Today, Meta announced that Instagram is now offering a way to share your NFTs and digital collectibles to your page by connecting your digital wallet. Oh, that sounds boring to you? Well, what if I told you that in order to promote this new feature, Mark Zuckerberg was turning his Little League baseball card into an NFT and selling it?
The physical card will be auctioned off, along with a digital version stored on the blockchain. An 8-year-old Zuckerberg gave the card to his camp counselor back in 1992, and the counselor saved it and is now selling it. Although Zuckerberg won't be seeing the proceeds of the sale, given the rough times Meta has been facing lately — its stock price dropping, a hiring freeze, slowed growth, and other belt-tightening measures — it seems like he could probably use the cash (or, uh, crypto).
The new digital collectible feature for Instagram works by connecting to a third-party crypto wallet like MetaMask, and then you can choose from your NFT collections which to post. A special overlay will give more info about your NFT to all your followers, who I’m sure are just dying to know more about your tokens.
Instagram recently faced backlash from users over changes that added more Reels and suggested content into users’ feeds. The Judas kiss came from celebrities whose livelihoods were made on Instagram like Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian (who Meta paid handsomely, I’m sure, to appear in TV ads for the Portal video device).
Impressively, 8-year-old Zuckerberg had a .980 batting average, his favorite player was Roger Clemens (good choice), and his favorite team was the Yankees (boo).
According to the comics shop brokering the NFT sale: “[Zuckerberg] had this card personally made in 1992 and gave it to his favorite camp counselor, Allie Tarantino. Allie accepted the gift and playfully asked Mark to sign it, like a real baseball player. Mark enthusiastically agreed and now, 30 years later, the card has finally surfaced. In a world filled with high-value sports cards, this piece is truly one-of-a-kind!”
Correction: The former camp counselor is the owner and seller of the card. A previous version of this story misidentified the owner as Red Robins infielder Mark Zuckerberg.