According to a new report from the Financial Times, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is still planning to create a digital currency. The news comes after Facebook was said to have abandoned itscryptocurrencies plans this past February, after getting scrutiny from politicians around the globe.
Politicians smelled blood in the water and grilled Facebook leadership about their plans to release a digital currency. Brad Sherman, a congressman from California, told a Facebook executive that a currency being released by the tech giant would be worse than 9/11. The name of the currency is apparently stuck internally at Facebook.
If he can find a way to make his fake money a reality, he will. The Times writes that staffers at Meta are trying to find the least regulated way to offer a digital currency.
A request for comment was not responded to overnight. If we hear back, we will update this article.
Private companies have created their own exclusive currencies in the past, but governments have traditionally been in charge of creating currencies. Company scrip, a kind of privately issued money paid to employees that could only be redeemed at company-owned stores, was the most horrendous example from the 19th century.
Liberty Dollar, dollars and coins created by libertarians who tried to make a currency backed by gold and silver were shut down by the U.S. government. Creating your own currency is no longer seen as an inherently fraudulent activity thanks to the popularity of the web3 wave. Since the metaverse is supposed to be the company's future, Facebook wants to take advantage of that.
Zuck's plans for NFTs, which were first announced in March, are apparently still happening, with the feature possibly being introduced in May, according to the Times. What does that mean in practice? We don't know. Despite the misconception that they are akin to digital trading cards, non-fungible token are little more than a receipt to a hyperlink.
It could be the key to Facebook's success with web3. No one knows what it is, and the space is filled with many scam artists. If Meta can launch its own token and brand it as an innocuous way to pay for trivial things, it can be a launching pad for much larger ambitions. You spend three Zuckbucks on a new cartoon character and the next thing you know, you've just bought a car with the same currency.
According to the Times, Stephane Kasriel, the head of Meta's finance division, wrote a memo in January that made it clear that the company wants to figure out a way to monetize.
We are making changes to our product strategy and road map so that we can prioritize building for the metaverse.
Zuck wants to make his own money. The only question is if the third time is the charm.
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