[SAN FRANCISCO] Meta Platforms chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the company is building the technical functionality so that users can display their NFTs on Instagram - and even "mint" some NFTs within the app.

"We're working on bringing NFTs to Instagram in the near term," he said during an interview at the South by Southwest conference Tuesday (Mar 15), but declined to share specifics on when and how the feature might work. Zuckerberg spent most of the nearly 50-minute long conversation talking about the so-called metaverse, his vision for a more immersive version of the Internet.

Former Meta executive David Marcus said last August that the company was looking into building NFT features alongside the company's Novi digital wallet.

At the SXSW conference, held in Austin, Texas, Zuckerberg also discussed the war in Ukraine, calling it "massively destabilising world event" - his first public comments since the conflict began last month. BLOOMBERG