Facebook teases NFT support in keynote on its ambitious plans for a digital Metaverse

Facebook and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, devoted a keynote presentation Thursday to unveiling an ambitious framework for creating a 3-D virtual world known as the Metaverse.

Part of that vision appears to include a role for non-fungible tokens or NFTs, which are representations of digital objects, artworks and more backed by a unique piece of data on a blockchain. 

Source: Facebook Reality Labs presentation screenshot

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Facebook unveiled a series of new projects on Thursday to support its vision for the Metaverse, including a $150 million fund to spur use among its customer base. As noted by Axios, Facebook has made clear that it plans to spend billions of dollars in an effort to make its 3-D worlds plan a reality.

Precisely how NFTs will fit into this vision is unclear, based on the presentation, though Zuckerberg referred to "digital goods" as part of the user experience. 

Past comments from Facebook Financial head David Marcus suggest that NFTs could a part of the offering from Novi, which grew out of Facebook's crypto and stablecoin efforts. "It's too early to talk about our plans, but we're definitely looking at a number of plans to get involved in the space, because we're in a good position to do so," Marcus told Bloomberg in late August.

Facebook also announced Thursday that it would change its name to align with the outlined vision: Meta.