Facebook’s financial arm, Meta Financial Technologies, has been exploring the creation of a virtual currency for the metaverse, which employees internally have dubbed ‘Zuck Bucks’.
This is unlikely to be a cryptocurrency based on the blockchain, according to Financial Times. Instead, Meta is leaning towards introducing in-app tokens that would be centrally controlled by the company, like those used in gaming apps such as the robux currency in Roblox.
According to company memos, Meta is also looking into the creation of ‘social tokens’ or ‘reputation tokens’, which could be issued as rewards for contributions in Facebook groups, for example. Another effort is to make ‘creator coins’ that might be associated with influencers on Instagram.
Meta has also been exploring more traditional financial services, with a focus on helping to provide small business loans at attractive rates.
Most of the efforts are in the early stages of being discussed and could change or be dropped, although its plans to integrate non-fungible tokens (NFTs) into its apps are more developed.
According to Financial Times, Meta plans to launch a pilot for posting and sharing NFTs on Facebook in mid-May 2022. This will be followed by testing of a feature that will allow membership of Facebook groups based on NFT ownership and another for minting NFTs.
It would not be the first time Facebook has introduced such a currency to its ecosystem. It launched Facebook Credits in 2009, a virtual currency that enabled users to make in-app purchases.
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