The social network’s Diem pointman David Marcus called stablecoins vital to the success of metaverse projects, and said its Novi wallet will likely support NFTs.
Facebook’s Novi digital wallet is a key part of its metaverse strategy, David Marcus told Bloomberg.
In an Aug. 24 interview, the social media giant’s pointman on the Diem stablecoin — formerly known as Libra — said “what's going to be needed in the metaverse is really seamless movements of value.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has become an enthusiastic booster of the interactive virtual realities recently. There are several blockchain-based metaverse projects, including The Sandbox and Decentraland.
That seamless movement of value is going to require interoperable digital wallets, he added.
“You'll want to have multiple wallets able to participate in the metaverse, and sending value from one wallet to another can't be impossible — which is a limitation of the current payment rails,” Marcus said.
Having that underlying infrastructure in place before metaverses go mainstream is vital, he said, adding that it is much more important than figuring out which stablecoin or stablecoins can be used in them.
Facebook launched the Diem stablecoin project — then known as Libra — with a group of 25 partners in June 2019. It met immediate and strong opposition from world leaders, central bankers, and financial regulators, who feared Facebook’s 2.3 billion customers would make it a threat to financial stability.
Marcus refused to predict a start date for the much-delayed Diem project.
NFTs Are Key
While Marcus said “while there's no immediate plans” for Novi to support non-fungible tokens — NFTs — it is something the project is “definitely” looking into.
NFTs are unique tokens that can both hold and prove providence for a variety of data and digital media, ranging from art to video to proof of ownership of commodities like real estate. Projects ranging from CryptoPunks to NBA Top Shots highlight video clips to blockchain-based video games that are built around NFTs, which are quickly becoming mainstream.
“When you have a good crypto wallet like Novi, you also have to think about how to help consumers support NFTs,” Marcus said.
NFT support will also be key to a wallet’s success in the metaverse, Marcus said.
That’s because metaverses will need to support NFTs as a way of generating new revenue streams for creators, he said.
“Having programmable money and having smart contracts on top of a purpose-built blockchain is going to be transformational for the metaverse,” Marcus said. “If you're a creator and you're creating an NFT, if you want to rent your NFT or sell your NFT, you'll have to store your NFT.”
