Measured in terms of market value, Facebook is currently the seventh largest company in the world. With its new Metaverse strategy, Marc Zuckerberg’s group has a good chance of becoming the world’s No. 1. What role cryptocurrencies, NFTs and social tokens could play and what an alternative to the potential dystopia could look like.
Facebook’s ambitions to dive into the crypto sector aren’t new. The odyssey with your stablecoin seems to have no end. There is no green branch with the regulators and the project plans have to be adjusted again and again. In the meantime, the impression can be gained that Facebook is tired of pushing the project further. Especially since Facebook emphasizes that it is a project that is independent of the group. There have also already been statements that the stablecoin is deliberately only seen as a temporary solution until there is a digital US dollar from the American central bank.
As attractive as its own corporate currency with potentially over 2.5 billion users can be, Facebook with its new corporate priority – to create the Metaverse Horizon – is likely to have much greater ambitions that could also extend into the crypto sector.
Facebook CEO Marc Zuckerberg would like up to 10,000 positions Create in Europe and invest $ 10 billion to create a virtual world where we do everything we do in real life. Work, shop, play sports or meet friends: in these new virtual worlds, a significant part of today’s added value should take place in the future. Even Facebook itself is becoming meta renamed, as Zuckerberg announced on Thursday evening.
Just as Facebook provides the infrastructure for social exchange with its platforms and messenger services today, the group also wants to control the digital streets and properties on which the next stages of our interactions will be carried out in the future. The network effect is too tempting to be left unused. Especially since there is a risk that other metaverse will emerge, which will overtake Facebook as the No. 1 social media platform.
Social tokens and NFTs as cornerstones of a virtual economy
In this metaverse, two token concepts in particular could ensure that Facebook develops a kind of “private, global economy”. The user accounts could receive a clearly definable monetary value through social tokens. Users with a long reach would be able to create very valuable accounts in this way. To let the users participate in the added value all at once would be anything but an altruistic move by the data octopus. Rather, the social tokens would generate a high level of incentive and value, which in turn could be re-invested in service offers. This would massively increase the value of the digital economy.
The other token concept includes non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in order to be able to map scarcity in the digital space. In this way, for example, our avatars could have their own wardrobe. Land could also be acquired via NFTs, for example to run a shop. Facebook manager David Markus has already said that the company is taking a closer look at NFTs. The Facebook wallet Novi should also be able to support NFTs.
Twitter and Reddit scratch their runners
Other social media platforms are also entering the NFT sector. Twitter wants to enable NFTs for the profile picture and Reddit is apparently in the process of building an NFT marketplace, like from current ones Postings emerges. It is therefore obvious that we will soon hear a lot more from Facebook about these areas of the token economy.
Due to its market power and sheer size, Facebook or Meta doesn’t have to rush anything. The company prefers to learn from the mistakes of others in order to come around the corner with a better user experience and more capital. In the context of the metaverse in particular, it would be rather implausible if Facebook did not also take NFTs and social tokens into account in its strategy.
Should Facebook actually succeed in integrating the token concepts into its metaverse, then the social media giant would have a good chance of becoming the most valuable company in the world. Facebook is currently the seventh most valuable company with a market value of around 900 billion US dollars. The # 1 Apple is a whopping $ 2.5 trillion. With the Metaverse and a potential “population” of over 2.5 billion people, the company could reach a new level of value creation that would catapult it to the very top.
Not only could the company make even more money with advertising, but it could also introduce “tax levies”. For example, Facebook could oblige virtual shops to pay sales tax in order to be commercially active in the Facebook world. As long as most users and companies are in the Facebook metaverse, the group also has enormous pricing power. After all, everyone wants to be where the others are, or where there is the greatest supply. Social tokens, which at first glance speak against the logic of a data octopus, could also become the basis for your own tax policy.
Dystopia in the heart of Europe
Of course, this is pure speculation. Evidence to support such a strategy is still lacking. Nevertheless, such concepts can be used to discourage users from decentralized alternatives. If Facebook does not offer token concepts with appropriate incentives for users, there is a risk that blockchain protocols such as Decentraland will subsequently be able to siphon more and more market shares for themselves. With its Metaverse project, Facebook could also strive for a similar pseudo-decentralization as with Diem or the former Libra: token yes, blockchain no.
The dystopia of a virtual non-state world power could become more probable, especially through Facebook’s personnel strategy. With the creation of 10,000 jobs in Europe, the group is making itself more and more independent of the American state. At the same time, he could play the states off against each other through clever tactics and thus prevent him from being regulated to death.
The conflict that threatens through Facebook’s Metaverse is likely to once again significantly exceed the capers surrounding the former stablecoin Libra and Diem. It is to be hoped that really decentralized projects in the Metaverse will gain ground over Facebook and enable fair, digital economies.