Polygon is soaring after Meta (META) announced it will use the blockchain for its new Instagram digital collectibles feature.
Matic (MATIC-USD), the native cryptocurrency of the Polygon sidechain, hiked 32% this week to $1.20, rising over 4% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data.
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Polygon, is an Ethereum (USD-ETH) sidechain network, that allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies and NFTs for a fraction of the transaction fees that they would have to pay on the main Ethereum network.
The low transaction fees on Polygon have made it the go-to NFT blockchain for NFT avatars on Reddit, and the development of entertainment-linked digital collectibles for Disney (DIS).
Watch: Why Create NFT’s? | The Crypto Mile Explains
Last week, Meta announced on its website: “We’re introducing a way for creators to make their own NFTs, or digital collectibles, and sell them to fans and collectors both on and off Instagram.”
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a new phenomenon in the cryptocurrency ecosystem that allows for unique assets to be stored on the blockchain.
However, the word NFT has now been substituted for the easier-to-understand “digital collectible”, which is what Meta is planning to bring to over 1 billion users of Facebook and Instagram.
These digital collectibles usually come in the form of artwork such as illustrations, digital paintings and short animations that are usually traded on NFT marketplace called Opensea.
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Meta said: “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 favourite 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.”
The social media company also said it is expanding the types of digital collectibles that can be showcased on Instagram to include video.
Meta will also add support for the Solana (SOL-USD) blockchain and Phantom (PHM-USD) wallet, in addition to the blockchains and wallets that are already supported.
Information for digital collectibles such as collection name and descriptions from Opensea, will be available on Instagram.
Meta is also testing a way to “mint” NFTs on Instagram. This will be a user-friendly way to create unique digital assets and sell them on the blockchain.
Mihailo Bjelic, co-founder of Polygon, told Yahoo Finance UK: “Things are accelerating on the polygon side, which is quite interesting amid a bear market.
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“On the adoption side, we have onboarded major projects from the biggest traditional companies.
“From Disney to Instagram, from Stripe to Adobe (ADBE).
“We are excited to announce ZkEVM, which many people consider the ‘Holy Grail’ of Ethereum scaling and infrastructure in general.
“Full Ethereum compatibility, ZkEVM fully leverages Ethereum’s security as the most highly secure blockchain in the world.
“Apart from the Ethereum merge we believe this to be the most significant tech milestone this year and will usher in a new era of mass adoption.”
Polygon has built some of the biggest Web3 projects with Reddit NFT avatars.
