Facebook’s venture into the metaverse
Talk of NFT adoption should come as no surprise after CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent comments about the company’s venture into the “metaverse.”
During Facebook’s earnings call in July, Zuckerberg referred to the tech giant as a “metaverse company”, using the term approximately 20 times during the hour-long call. However, it was unclear how the CEO planned to profit from the digital world.
Overall, NFTs are quickly gaining popularity despite many holders not understanding the asset that they own, FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried said in a recent interview with CNBC.
“It’s almost going mainstream faster than the mainstream understands what it is they’re adopting, which is a weird phenomenon,” Bankman-Fried said. “It could lead to just incredibly fast and giant adoption. It could also lead, frankly, to sort of a sour taste in people’s mouth if there’s a crash, and no one ever quite figured out what it was.”
Facebook’s Novi Digital Wallet Could Support NFTs in Future, Exec Says
The tech giant is “definitely looking” into ways to incorporate non-fungible tokens into its new financial product, Novi, Facebook’s Financial Head said.
Novi could be used to store non-fungible tokens once the digital wallet goes live
The wallet is intended to allow users to execute often-times free and quick money transfers
Facebook Inc. is heavily considering adding non-fungible tokens (NFTs) into their soon-to-be launched digital wallet Novi, according to the company’s Financial Head David Marcus.
“We’re definitely looking at the number of ways to get involved in the [NFT} space because we think we’re in a really good position to do so,” Marcus said in an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday. However, Marcus added that it was still “too early to talk” publicly about plans to get involved in the space.
According to Marcus, Novi could be used as a way to store NFTs once the digital wallet goes live. “If you’re a creator and you’re creating your NFT, you may want to rent your NFT, you may want to sell your NFT. You’ll have to store your NFT,” he said.
Novi is intended to allow users to execute often-times free and quick money transfers. Originally, the crypto wallet was created to pair with Libra (now referred to as Diem) the Facebook-initiated stablecoin project, but ran into resistance from financial regulators. Facebook said the financial product is “ready now” but the social media network has been waiting to launch alongside Diem, their stab.
On the other hand, Marcus mentioned that after years of development, Novi is now “ready to launch”. However, Novi’s launch is on hold because the firm is still waiting for approval from regulators for Diem. To note, Facebook’s Diem cryptocurrency has been in the works since two years ago, with the former name, Libra.
According to Marcus, they might consider launching the Novi wallet without Diem as their “last resort”, but he believes that both are necessary for the project to succeed.
“We’re definitely looking at the number of ways to get involved in the space because we think we’re in a really good position to do so,” Facebook executive David Marcus said Tuesday in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
Marcus leads F2, or Facebook Financial, the internal group developing the company’s Novi digital wallet. That wallet could be used to hold NFTs, he said. “When you have a good crypto wallet like Novi will be, you also have to think about how to help consumers support NFTs,” he added. “We’re definitely thinking about this.” He wasn’t more specific about what kinds of NFT-related products Facebook might build.
Facebook’s digital wallet is “ready now,” Marcus said, but the company has been waiting to launch it until it can do so alongside Diem, the digital currency previously known as Libra, which Marcus co-founded from within Facebook in 2019.
Plans are for Diem to offer a so-called stablecoin backed by the U.S. dollar, but it’s unclear when the coin will be introduced. The project faced immense pushback from lawmakers and regulators when it was unveiled, and while Facebook is still a partner on the project, Diem is now run independently.