Instagram hits the copy button again with new disappearing Instants photos | The Verge
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Instagram hits the copy button again with new disappearing Instants photos
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Instagram hits the copy button again with new disappearing Instants photos
Instants are ephemeral photos that you can’t edit, and Instagram has found that people use them to share more casual photos.
Instants are ephemeral photos that you can’t edit, and Instagram has found that people use them to share more casual photos.
by Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Senior Reporter
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May 13, 2026, 5:57 PM UTC
Image: Instagram
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
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is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.
Instagram is once again cribbing from competitors like Snapchat and BeReal with a new photo-sharing format it calls “Instants,” which are ephemeral photos that you can’t edit and that you can only share with your close friends or followers that follow you back. Instants are available globally beginning on Wednesday as a feature in the inbox in the Instagram app and as a separate app that’s now in testing in select countries.
To access Instants from the Instagram app, go to your DM inbox and look in the bottom-right corner for an icon or a stack of photos. After you post a photo, your friends can emoji react to it and send a reply to your DMs, but after they see it, the photo disappears for them. Instants also disappear after 24 hours, and they can’t be captured in screenshots or screen recordings.
However, your Instants will remain in an archive for you for up to a year, and you can reshare them as a recap to your Instagram Stories if you’d like. You can also undo sending an Instant right after you post it or delete it from your archive.
The Instants mobile app, which popped up in Italy and Spain in April, gives you “immediate access to the camera” and only requires an Instagram account, Instagram says. “Instants you share on the separate app will show up for friends on Instagram and vice versa. We’re trying this separate app out to see how our community uses it, and we’ll continue to evolve it as we learn more.”
Instagram, in its testing, has seen that people “tend to use Instants to share much more casual, much more authentic moments about their day,” according
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Why Tether’s Wallet Development Kit is the obvious choice for AI agents and robots
Imagine a world where humans and AI agents have the freedom to control their own finances through trillions of wallets.
by Blake Rong
Blake Rong
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Apr 27, 2026, 1:00 PM UTC
Photo courtesy of Tether
Photo courtesy of Tether
In an ideal digital future, investors, whether they be human, machines, or AI agents, can take charge of their own digital assets. That’s the promise offered by secure, self-custodial wallets: the freedom to control which parties get to see your wallet keys. A self-custodial wallet eliminates the middleman, usually the exchange or wallet provider, from acting on your behalf, and gives only you the ability to access your wallet. Proponents of self-custodial wallets believe that unless you have access to your own private keys, you don’t 100 percent control your assets.
However, creating and managing self-custodial wallets have often required a greater degree of technical know-how than third party-managed wallets. For developers, integrating different blockchains to connect with each other requires different Software Development Kits (SDKs), Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), and other approaches to integration. This puts up needless barriers and can add months of integration work to build seamless user experiences across these blockchains, environments, and use-cases. There are conflicting standards, security practices, or closed-source paid solutions which act as their own gatekeepers. For example, Bitcoin, Ethereal, and Solana can only be sent to their own respective wallet addresses.
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Tether created one of the world’s most popular stable coins (USDT) in 2014, which became the world’s most traded cryptocurrency just five years later. Alongside this expertise, Tether is driving forward its corresponding technology pillars which it believes will become the cornerstone of tomorrow’s financial future. The Wallet Development Kit (WDK) is a fully open-source toolkit, it streamlines the process of creating and deploying secure, multi-chain, self-custodial wallets. What this means is that these wallets can be created by any human, AI agent, or robot, then integrated anywhere: from mobile devices to desktops and servers, and powering anything from consumer wallets to wallet-enabled apps. With WDK, Tether foresees the creation of trillions of self-custodial wallets — setting the stage for a resilient monetary infrastructure.
It all matches Tether’s vision for assisting the digital entities of tomorrow. Here were some of Tether’s key values in mind during the development of WDK.
Universal unstoppable access
WDK gives users, companies, and even global entities the ability to create secure wallets through a unified Application Programming Interface (API), which eliminates the need to know technical details so developers can focus on innovation instead of infrastructure. The API enables flexible customization and expansion, driven by an open-source framework that can be scaled for an array of businesses.
AI-native architecture
Tether knows that AI-powered technologies will be involved in every single part of our lives, and in preparing for this future relationship between humans and robots, it designed WDK around AI-native architecture. This core component supports AI agents and their ability to manage digital assets remotely, with maximum security, direct custody of funds, and highly scalable transactions.
Ubiquitous computing and deployment
Through Bare runtime compatibility, WDK can run on any embedded device, which encompasses everything from smartphones to mobile apps, from smart Internet of Things (IoT) devices to autonomous vehicles. Every connected device can have its own wallet and financial identity, making payments and transactions easier from a user’s own wallet.
The preferred choice for AI agents and robots
At a time when AI agents and robots are becoming more autonomous, they will need to manage their own resources. WDK’s robust tools are the ideal choice for these digital entities, ensuring that they can custody their own funds and make transactions automatically, without human intervention. To show its commitment to AI technology, Tether recently released a self-custodial wallet built from its WDK that is specifically aimed at AI agents and autonomous machines, allowing them to pay for their own resources without the involvement of human users.
By granting users, developers, and even government entities the ability to control their assets directly, Tether’s WDK is setting the foundation for a new era of autonomous interaction, providing resilience in a decentralized financial system.
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