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The American concern Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has a new plan to create virtual currency and other financial services despite the failure of its previous project.

This is stated in a publication of the Financial Times, quoted by AFP.

The social media giant is actually working to create a meta universe - a parallel universe of virtual worlds accessible in augmented and virtual reality, which needs a complete infrastructure, including currency.

The new tokens were named by employees of Zuck Bucks (Zuk's dollars - AFP), diminutively on behalf of the founder and head of "Meta" Mark Zuckerberg, informs the publication.

In January, the digital currency project, which Facebook launched loudly in 2019, was officially frozen, AFP recalls.

The digital currency was supposed to offer a new way of paying outside traditional banking circles, but provoked outrage from central banks, regulators and politicians.

They expressed concern about the risks to the stability of the financial system, the fight against money laundering and the protection of personal data.

This time, Meta does not plan to create a registered cryptocurrency on the blockchain, but rather tokens that will serve as an exchange currency, as in some video games, for example, according to the Financial Times.

The California group is also working on "social tokens" that will be given to users as rewards for significant contributions or currency associated with some Instagram influencers as a means of generating content revenue. 

Zuckerberg lost $ 29 billion

A Meta spokeswoman contacted by AFP said she would not make statements today. 

We are constantly considering new products for consumers, companies and creators.

As a company, we are focused on creating a metaverse and this includes related payments and financial services, she added. 

Like its competitors Google and Twitter, as well as other platforms such as TikTok, the US group is trying to diversify its sources of revenue outside of personalized and targeted advertising as the economic model has been called into question mainly by regulators, who want better protection of privacy. 

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