Crypto Biz: Is Zuckerberg's $100 Billion Metaverse Experiment Doomed?

Meta's Reality Labs division lost $3.672 billion in the third quarter. Some shareholders are unhappy with the company's oversized investment in metaverse technology.

Not everyone is convinced that Mark Zuckerberg's massive metaverse experiment is a good idea. Since Facebook became Meta in 2021, the social media giant has increasingly focused on connecting the digital and physical worlds through augmented reality. However, a company shareholder recently sent a letter to the CEO calling the metaverse investment "oversized and terrifying".

It didn't take long for those concerns to be justified. Meta released its third quarter financial results after the October 26 bell and, perhaps unsurprisingly, its metaverse division underperformed. Meta's Reality Labs lost $3.672 billion in the quarter, mirroring a similar decline in the first quarter. This is the risk you run when you venture into uncharted territory. Despite all the hype surrounding the metaverse, these new social worlds remain largely empty. Will Meta fill the void? Only time will tell.

This week's Crypto Biz chronicles Meta's metaverse experiment, Tesla's Bitcoin (BTC) holdings, and Reddit's surge in non-fungible token (NFT) collection.

While Tesla's foray into Bitcoin was initially welcomed by the crypto community, the whole ordeal has been a much bigger distraction for the electric vehicle maker. In the second quarter, Elon Musk's company