It should be noted that Meta’s interest in the concept of meta-universes has only recently increased. Another proof of this appeared in June, when the company announced the creation of an organization for the development of meta universes. It was done in conjunction with 35 giants, among which found a place for Microsoft, Alibaba and Sony.

The main goal of Metaverse Standards Forum was to expand the Web3 niche. However, representatives of the blockchain community did not appreciate the idea. We wrote about details of what is happening in a separate article.

Screenshot of Decentraland game

What Meta is doing

The FTC has filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms in the US District Court for the Northern District of California to block the company’s announced purchase of Within, the VR product developer that previously created the popular fitness app Supernatural. Here’s a quote from the lawsuit, published by news outlet Decrypt.

Meta would be one step closer to its ultimate goal of owning the entire realm of meta universes after the deal.

It should be noted that being the only player in this sphere will definitely not work, at least because of the presence of decentralized blockchain projects that are in huge demand. Examples include The Sandbox and Decentraland, which were hits last year and are among the top trendsetters.

The startup’s website Within

Generally speaking, Meta announced its planned purchase of the startup in October last year in a deal valued at more than $400 million. The company later said it had pushed back the closing date of the deal to 1 August to satisfy the FTC.

Even without the lawsuit, things are not going well for Meta so far. Facebook’s Reality Labs (FRL) division, which focuses specifically on meta-universe work, posted a loss of $2.81 billion in the second quarter of this year. All told, FRL’s losses have hit the $5.77 billion mark since the beginning of this year.

As the cryptocurrency community ironically pointed out in response to what was happening, the idea of changing the field of activity at the peak of the coin market growth was far from the best, to say the least. In fact, the company's current problems are just a consequence of that.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg

In its Q2 2022 earnings report, FRL reported revenue of $452 million, down 35 per cent from the previous quarter. In total, the division reported an annual loss of $10.2 billion for 2021. In 2022, a similar figure is likely to be even higher. The figures have already been commented on by Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg.

Obviously, this is a very expensive initiative for the next few years. However, the field of meta-universes is becoming more and more important in everyday life. I’m sure we will still be happy that we played an important role in its creation.

In other words, management clearly has no plans to give up this new vector of activity. And this, of course, creates serious risks for investors, who may not be thrilled with Meta's performance - and especially with such a market for cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance and metacities.

Meta’s share price over the past five days

The company’s total revenue for the quarter rose just over 3 per cent to $28.8 billion. Despite this, the company’s shares fell by about 4 per cent in OTC trading to $160 after the second quarter earnings report was published.

The change in Meta’s share price in 2022


We believe that Meta will not be able to monopolize the methampowering industry, as there are many other big players operating in it. Whatever the case may be, the outcome will be determined by the court - and the company will have to comply with the requirement. However, this is unlikely to stop the giant from further action in this area.

Look for even more interesting things in our millionaire cryptochat. There we will discuss other important events for the blockchain industry.