Facebook has announced that it will allocate $ 50 million to a two-year fund to start realizing its vision of a virtual metaverse.
An announcement made on September 27 presents Facebook’s roadmap for building its metaverse, with funding intended to support “global research and program partners”Seeking to develop the platform in addition to internal research.
“The metaverse will not be built overnight by a single company. We will collaborate with decision makers, experts and industrial partners to bring it to life“, Underlines the announcement.
The Metaverse will allow people to interact with each other, with digital objects and with the physical world through their avatar in a virtual environment. The funds will flow through Facebook’s Research Fund and XR Programs.
Rumors about Facebook’s plan to create a virtual metaverse began circulating in June, and the company announced the following month that it had formed a management team to oversee the project.
In its latest announcement, Facebook claims that its metaverse “isn’t necessarily about spending more time online – it’s about making more sense of the time you spend online“.
Despite the $ 50 million investment fund, Facebook believes it will be more than a decade before a full version of its metaverse is live and offers a wide range of products and services.
To ensure that its metaverse is deployed in an ethical and inclusive manner, Facebook has also partnered with several universities and nonprofits representing minority groups, including Women In Immersive Tech, Africa No Filter, l’Hong Kong University and theNational University of Singapore.
As Facebook prepares to raise capital to start growing its metaverse, cryptocurrency developers have already made strides in building their own decentralized and interoperable metavers.
Decentraland’s open-world metaverse includes a decentralized, community-owned virtual world built on the Ethereum blockchain. Users can build 3D environments, create avatars, or present a range of digital content that can be monetized.
Likewise, Sandbox is an NFT powered game where players can purchase digital plots and create gameplay experiences on them to share with other users.
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