Facebook parent company Meta wants to have much more compatibility with blockchain technology, The New York Times reports.
In a note to employees, future chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth, who will take that job next year, went over a new vision including much more focus on blockchain and cryptocurrency tech, which have become known as web3.
While Bosworth said the company should keep behaving with caution, he also said Meta should get on the new tech before others.
Bosworth said there weren’t many places where the company would exclusively depend on blockchain yet, but if there was “an opportunity to work jointly with entrepreneurs in the web3 space I expect it will be worth the effort.”
Bosworth said it was important to keep things open enough and not solely rely on decentralized technology. He said those who opt out of using Facebook and Google and use decentralized equivalents instead are “disproportionately involved in creating a genuinely impressive wave of technology.”
Meta has already experimented with cryptocurrencies, including an effort to make a digital coin only for use by Facebook and WhatsApp users. However, crypto head David Marcus left the company last month, in the wake of the scrutiny from regulators and the rebranding of the coin.
Bosworth’s message said the company could also find ways to use NFTs and potentially invest in blockchain-based smart contracts and decentralized autonomous organizations, which refers to internet-native co-ops which are governed with cryptocurrency tokens.
Facebook also recently paid $60 million to buy the trademark assets of Meta Financial Group, following the renaming of the company to Meta.
See more: Facebook Forked Over $60M to Acquire Trademark Assets from Meta Financial Group
Facebook’s renaming to Meta came as the company signaled it wanted to delve more into the metaverse and its various virtual reality and augmented reality works, letting users interact in a virtual world.
Meta Financial Group’s work centers around consumer and commercial lending, credit cards and savings, and it works with FinTechs, financial institutions and government agencies.
Meta Financial Group said in a regulatory filing that a Delaware firm called Beige Key LLC had bought the naming assets. Facebook’s parent company confirmed its involvement with Beige Key. The company also said it was working on its new branding now.
