Following the death of Libra and what appeared to be a long-term crypto dream, Facebook – now known as Meta – is making another stab at crypto innovation with something called Zuck Bucks, the name of its latest form of digital currency.
Will Zuck Bucks Help Facebook Make Money?
Taking its label from the surname of Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire behind Facebook’s creation, Zuck Bucks would be a centralized form of digital currency in that it would be directly controlled by Facebook, not those who use it. The currency would operate much like the in-game assets of Fortnite and Roblox and would be utilized to engage in purchasing of tools, products, and services through the Facebook mainframe. Zuck Bucks will also not be built directly atop the blockchain.
The move clearly comes as a means of permitting Facebook to deal with its excessive loss of revenue. Following heavier competition from the likes of TikTok and similar platforms, Facebook has seen its shares decrease in price by roughly 30 percent since the beginning of February. A report issued in the first few weeks of the new year discussed Facebook’s losses in the fourth quarter of 2021 after it had lost quite a bit of money spending on projects related to both Libra and Web3.
Facebook has been rather transparent about Zuck Bucks’ new fee structure, claiming it’s indeed looking to earn revenue through whatever fees accumulate from usage. In addition, Facebook says it will seek to integrate non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and open the portals for users to create their own NFTs and monetize their efforts. Lastly, the social media giant says it’s exploring ways to utilize NFTs as membership tokens for specific group access.
Clearly, Facebook is worried about its dying profits, and it appears to be turning to crypto as a means of closing the financial gaps. However, the company doesn’t seem to be learning anything from its previous journey. Its prior crypto project, Libra (later relabeled as Diem) was a complete failure. The project went nowhere thanks to ongoing regulatory concerns and the fact that Facebook had proven itself rather untrustworthy over the past year thanks to its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
This Seems Somewhat Inspired by Greed
The difference between that project and this one was that Libra was not marketed as a money-making scheme. It appeared rather genuine in many ways, with Facebook claiming that it was looking to enable anyone who did not have access to traditional financial tools. The wallet and payment system it was incorporating was there to help people make payments online and garner the products they needed to survive each day.
This time around, however, Facebook is heavily insinuating that its new crypto project is being established for financial purposes, suggesting that greed is perhaps taking precedence. Time will tell if this winds up rubbing users the wrong way.
