Financial Times reports: Meta’s diminishing status entails an urge for an alternative source of income.
Despite its unfortunate attempt to launch a Diem cryptocurrency, Meta still plans to keep the contest alive with tokens, virtual coins, and lending services.
Mark Zuckerberg is seeking alternative income sources and new solutions to attract and retain users, as Facebook’s and Instagram’s popularity is falling. Along with the “screwed” Diem project, Meta’s financial division has undergone a kind of “mass exodus” of staff over the past six months.
According to some people familiar with the matter, instead, Facebook has been researching metaverse’s virtual currency, which employees now call “Zuck Bucks”. It won’t be related to blockchain or rather will represent in-app tokens like Robux for instance. Also, Meta is developing so-called “social tokens” or “reputation tokens”, which will represent contribution rewards in Facebook groups, and Meta’s best efforts to remove itself as a content moderator empowering Facebook communities to moderate themselves. Another effort is “creator coins” for Instagram influencers. Along with that, Meta is exploring classic financial services aimed at providing small business loans at an attractive rate.
There’s also a Facebook NFTs pilot coming in mid-May, which will be “quickly followed” by introducing NFT-based ownership and minting NFTs feature.
Zuckerberg also announced plans to merge Facebook Pay with Novi which was intended for the Diem coin at first. Meta’s CEO bets on e-commerce hoping to generate billions of dollars for digital goods and services.
