Instagram Bringing NFTs to 2.9B People | Sandeep & Mihailo, Polygon

Bankless Nation, welcome to another State of the Nation. Got a hot episode for you today. We've got Polygon on, but we're talking about this. Instagram is adding NFTs. Okay? Facebook is getting on board with crypto. This is absolutely huge news, which you might have missed because it came out of Monday of last week, and crypto had other things to worry about rather than Instagram adding NFTs. But we're surfacing it to you today because we think it was the big one of the biggest news items and most bullish content things that we've had happen in crypto, content events that we've had happen in crypto this entire year. And that's not even the only thing we're talking about, David. What else are we covering in this episode?

Yes, Stripe also doing Web3 things. And really the theme of this episode, if you can uh you know expand your brain and project this into the future, this is really the web3ization of web 2 platforms. Uh so we got Instagram doing both read and eventually write access to blockchains, to public permissionless blockchains with NFTs, starting with Polygon, Ethereum, and also Solana and Flow, uh, people have they onboarded NFTs, creators, into their into their public profile. So we actually took some screenshots. This is live right now. Certain creators have this functionality where they have an NFT page next to their posts and videos and reels pages on Instagram. So NFTs going into the heart of the biggest web2 app of all time, which is Instagram. At the same time, the week before this, Stripe announced that they are allowing people to, instead of using USD to go into their bank account, they can allow USDC to go to their Polygon Ethereum address. And so as we uh just think about these things and ideate on these things on the future, we have Web2 protocols, Instagram and Stripe.

That are leveraging Web3 technologies. And there's so much potential here. Twitter also allowing their creators who have ticketed spaces and super follows, which is allowing Twitter accounts to make money off of their brand and off of their network, which is very much Web3 ethos, allowing those people to receive money in USDC on Polygon for the value of their web 2 profile. And so you can only imagine what happens when Instagram enables the ability to mint NFTs for the posts that they make and sell those NFTs perhaps natively in the app. This is just ideation, this is just speculation. Instagram is slow rolling this thing out, but you can only imagine what happens when they allow Instagram creators and influencers to monetize their and the power of NFTs directly in the web 2 apps. Where I'm going with this, Ryan, and why this is such a long-winded intro is that you can also talk about the composability of web 2 apps because now they're based on all the same blockchains. Stripe and Instagram are building both on top of Polygon. Stripe is a commerce platform for selling digital goods. Instagram is a platform for viewing digital goods and also has its own shop features. What happens when we can make these things composable with each other? Because they're now based on Web3 protocols. Ryan, there's not much that there's a lot of stuff that's un under NDA. And so we got as much out of Sand Deep and Mahalo that we could from the Polygon team. But this is going to be something that is a long developing story that I'm really excited for. It's going to keep us entertained during the bear market. But really, like I said at the beginning, this is the web3ization of web 2 protocols.

Yeah, it's certainly really cool. And I'll just say it we'll we say it in a podcast. I'll just say it again. 2.9 billion people are part of the Instagram, Facebook, social network, okay? And they're about to get an onboarding path into crypto through NFTs. You know, our our uh our best onboarding tool that crypto has ever produced. Full disclosure David and I are excited, bullish about Polygon. I'm also an advisor of Polygon. We really believe in what they're doing over there and the pragmatic approach. David, I gotta ask you the question before every episode, which is what is the state of the nation today?

Ryan, the state of the nation this week is rebuilding. There was a lot of destruction last week. And so we are going into a new phase of crypto, trying to repair what is going on in the crypto industry. But not just that, Ryan. Web2 protocols, they're also broken. They also need rebuilding. And so we are reconstructing the entire broken system of Web 2. Because, like my genius co-founder once said, if you adopt crypto protocols, you adopt crypto values. And there is a lot of crypto values that I would like to inject into Facebook because they really need it, and Instagram and all the other web 2 platforms out there. So, Ryan, we are rebuilding the world. And that's what we're doing here. We're rebuilding the crypto industry, licking our wounds, moving forward, and we're also rebuilding Web2 while we were at it. Ryan, we are rebuilding today.

Well, who am I to disagree with your genius co-founder? You know, we'll just leave it at that. And let's get right into the episode with Sandeep and Mahalo. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible. Bankless Nation, super excited to introduce you to Mahalo and Sandeep. They are the co-founders of Polygon. Won't introduce their full backgrounds in bio because you know them, you've seen them before on Bankless. Uh, Polygon, of course, offers a suite of scaling solutions for Ethereum.

From side chains, proof of stake chains, all the way to ZK roll up layer two. So there's a lot going on here, and we've got so much to cover. I think we want to start with uh some of the massive adoption we've seen with Meta, with NFTs, with Instagram. Also talk about Stripe, but there's so much to cover here. Mahalo, Sandeep, welcome back to Bankless. How are you guys doing?

Thank you so much, Ryan and David, uh, for the invite. You're doing great as always. So much work.

As are you guys basically

You you guys are building so much, and I think uh so we are coming off of a week that was uh very hard for a lot of people in crypto. Uh, and um we've never seen anything like it, I think. This week we can start to get back to building some of the news last week that was missed in the whole Terra Luna UST fiasco was absolutely monumental, and any other news week would have been something that would have echoed all around crypto, Twitter, echoed around all of our media channels, and that was this Instagram is adding NFTs. Okay, Instagram adding NFTs. Mark Zuckerberg released some statements where he talked about the integration of web 2 and web 3, how he was going to build components of meta social network spanning 2.9 billion people. Uh, he was going to build components using decentralized protocols and NFTs. And so we saw the first edition of NFTs to Instagram, something a lot of us hoped for and predicted for a while. I think we want to start there. Can you guys summarize for uh the audience what Instagram is doing with NFTs?

Yeah.

So maybe

me hello, I can start. So

Of course, of course. I just want to basically mention that we are, of course, super excited about this.

We still have some NDA sign. We cannot talk about everything, but I just want to say that we are super excited, excited, and that I'm very thankful to Sandeep for all his business development efforts. And yeah,

I will.

so so basically uh on the on the

you know Facebook or Meta side,

like you know, the most important thing is the vision that Meta Meta team is carrying on this. Like, you know, we were

so you know, like

uh happily

Thrilled to kind of you know the the kind of vision they have. Like, you know, they want to, uh, I mean, the teams that Meta has, like, you know, they are pretty strong. DeFi, you know, DeFi DGens, we had even, you know, the uh like the blockchain DGen, basically, block crypto degen kind of communication discussions also with them. Wow. So they're pretty native, they know stuff like pretty deep,

and their strategy and everything that the the the leadership team over there, both on the product side and technical side, is absolutely deep into the

Blockchain spacer, we were very, you know, I mean, as I said, that we were thrilled to be in those conversations. And right now, uh, what they are starting is that, you know, the it will start with the read. They have, you know, as of yet announced the read of the blockchains, like what all uh they will be reading from these four uh blockchains, the NFTs, where Ethereum and Polygon will go live

uh first, and then eventually, you know, one or two other blockchains will also be added.

And then post that, like basically it's like Twitter. The phase one is like Twitter,

where uh you know they uh people can uh you know have their display their NFTs as a profile pick or wherever they can on the Instagram.

And you know, the user experience also they have built around NFTs is pretty crazy. Like, you know, we should uh wait uh when it comes. And then they have a pretty long and you know, pretty deep uh

and very interesting roadmap uh in terms of bringing uh Web3 to you know uh Facebook. So I was actually, you know, even I even joked with them that you know Facebook is going to be the

you know, be the Facebook of Web3. Like, you know, a lot of projects will come to you and say that we want to be the Facebook of Web3. I said, so you know, Facebook is going to be the Facebook of Web3.

So it's it's pretty exciting.

I think I think this this time at least. Uh we know the history with Libra and everything. I think this time the the whole the whole

Team and the whole company gets it right. They understood

that they cannot own if they really want to kind of survive this evolution that we started with Web3. If they really want to survive it, they need to embrace it. They need to do it the right way. They need to do it properly. They need to accept

items or assets that are actually on these public networks

and become, if you want, the interface to these networks and maybe something more in the future. But in general, I think they get it right now.

And and and uh I can just second what Sandeep said, especially on the on the tech side, which is closer to I guess to my heart. Uh the team,

their tech team is extremely competent, like extremely

they uh uh they grilled me for quite some time over there during our our sessions that we had. And yeah, I was quite impressed.

Yeah. And and in terms of the functionalities, like I think we already said that, you know, the read is coming first, and I think they have a pretty long plan. But yeah, a lot of things remain on the

under NDA. So maybe you know they will announce and let's let them announce.

It it can be we believe it can be really exciting, exciting, and it can really make a huge impact and really

bring web free mainstream potentially to to.

Especially if they are whole user.

Yeah, yeah. I mean it goes beyond NFTs, beyond these things, like whatever, like we without divulging too many details. Like, you know, I mean, it's pretty impressive.

And again, the point is that

uh uh they I think at least that they understand that they cannot make vault gardens anymore if you want to support this web free asset uh movement inside and outside of this whatever meta ecosystem needs to be permissionless, needs to be allowed, and and yeah, it it's pretty exciting

Amazing, amazing. And uh something that that Ryan has said a number of times before is that when you adopt crypto protocols, you adopt crypto values. So maybe, cautiously optimistic, of course, but maybe uh Facebook is turning a page when it integrates Web3 things, uh, it's going to have to actually induce some Web3 values into its product. Uh Ryan and I, before we started recording, were ideating about what potentially could be done, both with Twitter, because there's also a Twitter conversation here as well, but also with NFT creators about how they can you finally monetize their own platform in self-sovereign ways. So I think we'll we'll uh ideate a little bit further, further onto this episode. But before we go and start actually showing some screenshots as to what the actual functionality is as of today, as of right now, screenshots that I took live from my own Instagram account, um, I just want to double down on the whole technical competency of the team. Uh, because whenever I see some sort of like web 2, you know, tradfy boomer entity coming into web 3, I'm like, all right, what are you guys really doing though? Uh because there's always it should always be met with some sort of healthy skepticism. You know, there's there's good and bad ways to integrate web 3 protocols. And what you guys are saying is these are crypto natives at Meta. These are crypto natives at Instagram who know what they're talking about, who know the values and know the potential here.

Yes, yes.

100%.

David, like you know, what I want to say here is that you know, we coming from the Ethereum, uh, you know, Ethereum ecosystem and all that, and thinking about all those Web3 values, how the world will change and all that.

Like if you you guys were also there in the room discussing all those things, the vision that they presented,

you would get goosebumps. Even now, I'm getting goosebumps in terms of those values where they want to take Facebook. Like it's

Yeah,

absolutely amazing.

yeah.

And we really have to be also uh careful, completely transparent, as we're always trying and responsible. When once we heard the the long-term vision that they had,

uh

we have to basically make uh uh um

make it clear that at this point the infrastructure that Polygon has