Facebook said Thursday that the company’s metaverse will support non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as part of a possible strengthening of the Ethereum protocol, where the digital collectibles format has thrived.
“This will make it easier for people to sell limited-edition digital items like NFTs, display them in their digital spaces and even resell them to the next person securely,” said Vishal Shah, head of Metaverse products at Facebook.
The news comes as Facebook deepens its exploration of the virtual world. The social media giant already owns virtual reality headset maker Oculus and recently reported a major recruitment campaign for its metaverse unit.
“Our goal is to provide as many players as possible a way to build a business in the Metaverse,” Shah said.
The monetization drive could dovetail with the company’s Novi crypto wallet, which faced pushback from U.S. lawmakers after a pilot launch earlier this month. Diem, the project’s namesake stablecoin, is not yet involved. On Thursday, David Marcus, Facebook’s head of payments and financial services, tweeted that with the rebranding, the company brought all its payments and financial services units and products, including Facebook Pay, under the Novi brand.
After announcing its partnership with NFT, Facebook changed its name to Meta, further hinting at the company’s commitment to growing its version of the metaverse.
How it will move away from open metaverses like Decentraland and Cryptovoxels has yet to be determined.
Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) stock is up 3.5% today, most of it after the event began at 1 p.m. ET.
In another sign of the metaverse’s fascination with Facebook, the company’s shares will trade under the ticker MVRS starting December 1.
UPDATE (October 28, 6:38 p.m. UTC): Adds a Facebook name change.
UPDATE (October 28, 6:47 p.m. UTC): Adds stock market reaction from Facebook.
UPDATE (October 28, 6:52 p.m. UTC): Adds a new Facebook stock symbol.
UPDATE (October 28, 7:29 p.m. UTC): Adds information about the consolidation of the Novi brand.
