<p>Facebook parent Meta has integrated decentralized data storage protocol Arweave to permanently store digital collectibles from Instagram.</p> <p>"Instagram users are now able to issue digital collectibles for their posts, stored on Arweave," Sam Williams, founder of Arweave, <a href="https://twitter.com/samecwilliams/status/1587937640342437889">tweeted</a> on Thursday. Meta's lead of commerce, fintech and web3, Stephane Kasriel, also <a href="https://twitter.com/skasriel/status/1587930737528799233?s=20&amp;t=zqNA6Qb1rq7qMZ_hmGe9-A">confirmed</a> the Arweave protocol integration in a separate tweet.</p> <p>The price of Arweave's native token, AR, surged as much as 75% since news of the Meta integration, according to <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/arweave">CoinGecko</a>.</p> <p>Earlier this week, Meta <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/182451/instagram-to-support-polygon-powered-nft-marketplace">announced</a> that creators will soon be able to make their own digital collectibles on Instagram and sell them to fans, both on and off Instagram. Meta will support different blockchains for NFT issuance, starting with Polygon and Solana. The platform launched its Digital Collectibles feature in 100 countries, allowing users to connect to their digital wallets and showcase NFTs that they either created or bought.</p> <p>Meta believes NFTs can help expand the creator economy. "It’s still early for the NFT market compared to where we think it’s going," Kasriel <a href="https://medium.com/@skasriel/how-blockchain-can-unlock-a-better-creator-economy-32ee37ab054e">said</a> in a blog post. "By making NFTs easier to use natively on Instagram, we’re opening up new ways for the billions of people who use our apps to connect with and support their favorite creators — which, in turn, unlocks more economic opportunity."</p> <p>Arweave was founded in 2017 to enable users to store data forever. The protocol matches people who have hard drive space to spare with those who need to store data or host content permanently. </p><br /><span class="copyright"><p>© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.</p> </span>