a wonderful person that will help Moonly grow in various aspects. After I saw that great article he wrote about Moonly, that instant bought me because I felt he understood what Moonly is, like he is a part of our hardcore team.

You can read his old article about Moonly here: https://medium.com/@0xkai/moonly-simple-yet-brilliant-nft-analytical-tools-1d9e39e52731

I like how he approaches the topic by carefully taking notes and doing in-depth research.

Kai will be the voice of Moonly and host Twitter Spaces once per week, where we will bring other upcoming or minted projects as a guest and do some AMA.
He will help by joining other Twitter spaces with me and advocating and talking about Moonly.
Kai will help with writing up content for Moonly, blog posts, WP, and even announcements sometime.
He will do a lot of research and provide critical and honest feedback on some of our ideas.
Kai will be part of our community and answer some questions when he feels it.

Overall, Kai will be a good addition to the Moonly team and our upcoming project!

Weekly developer progress:

Reviving Big BD scraper and cleaning up the DB schema
Fixing few bugs for Moonrank scraper
Refactor the toggle NFT visiblity script through the new chains flag
Experiment with the Moonrank scraper
Experiment with the buy button on the live feed
Trying to add some library to not depend on page level components
Fixed a bug in Twitter scraper
Added switches to disable Live feed on test servers
Deploy fixes to remote logging on production
Included chain filter on monitor page
Included year with mint date on production
Making admin \"get suggestion\" dynamic for published & auto-created both

Holder Verification Bot (HVB):

Implemented \"test message\" feature on HVB
Completed and tested \"send test message\" feature on HVB
Investigated different issues in HVB production
Started working on multi-thread wallet-checker
Wrote the multi-thread feature for wallet-checker
Implemented \"Any trait\" value
Investigated production issue of HVB related to metadata scraper
Deployed \"default Any\" trait on production

Work on the Ethereum collections market data:

Found a solution for collection address
Discovered why the volume showing NaN on the NFT Chart
Tried to fix the superuser DB issue
Fixed a bullMq lock duration issue on eth scraper
Fixed a production suggestion issue

Staking (Locking):

Working on Point Reward System and Staking Merging
Doing research for account migration
Got a understanding how to structure accounts
Fixed bug and refactored Reward CountUP incrementor
Added incrementor for Total Reward
Implemented Dynamic Stake Pool
Made fronted changes for Dynamic Stake Pool
Create special Staking Access for Moonly author
Fixed stack overflow issue on collection info

Check out our latest blog posts:

https://moon.ly/blog/meta-is-ending-support-for-nfts/

https://moon.ly/blog/amazon-is-building-an-nft-marketplace/

https://moon.ly/blog/crypto-gas-fee-explained/

Upcoming NFT collections:

https://moon.ly/nft/oogy

https://moon.ly/nft/the-bastards

https://moon.ly/nft/antilia-alpha-club-2

https://moon.ly/nft/anti-universe

Minted projects worth mentioning:

https://moon.ly/nft/blocksmith-labs

https://moon.ly/nft/claymaker

https://moon.ly/nft/jelly-rascals

https://moon.ly/nft/lily

","comment_id":"6411980869c3cb00017e51b1","feature_image":"https://moon.ly/blog/content/images/2023/03/Thumbs-for-the-blog--40.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-03-15T10:03:52.000+00:00","updated_at":"2023-03-15T10:07:08.000+00:00","published_at":"2023-03-15T10:07:08.000+00:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"url":"https://moon.ly/blog/moonly-weekly-progress-update-40/","excerpt":"I want you to meet Kai \"The King\", a wonderful person that will help Moonly grow\nin various aspects. After I saw that great article he wrote about Moonly, that\ninstant bought me because I felt he understood what Moonly is, like he is a part\nof our hardcore team.\n\nYou can read his old article about Moonly here: \nhttps://medium.com/@0xkai/moonly-simple-yet-brilliant-nft-analytical-tools-1d9e39e52731\n\nI like how he approaches the topic by carefully taking notes and doing in-depth\nresearch.\n\n * Kai","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"641038a269c3cb00017e500d","uuid":"631a5cf7-c14b-4000-b164-5e0203a06b9c","title":"Meta Is Ending Support for NFTs","slug":"meta-is-ending-support-for-nfts","html":"

Meta is winding down its support for digital collectibles (NFTs) to pursue other ways to help creators and businesses.

The new development appeared in a recent tweet by Stephane Kasriel, Meta's Head of Commerce and Financial Technology—who cited a priority shift as the sole reason for dumping the long-known NFT integration.

According to an extract from Stephane's tweet, \"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.\"

We learned a ton that we’ll be able to apply to products we’re continuing to build to support creators, people, and businesses on our apps, both today and in the metaverse. [3/5]
— Stephane Kasriel (@skasriel) March 13, 2023

\n\n

Meta's digital collectible feature has been around since June 2022 and spread full-fledge across 100 countries—later in July 2022. It was a valuable marketing whip for NFT creators and collectors, as they could link their crypto wallets and showcase their digital assets on Facebook and Instagram at no cost.

Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021 to show its strong lean toward the web 3.0 wall. And it was exciting to see Meta's announcement of its venture into digital collectibles in May 2022. The same document got an update in November, announcing that people can now sell NFTs \"on and off Instagram.\" However, this new feature was only available to a selected few.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, also mentioned in a plenary on March 15, 2022, that they plan to turn Instagram into an NFT marketplace, as reported by NFTnow. Unfortunately, it looks like the firm is shifting grounds now.

According to Meta's announcement, \"Creators will soon be able to make their own digital collectibles on Instagram and sell them to fans, both on and off Instagram. They’ll have an end-to-end toolkit — from creation (starting on the Polygon blockchain) and showcasing, to selling. People can easily support their favorite creators by buying their digital collectibles directly within Instagram. We’re testing these new features with a small group of creators in the US first, and hope to expand to more countries soon.\"

Why Is Meta It's Ending NFT Parole and What Happens After?

Although Kasriel didn't state specific reasons for this new development at Meta, it looks like Meta's priority is shifting, as mentioned earlier. So we're not sure why this is happening. But for what it's worth, it doesn't look good for creators and collectors who look forward to what Meta's NFT venture will bring to NFTs in the nearest future.

However, while questioning the state of Meta's Metaverse project, The Guardian pointed out that Meta's Metaverse department, Reality Labs, went short of $3.7 billion in the past three months from November 2022, when it laid off 13% of its workforce.

No one is entirely sure what happens next. But we want to believe Meta isn't shifting focus from the Metaverse idea.

However, as reported by DailyMail, Meta plans to cut thousands of jobs further this year, which will affect employees working on wearable devices in its Metaverse division. After all, Meta might be holding back from its Metaverse project—since the projected layoffs target Reality Labs. But this is still uncertain and subject to speculations.

Thus, it won't be surprising to see Meta taking down digital collectible features across products, including Facebook and Instagram, as time rolls.

","comment_id":"641038a269c3cb00017e500d","feature_image":"https://moon.ly/blog/content/images/2023/03/The-metaverse-logo.jpeg","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-03-14T09:04:34.000+00:00","updated_at":"2023-03-14T11:18:56.000+00:00","published_at":"2023-03-14T11:14:20.000+00:00","custom_excerpt":"Meta is winding down support for digital collectibles. Why and what happens next?","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"url":"https://moon.ly/blog/meta-is-ending-support-for-nfts/","excerpt":"Meta is winding down support for digital collectibles. Why and what happens next?","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":"The Meta logo","feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"64087bad69c3cb00017e4e1d","uuid":"1f64a8b8-e569-4d2e-9b88-09ef5d1442e1","title":"Amazon Is Building an NFT Marketplace","slug":"amazon-is-building-an-nft-marketplace","html":"

As gathered by Yahoo! Finance, Amazon, the largest retail website, is launching its NFT marketplace in April, and it will include options to link physical products with digital collectibles.

Although there has not been an official announcement from Amazon, you can trace this development back to Ava Labs' January 11 broadcast in a tweet that it's partnering with Amazon \"to help enterprises and governments build compliant blockchain solutions.\" Ava Labs is the brain behind the Avalanche network, one of the blockchains that support NFTs.

We’re joining forces with @Amazon to help enterprises and governments build compliant blockchain solutions. #AWS makes it easier to launch and manage #Avalanche nodes, giving the network more strength and flexibility for developers.https://t.co/vgabB5c6Ya
— Ava Labs 🔺 (@avalabsofficial) January 11, 2023

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Andy Jassy, Amazon's CEO, hinted about a possible push into NFT in his Squawk Box interview with CNBC on April 14, 2022. In the interview, Andy Jassy said Amazon isn't \"probably close to adding crypto as a payment mechanism in our retail business.\" But when asked if he sees Amazon selling NFTs, he replied, \"I think it's possible down the road.\"

"I expect that #NFTs will continue to grow very significantly. We're not probably close to adding #crpyto as a payment mechanism in our retail business. But I do believe over time you'll see crypto become and it's possible ... it's possible down the road," says $AMZN CEO @ajassy. pic.twitter.com/6q6HVolzgU
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) April 14, 2022

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What to Expect From Amazon's Rumored NFT Marketplace

Amazon's venture into web 3.0 will be a big game changer for existing marketplaces considering its large user base.

Reports say the NFT marketplace will kickstart with 15 NFT collections and will be an NFT tab on Amazon's website, only accessible to US-based Prime users before extending its grip to more regions.

Zippia puts the volume of US adults using Amazon Prime at about 70%. So the initiative is exposed to a significant number of Amazon's user base.

The NFT market is one of the most dynamic economic drivers of web 3.0. And for what it's worth, it's still one of the most porous and least regulated markets.

Amazon's sketchy way of beating the competition is simple. Currently, traders can only buy NFTs using chain-associated tokens. However, rumor says Amazon's NFT marketplace will allow buyers to link physical goods with digital products, and they can buy NFTs using fiat via their debit or credit cards.

So you can still get an NFT from Amazon even if you don't have a crypto wallet like Phantom or Metamask. Although we're not sure how purchases will work, speculations are that you might get a digital copy of a physical product you purchase—if linked to a digital collectible.

","comment_id":"64087bad69c3cb00017e4e1d","feature_image":"https://moon.ly/blog/content/images/2023/03/Amazon-website-on-a-computer-screen.jpg","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2023-03-08T12:12:29.000+00:00","updated_at":"2023-03-08T14:17:22.000+00:00","published_at":"2023-03-08T14:12:32.000+00:00","custom_excerpt":"The NFT market expects more dynamism as Amazon is rumored to venture into web 3.0 with an NFT marketplace later in April. ","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"url":"https://moon.ly/blog/amazon-is-building-an-nft-marketplace/","excerpt":"The NFT market expects more dynamism as Amazon is rumored to venture into web 3.0 with an NFT marketplace later in April. ","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":"Amazon website on a computer screen blended with Bitcoin logo and a paper currency","feature_image_caption":null}]