Instagram and Meta’s AR NFT Integrations: What it Means for Hololoot

The AR NFT market is taking off like never before, with Meta (formerly Facebook) recently announcing their entry into the space via Instagram. At Hololoot, we’re extremely excited to see moves like this from such a massive player — it shows conviction from the biggest names in tech in the industry we’re pioneering. Even though our competition just got a little more serious, it’s still incredibly positive news for this fledgling industry.

In this article, we break down Meta’s announcement and look at what it means for the AR NFT industry, and for Hololoot specifically.

Instagram’s NFT Announcement

On May 10, Instagram’s head Adam Mosseri announced that the platform would begin testing NFTs for select creators in the United States. The lucky testers are now able to connect their wallets to Instagram and begin using their NFTs from Ethereum and Polygon in their stories, feeds and messages.

While the functionality is currently limited, Instagram has already stated that they plan to extend the uses for NFTs pending the results of the test. They’re also looking to add support for Flow and Solana in the near future and increase the number of wallets supported.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, stated in another announcement that similar functionality would be coming to Facebook soon. It’s no secret that Meta has its sights set on the metaverse and everything that comes with it, and these announcements seem to confirm the direction they’re heading.

Spark AR and NFT integrations

Hololoot isn’t the only company building an AR platform. Spark AR is Meta’s AR platform, and while you might not have heard of it, you’ve almost certainly used it. Face filters on Instagram, for example, are built using this AR stack. In fact, any time you use any sort of filter on Facebook or Instagram, you’re using something built with Spark.

In his announcement, Mark Zuckerberg said that Spark AR would begin exploring NFT use cases. You know what that means –

AR NFTs ✨

Once ready, users will be able to use 3D AR NFTs in their Instagram stories, enabling an entirely new creator economy.

Well, not entirely new 😉

Hololoot’s AR NFT advantage

While this is exciting news, and certainly confirms what we’ve been saying about the future for AR NFTs, it does put Hololoot in an interesting position. We’ve been building as the only player in this space for a long time, and the entry of one of the largest tech companies in the world means that we suddenly have a very big competitor to deal with.

Are we worried? Not at all.

We’ve always expected the entry of companies like Meta into the space — our conviction on this is what has driven us forward from day one. This news will introduce tens of millions of users to AR NFTs, some of whom will inevitably continue their exploration of the tech. And when they do, Hololoot will be there.

With our AR NFT marketplace, generator and metaverse already in testing, the next generation of 3D creators can get a taste of what these services might look like without having to wait. Our AR NFT app is available and our marketplace is populating with some awesome drops. What Facebook is promising in some loosely defined future, we’re already realizing.

The big data issue

Competition against companies like Meta is an important part of our overall philosophy. At the core of this is the issue of decentralization and control over data — our most valuable resource in the 21st Century. This might sound lofty and somewhat irrelevant, but as we’ve seen with leaks and scandals (many of which involve Meta’s companies), this issue is real and present.

When you use AR apps, the camera records an amazing amount of data. Whether they’re the contours of your face or the layout of your room, that data informs the AR viewer how to display whatever 3D asset you’re trying to load. Biometric data, information about our private spaces — this is exactly the kind of data that can be abused by centralized companies looking to sell our personal information to the highest bidder. The Web3 movement — at the core of Hololoot’s approach — stands in contrast to this and guides us to develop in a way that lets our users retain control over their personal and sensitive information.

Bring it on

Even though it’s flirting with the enemy, we’re excited to see what Meta does with their integration. Competition is healthy in any market, and now that the largest social platform on Earth has announced its intention to embrace AR NFTs, we’ve got even more conviction to build a platform to be proud of.

We’ve got a lot of exciting development news coming up in Q2, so make sure you keep an eye on our channels — and let us know in our chat if we should start an Instagram account 😜