Meta Financial Technologies, Facebook’s financial sector, does not want to miss the cryptocurrency bandwagon. Apparently, the company is working on a new digital asset dubbed Zuck Bucks, a token that could come with a very different approach to Diem (Libra), its failed stablecoin project.
And although Meta gave up on its Diem cryptocurrency, it is not giving up on the financial territory. The parent company of Facebook and Instagram reportedly has a few projects, including the virtual currency that employees have started calling “Zuck Bucks.” And while the currency is unlikely to be launched under that name, that’s what Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Meta, calls it internally.
The Zuckerberg-captained firm is looking for alternative revenue and new features that can attract and retain users as the popularity of its core social networking products declines, a trend that threatens its US$118 billion a year in profits.
Apparently, Meta is leaning toward introducing in-app tokens that would be centrally controlled, similar to those used in apps and video games. This way, the Zuck Bucks would function like Fortnite’s V-Bucks, with which you can buy skins and more in the video game.
In this way, users would be able to convert their dollars, euros or any other official currency, into Zuck Bucks and to buy products or services on Facebook or Instagram.
What is clear is that they don’t want it to become a cryptocurrency, but something more like a virtual token. And as it happens with Fortnite, which opted for the game-as-a-service model and includes virtual coins to exchange for digital goods on the platform, Meta would be interested in developing its own currency.
The idea is not new, not even for Facebook, which launched its Facebook Credits in 2009. This virtual currency allowed users to make purchases in games such as FarmVille. Although the experiment had some success, it was eventually abandoned in 2013 for being too costly to maintain.
Meanwhile, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram continues to work on other services related to the metaverse and blockchain. Among them, the possibility of being able to sell and buy non fungible tokens (NFTs) within Facebook.
