The Metaverse cannot be imagined without a crypto background. Crypto blockchains stay at the heart of the metaverse infrastructure and are, therefore, quite significantly tangled. Meta, the company behind Metaverse, has certain crypto tokens such as the SandBox, Decentraland, Loopring, etc., which serve as a link between the physical and virtual worlds. It helps in calculating the value of digital assets in real money and also estimates their returns over time.
Meta: The Vision
In October 2021, Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, rebranded his business to Meta and stated that it’s the time to expand the brand beyond social media. This was followed by a release of a few thousand documents, which made it clear to the people that the company was not doing anything which it claimed to do in regards to removing hate speech and violent posts from its respective platforms. After this, the number of Facebook users dropped by almost 500,000 by the 4th quarter of 2021 and it was predicted that Instagram could lose users from its monthly growth from 16.5% in 2021 to about 3% by 2025.
As reported by the Financial Times on April 6, 2022, Meta is engaged in preparing for the launch of its own NFT marketplace by as early as May 2022. This would certainly allow its users to mint collectable digital tokens too. Meta Digital Currency and Meta Crypto open up ways to earn revenue from other sources as public interest in the social media platforms decrease, as stated by Financial Times. Meta’s probable digital currency, which the Meta employees jokingly call “Zuck Bucks,” will be focused on developing the Metaverse.
The Financial Times report does not include any mention of the use of traditional DeFi crypto blockchains in the development of the metaverse. Centralised tokens will be used within the Meta apps, almost similar to any in-game currency. Meta is also said to be thinking about creating “creator tokens” for influencers on Instagram and “social tokens” or “reputation tokens” for users’ contributions on Facebook. The introduction of digital currencies into the company’s apps may also result in the company’s exploration of NFT integration for Facebook and Instagram.
Possible Alignment With NFT Launch
A potential introduction of Meta Digital Currency may align with Meta Crypto aimed at a May 2022 launch, followed by a short testing phase of its features, allowing beta users to buy and mint Meta tokens. Further sightings have been made that the Meta NFTs could be monetised by ads and/or fees.
This launch can also be a rivalry against Twitter, which recently introduced NFTs to its platform in January. When asked for a report on the insights, Meta officials kept silent, opting out of sharing anything. However, in January, Meta’s finance head Stephane Kasriel stated in a memo: “We’re making changes to our product strategy and roadmap, so we can prioritise on building for the metaverse and on what payments and financial services will look like in this digital world.”
This points out that Meta Digital Currency and Meta Crypto aim at finding the company alternate ways of earning revenue and also serve as a marketplace for young businessmen to explore their trading options.
Lending Services to Apps
Meta Digital Currency and Meta Crypto would be lending services within their own apps. Alongside continuing to expand its resource and technology spheres, Meta is determined to find new ways of luring more users to its apps by introducing the dubbed “Zuck Bucks” as in-app money. Moreover, Meta is reported to be introducing more traditional financial services on its apps to support small companies.
The concept of users getting a chance to earn virtual tokens gives an idea about the services Meta is aimed at. Earning in-app tokens by contributing to the Meta community will help small companies and entrepreneurs to find a different way to earn real money through the Meta apps as well as lure new users to the apps, after its decline in users since the privacy policy changes in 2020. The company is also analysing providing traditional financial services, such as offering and granting small business loans. Although there’s no such mention of launching loan services immediately, the Financial Times report suggests that Meta has held pilot discussions with potential lending partners about the same.
Conclusion
Despite Meta experiencing a loss of users and advertising revenues in recent years, revenue growth from the upcoming virtual products and services in the form of Meta Digital Currency and Meta Crypto should compensate as well as increase the company’s income by almost $680 billion (INR 51.8 lakh crore) by 2030, as per the data points gathered worldwide
