The beta for groups will release later this week, which won’t be federated initially. Federation will be added afterwards.
Looks like it will have some interesting features like videos, polls, and events, as well as moderator tools like limiting what a user can do.
Some links:
https://mastodon.social/@dansup/110931821965407984
https://mastodon.social/@pixelfed/110931868347117511
Yes the dev made huge progress the last few weeks I wish you good luck with your instance. I subscripted to pixelart already 🌞