Meta reportedly set to introduce virtual currency dubbed ‘Zuck Bucks’

Yahoo Finance's Daniel Howley explains Meta's plan to implement virtual currency inside the metaverse, Chipotle's partnership with Roblox, and other brands such as Wendy's jumping on metaverse platforms.

Video Transcript

- You remember the virtual currency Diem? No? Probably not. How about Libra? Doesn't ring a bell either? Well, Mark Zuckerberg is hoping the third time is the charm, reportedly set to introduce what some are calling Zuck Bucks. Dan Howley is here with attempted answers to all these questions like what is it, what can we buy with it, where can we spend it. Zuck Bucks-- Dan, what are they?

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, I'll attempt to do it. Hopefully, I can do justice to that incredible name of Zuck Bucks. But what it looks as though this is going to be is a type of currency that you would use inside the metaverse. So don't expect this to be a new kind of crypto coin.

This is not Doge or Ethereum or Bitcoin. This is going to be something that you would use specifically inside of Meta's version of the metaverse. Whether or not you'll eventually be able to use it across different companies' metaverses, that all remains to be seen.

But for now, it seems like when you dive into the Meta metaverse, you'll be able to use whatever they eventually called this Zuck Buck currency to make different types of purchases. And really, what we're thinking of when you think of the metaverse as far as purchases is Gucci socks or new Jordans or whatever for your digital avatars, so spending money on things along those lines that you couldn't really use in the real world because, of course, they're virtual, but you just want to have for your own avatar to kind of gussy them up.

So it may sound ridiculous, but it does make a lot of money for video game companies right now. They sell things like skins in Fortnite. Roblox, of course, has its own Robux currency that you would use to purchase things in-game for that platform. So it's not going to be a wallet or a cryptocurrency in the sense where you would be able to buy things in the real world, but you would be able to buy them in the virtual world if that appeals to you.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: I certainly know firsthand about getting begged for Robux for my eight-year-old. And it's interesting because they've teamed up with Chipotle. They actually gave-- are giving away a million Robux, actually, as part of their Chipotle Burrito Builder. And you'd be able to go on to Roblox and build your own virtual metaverse burrito.

And so this is happening. This 1 million Roblox giveaway is happening at 3:30 Pacific Time for National Burrito Day. Talk more about this. I mean, what is the appeal here?

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, I think it really is just trying to build up the idea of the metaverse. Obviously, it helps both companies, right? Companies like Chipotle want to get into the minds of younger consumers, which is a lot of the fan base of Roblox. Because if they can get those younger consumers early, they'll have them throughout their lives as loyal customers to Chipotle, as weird and horrible as that sounds.

And then for Roblox, it just ensures that they have another tie-in to a company that wants to provide them with some kind of pay or funding to get them on that platform. So they've done different types of tie-ups with the likes of the NFL, for instance, and Disney characters. So this isn't out of the norm, but it is interesting to just see that Chipotle is doing this.

And then unlike the digital currency that you would get on Meta's side of things, this actually nets you something in the real world, where you can get money that you would then be able to use in store at real Chipotle. So you can get a burrito or something along those lines, maybe a soda, based on your interactions with this.

And then there's also Wendy's which is getting involved here. They're launching something in Meta's metaverse, but it's not really that interesting. It's basically just a basketball game next to a digital Wendy's. And I've seen things like this before in Decentraland.

Miller, they had used the Super Bowl to build out a virtual bar where you could kind of walk up and go inside and stand next to a video game and have it make noise. But you couldn't actually play the game, and then you got to see an ad. So none of it was really all that mind-blowing, but it was interesting to see. And I think that's what we're starting to see here, the early stages of this metaverse.

- Certainly a spicy, digestive experience for some of those Roblox characters. Yahoo Finance's tech reporter Dan Howley joining us here to break down Zuck Bucks and the Roblox-Chipotle collab.