Facebook’s metaverse and its cryptocurrency

The new direction of the internet

Facebook changed name to Meta claiming its new goal is to create a metaverse (as the new company name suggests), a virtual world where you can take part in many activities though a personal avatar. The metaverse will inglobe many digital realities: Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, etc… where it’s possible to shop, learn, socialize, play, etc… A place where all these different world can communicate.

Zuckerberg thinks the metaverse will be an evolution of the actual internet. So, you will be able to do what you do in Real Life but powered with internet and technology features.

However, we still don’t know how exactly will be implemented but it’s certain that this parallel world will revolve around cryptocurrencies exploring a new concept of economy.

Facebook announced in 2019 the idea of its own currency called Libra along with the wallet Calibra but the project encountered some obstacles due to regulatory concerns and consequently with multiple major partners (including PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, eBay, Stripe, and Mercado Pago) all pulling out from the project just a few months after it was announced. Now, from the ashes of Libra was born Diem (Day in Latin) which plans to launch just a single, US-based stablecoin (a currency linked to real-world assets) tied to the dollar utilising the USDP (Pax Dollar) through partnerships with Paxos and Coinbase instead of using the Diem stablecoin.

The Diem app enables users to make purchases and transfer money more quickly and efficiently through their smartphones. Along with it there will be also Novi, the wallet name that will replace Calibra.

Explaining the decision to use USDP for the pilot in Guatemala and the US, Novi head David Marcus says “We can test our systems with a stablecoin that has been operating successfully for over three yeas and that has important regulatory and consumer protection attributes”.

However, Marcus says “Our support for Diem has not changed… We intend to migrate Novi to the Diem payment network once it received regulatory approval”.

In the Latin language, the word “Novi” means “New” or “Accept.” This translation appears to be a perfect match for what the social media giant is attempting to achieve in terms of creating a ‘new’ wallet for making and ‘accepting’ payments.

Since 2019, Facebook has been busy expanding its Messenger chat app with features like peer-to-peer payments. Now it wants to make sure its financial technology initiatives are all under one roof.

In a recent tweet, David Marcus, the co-founder and leader of Novi, said, “Today with Facebook becoming Meta, we’re unifying our payments and financial services unit and products under the Novi brand…”.

The metaverse and the world of cryptocurrencies could radically change the way we live or drag us into a new reality able to fascinate us to the point of keeping us stuck to the screen even more than with social networks.