Meta ⁠ – formerly Facebook ⁠ – reported positive news for mainstream investors, but bad news for those interested in its virtual reality (VR) division in its 1st of February income statement.

The company generated significant revenue, earning $32.17 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022.116.61 billion for the entire year. Despite an annual loss of 4% in the fourth quarter and 1% for the full year, Meta’s fourth-quarter revenue was at the upper end of the valuation of $30-32.5 billion. previously predicted. The company also announced a $40 billion share buyback today.

The news had a positive impact on META’s share price, which gained 2.79% on the day. META has risen from $148.01 to $153.12 in the last few hours.

Meta also reported that its Reality Labs division posted $4.28 billion in operating losses in the fourth quarter of 2022 and $13.72 billion in operating losses for the full year. According to reports from CNBC, the division’s drop in revenue appears to be due to declining sales and a need for virtual reality technology that can be used with its devices.

Reality Labs is responsible for Metaverse products, including services such as the Horizon Worlds game and products such as Quest headsets. Reality Labs has also become responsible for various artificial intelligence (AI) projects starting in 2022.

However, Reality Labs’ metaverse ambitions are best known in the crypto community for driving the trend towards non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in virtual reality projects. Horizon Worlds has in-game items that can be traded, and while NFTs are not used as the basis for these items, competing blockchain projects have capitalized on the similarities.

Cryptocurrency virtual world Decentraland saw an increase in its MANA token of around 550% compared to November 2021, just after Meta announced its plans for the metaverse at the end of October 2021. Similarly, in the same month at Sandbox, his SAND token rose by 850%. Several major companies have also begun to implement plans for the metaverse and NFTs.

The excitement around the trend died down in 2022, and the tokens named above returned to the base prices. Today’s news suggests that the trend may subside.

Mike Dalton

Cryptooshala journalist

Mike trained in library and information sciences before moving into cryptography in 2018. He lives on the west coast of Canada.