Meta even brings up the metaverse when rebranding its payment system

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook Pay is being renamed to Meta Pay in order to continue the Meta-fication of its brands. Stephane Kasriel, Meta's head of commerce and financial technologies, wrote on his website that the company is about to change.

We are focused on enhancing the payments experiences we already provide with Facebook Pay where we are seeing good adoption, Kasriel wrote.

Meta is looking at ways to simplify the payments experience. While Kasriel painted a broad picture, he didn't give much in the way of specifics.

We view this as a single wallet experience for people to use to represent who they are, what they own, and how they pay. We’re in the very early stages of scoping out what a single wallet experience might look like and will have more to say further down the line. But to break down our early thinking, we’re looking at: how you can prove who you are and carry that identity into different experiences in the metaverse; how you can store the digital goods you own and take them with you wherever you go; and how you can pay easily and with the payment method you want, whether that’s to a friend or buying from a business or creator.

Imagine a world where entertainers or athletes can sell NFTs that fans purchase to display in their virtual homes, Kasriel wrote in one example. Imagine if your favorite artist is playing a concert in the metaverse and you can buy a backstage pass for after the show.

Beyond NFTs, there are a number of other Web3 token that we think are compelling.

After David Marcus left Meta at the end of last year, Kasriel took over. Meta called it quits on the project in January, but it is clear that the company still sees many other opportunities. Marcus' newest company, Lightspark, was created to explore, build and extend the capabilities and utility of Bitcoin, and he announced it on Thursday.

Meta is slightly reducing its investment in the idea. The Reality Labs division is being told to prepare for cuts, though no layoffs are planned. The company is still pushing hard on virtual reality, with the CEO showing off Meta's upcoming high-end virtual reality headset in a short demo video earlier on Thursday.