Facebook owner Meta aims at finance with Zuck Bucks and Creator Coins

Meta has drawn up plans for the introduction of virtual coins, tokens and loan services in its apps, since the parent company of Facebook is pursuing its financial ambitions despite the collapse of a project to introduce cryptocurrency.

The company led by Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is looking for alternative sources of income and new functions that can attract and bind users because the most popularity of its most important social networking products such as Facebook and Instagram is falling-a trend that threatens its $ 118 billion a year. Year advertising -based business model.

The financial arm of Facebook, Meta Financial Technologies, examined the creation of a virtual currency for the meta persons that employees have christened “Zuck Bucks” internally according to several people.

It is unlikely that it is a cryptocurrency based on the blockchain, said some of the people. Instead, Meta tends to introduce in-app token that are controlled centrally by the company, similar to those that are used in gaming apps such as Robux currency in popular children's games Roblox .

According to the company communications and people who are close to the plans, Meta also checks the creation of so-called "social tokens" or "reputation tokens", which could be issued, for example, as a reward for sensible contributions in Facebook groups. Another attempt is to create "Creator Coins" that could be associated with certain influencers on his Instagram photo sharing app.

According to several people familiar with the initiative, Meta has also examined more traditional financial services, whereby the focus is on providing loans for small companies to attractive interest rates. While nothing is currently planned, the company had previously had discussions with potential loan partners, one of the people said.

Most efforts are in the initial phase of the discussion and could change or drop, although the plans for integrating non -fungal tokens or NFTs are further developed into its apps. Zuckerberg confirmed an earlier report by the Financial Times that Instagram would soon begin to support NFTS.

According to a memo that was divided internally last week, Meta is planning to start a pilot project for posting and sharing NFTS on Facebook in mid -May. This will “briefly” follow the testing of a function that makes membership in Facebook groups on the basis of the NFT ownership, and another to shape-a term for creating NFTS.

According to another internal document, NFTs can be monetized in the future via "fees and/or display". Facebook rejected a statement.

Meta lost more than $ 220 billion through its market evaluation in February on the day on which it became known that users are increasingly spending time with newer competitors such as the short form video app.

The company recently tried to find other sources of income and to support e-commerce on the platform by dealing with cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Its big tech competitors such as Google and Apple were more careful when it came to immersing them in the aspiring area.

But the advance was plagued by setbacks and official examination. At the beginning of this year, the global cryptocurrency project Diem led was handled and his assets sold to a California Bank Silvergate after the US supervisory authorities refused to give the pilot project to the pilot project due to currency stability and competitive concerns.

In the middle of internal frustrations, Meta's finance department suffered from what a former employee described as the "mass fleeing" of employees in the past six months. The head David Marcus left the company together with important engineers, compliance employees and almost the entire legal team.

Those who remain examine how they can create or support digital currencies in their meta personation - a virtual world full of avatars, from which Zuckerberg hopes that they will finally generate billions of dollars in the trade in digital goods and services.

employees are now trying to find the least regulated path to offer a digital currency, two people said, whereby a digital token that is not based on the blockchain is the most attractive option.

It would not be the first time that Facebook introduces such a currency into its ecosystem. It introduced Facebook credits in 2009, a virtual currency that made it possible to make in-app purchases, typically in games such as Z Farmville . According to Barclays, this corresponded to 16 percent of the income at the time of the IPO in 2012, but was closed in 2013 because the maintenance was too expensive.

In a memo from the end of January, the new head of Meta's financial department, Stephane Kasriel wrote: "We make changes to our product strategy and roadmap..

Kasriel, who replaced Marcus when he left the company at the end of 2021, said the company would "accelerate" investments in order to facilitate payments within WhatsApp and messenger and "to help create their activities", for example through NFTS.

He also announced plans to bring his wallet for Facebook Pay-his existing peer-to-peer payment system that does not use blockchain technology-with Novi, the digital currency letter bag that was originally supposed to contain the DIEM Coin.

"The wallet will offer payments, identity and digital asset management within the [Family of Apps and Reality Labs, ITS Virtual and Augmented Reality ARM,] and over time to other apps/websites," he said.

While some of the efforts of META are focusing on digital payments, other efforts to use are more comprehensive plans to use blockchain technology to introduce more "decentralization" on its platforms, in the middle of a growing enthusiasm in Silicon Valley for the so-called web3 movement.

web3 supporters usually try to use distributed LEDGER technology in order to enable users more control and possession through their data, and to disinterest Big-Tech groups that normally monetize this data as part of their advertising-based business models.

But Meta seems to be accepted by some web3 ideals. According to a planning document, it is checked whether data should be stored in a blockchain, how users can be given more control over their digital identity and whether their identity or accounts can be transferred to other platforms than the apps of META.

In the meantime, his plans to reward users for credible content with "social tokens", enable Meta to remove themselves as a central moderator of content and to give Facebook communities more power in self-modernization, according to the document.

Additional reporting of Cristina Criddle in London