Meta has announced the release of its wallet to facilitate value interaction in the metaverse. The wallet, dubbed Meta Pay, a rebranded version of the former Facebook Pay service, will continue to perform the same functions as Facebook Pay but will be developed as a universal way of paying for goods and services in the metaverse using digital identities.
According to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Pay will be a solution to two issues in the metaverse: accessibility to digital goods and proof of ownership. About this, he stated:
In the future, there will be all sorts of digital items you might want to create or buy — digital clothing, art, videos, music, experiences, virtual events, and more. Proof of ownership will be important, especially if you want to take some of these items with you across different services.
According to Zuckerberg, everything purchased in one part of the metaverse should ideally be available on another platform, with the same functions and characteristics. One of the objectives of Meta Pay is to achieve the following: a type of Web3 identity that connects digital item purchases to a single digital identity. Zuckerberg explained:
This kind of interoperability will deliver much better experiences for people and larger opportunities for creators. That is, the more places you can easily use your digital goods, the more you’ll value them, which creates a bigger market for creators.
Furthermore, Zuckerberg claims that a universal payment method across the entire metaverse will provide opportunities for content creators because more consumers will be able to purchase their content. This, however, can only be accomplished with a certain level of standardization.
The company recently partnered with Microsoft and other companies such as Epic Games to launch an open standards group for all things metaverse, with the goal of establishing common points to make future metaverses more interoperable.
