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Hey Waivly Crew! 🌊 Meta is expanding NFT support on Instagram to 100 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and the Americas. Blackrock has partnered with Coinbase to give institutional investors access to crypto.

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Want more from us at Waivly? Join Waivly+, the premium Waivly membership with exclusive content, resources, giveaways, events, and so much more, all blended together into one super low-cost and quick to join subscription 🎉 Head over to our website and hit “Subscribe” to get onboard!

Meta expands NFT support on Instagram to 100 countries

Meta announced Thursday that it is starting its international expansion of digital collectible (NFT) support on Instagram.

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Users in more than 100 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and the Americas will be able to share NFTs on Instagram. Before the expansion, only select creators in the U.S could do so.

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The company also announced that Coinbase Wallet and Dapper Wallet are now accepted as third-party wallets compatible for use. Additionally, Instagram has added support for NFTs minted on the Flow blockchain.

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Instagram’s NFT feature allows users to connect to a digital wallet, share NFTs on their feed or stories, and automatically tag both a creator and collector for attribution. Once posted, the digital collectible will have a shimmer effect and can display public information, such as a description of the NFT.

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As of yesterday, Instagram supports connections with third-party wallets, including Rainbow, MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, and Dapper Wallet. Supported blockchains include Ethereum, Polygon, and Flow. The company noted that there are no fees associated with posting or sharing a digital collectible on Instagram.

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is turning his 1992 Little League baseball card into an NFT to celebrate the expansion!

Facebook shuts down live shopping feature

Facebook has recently announced that it will be shutting down its Live shopping feature, allowing creators to live stream and sell products to an audience. The feature is expected to shut down this year on October 1st.

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The shutdown of the Live shopping feature comes when Facebook is shifting its focus onto Reels. In a recent blog post, Facebook explains that “As consumers’ viewing behaviours are shifting to short-form video, we are shifting our focus to Reels on Facebook and Instagram, Meta’s short-form video product.”

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The feature was first rolled out in Thailand back in 2018, which allowed Facebook creators to have an opportunity to other revenue streams. Creators with the Live shopping feature were able to host their own live shopping live stream sessions where they can showcase as well as sell a variety of products to an audience.

The Waves

💳 Binance and Mastercard launch crypto card in Argentina

📹 Jeff Garzik launches Web3 production company

💻 The Waivly Crew Platform officially launches

🚀 MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor steps down to focus on Bitcoin

Crypto Special

Blackrock partners with Coinbase to give its clients access to crypto

BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, has partnered with crypto exchange Coinbase to make it easier for institutional investors to manage and trade crypto.

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Through the partnership, mutual customers of Coinbase and BlackRock’s investment management platform, Aladdin, will have direct access to crypto trading, custody, prime brokerage, and reporting capabilities. The first cryptocurrency available will be Bitcoin.

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Shares of Coinbase, which have been on a tear this week, soared after the partnership was announced. The stock rose more than 30% when the market opened to reach a high of $116.30.

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“Our institutional clients are increasingly interested in gaining exposure to digital asset markets and are focused on how to efficiently manage the operational lifecycle of these assets,” said Joseph Chalom, Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships at BlackRock.

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“This connectivity with Aladdin will allow clients to manage their bitcoin exposures directly in their existing portfolio management and trading workflows for a whole portfolio view of risk across asset classes,” he added.

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The services will be offered through Coinbase Prime, the exchange’s institutional prime broker platform for crypto assets. The companies plan to continue to develop the platform integration and will roll out functionality in phases to clients.

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20 U.S. crypto firms receive letter from Democratic lawmakers

A group of Democratic lawmakers led by House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters have asked the nation’s leading crypto to provide data on their diversity practices.

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Waters, along with Representatives Joyce Beatty (D-OH), Al Green (D-TX), Bill Foster (D-IL), and Stephen Lynch (D-MA), sent a letter to 20 crypto firms, requesting them to share information on their inclusion practices.

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After gathering information, the lawmakers will have a "snapshot" of "how and whether the industry is working toward a more equitable environment for everyone." The letter includes a questionnaire regarding the company's diversity and inclusion policies from 2021.

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“There is a concerning lack of publicly available data to effectively evaluate the diversity among America’s largest digital assets companies, and the investment companies with significant investments in these companies.”

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Lawmakers are asking "the nation's 20 largest crypto, Web3, and digital assets companies, as well as prominent venture capital firms with investments in crypto" to provide the data. Aave, Andreessen Horowitz, Binance.US, Circle, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Digital Currency Group, FTX, Gemini, Haun Ventures, Kraken, OpenSea, PancakeSwap, Paradigm, Paxos, Ripple, Sequoia Capital, Stellar Development Foundation, Tether, and UniSwap have received requests.

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The letter gives the firms exactly a month to respond to the questionnaire, with the deadline being Septembers 2nd.

Own and secure your crypto with Ledger

If you’re into cryptocurrency and own crypto assets, you need a secure place to store your coins and tokens. You probably already know that you shouldn’t store your crypto on an exchange due to potential hacks, not being solely in control of your crypto’s private keys, and for other reasons, and so a hardware wallet is the way to go and the best option to protect your private keys, therefore, you should make the move to a Ledger wallet.

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Ledger wallets are an extremely secure and premium way to secure, manage, and grow your crypto assets with their Bluetooth-enabled hardware wallets, and easy-to-use app which lets you manage your portfolio on the go. They let you manage multiple assets, buy, sell, grow, and exchange crypto, gain financial freedom by you being in full control and ownership of your private keys, and so much more.

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The wallets are really simple to setup, and to move your crypto over to, so there’s no reason not to secure your assets and take control of your cryptocurrency now and get yourself a Ledger device. You can manage 1800+ coins and tokens directly in the Ledger Live app once you’ve got your device up and running, so you’ll always have your entire portfolio covered.

Share The Wave

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