Meta Platforms Inc. shares climbed after reports that the company is weighing deep reductions to the budget behind its metaverse projects. Investors pushed the stock higher as traders reacted to the possibility that one of the company’s most costly bets could be scaled back.

Metaverse Budget Faces A Major Trim

Based on reports from Bloomberg and Reuters, Meta is considering cuts of up to 30% to the unit that builds its virtual reality and metaverse products, a move tied to planning for the company’s 2026 budget. The change would mainly affect Reality Labs, the division that makes Quest headsets and Horizon virtual spaces.

Reality Labs Has Been Losing Billions

Reality Labs has posted heavy losses since 2020. Reports put the total at more than $60 billion and, by some counts, closer to $70 billion in cumulative losses over recent years. Those sums have kept pressure on management to rethink where the company puts its money.

The market response was swift. Meta’s share price jumped roughly 4%, and some outlets calculated that the move added about $69 billion to the company’s market value as traders reacted positively to a pullback from costly metaverse spending. That reaction signals investors prefer money steered toward projects with clearer near-term returns.

Reports have warned that the cuts could bring staff reductions inside Reality Labs, with layoffs possibly starting as early as January 2026. Company leaders reportedly discussed budget scenarios during recent planning meetings. Any job cuts would mark a sharp change after years of heavy investment in virtual reality and related software.

At the same time, Meta has been moving money into artificial intelligence and related hardware. The company finalized a multibillion-dollar deal this year to take a large stake in Scale AI — a pact reported at roughly $14 billion for a near-half ownership — and then hired talent from that startup to help run a new AI effort. That tradeoff shows where Meta’s priorities now lie.

For people who own or use Meta’s VR gear, this does not mean every project will end. But several initiatives could see slower progress and smaller teams. For rivals and suppliers in the AR/VR space, the cut may reshape who wins short-term device and platform business.

Analysts say the move narrows one major uncertainty for Meta while opening another: how well the company can compete in AI after so many dollars flowed into virtual worlds.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

Meta is scaling back its metaverse spending and redirecting resources toward AI-powered glasses and wearable devices, marking one of the company’s most significant strategic pivots in years.

The shift comes as investor skepticism grows over the long-term commercial viability of virtual worlds and VR headsets, the BBC reported on Friday, citing a company spokesperson.

Meta’s Metaverse Bet Falters as User Growth Stalls

The company has spent more than a decade pouring billions into the metaverse, an initiative that was central to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the future of computing.

That ambition also led Facebook to rebrand as Meta in 2021, signaling a company-wide commitment to building immersive digital spaces.

However, momentum has stalled. Meta’s flagship VR platform, Horizon Worlds, has struggled to retain users, while sales of the company’s headsets have failed to justify the scale of investment.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that Meta plans to cut metaverse spending by up to 30%, sending shares up more than 3% as markets reacted positively to a potential recalibration.

A spokesperson said the company is not planning “broader changes,” declining to comment on whether the shift could include layoffs across metaverse-focused teams.

Instead, Meta sees a faster path forward in wearable AI devices, particularly its new line of smart glasses, launched in September to stronger-than-expected demand.

The latest models feature an on-lens display capable of describing real-world surroundings, identifying objects, and translating text.

Analysts view the glasses as one of the first products to successfully blend AI assistance with hardware in a consumer-friendly form, a direction Meta now hopes to accelerate.

The move reflects wider industry trends. Companies across the US and China are racing to bring AI-enabled glasses and compact wearables to market, betting that users will gravitate toward lightweight, always-on assistance rather than immersive VR environments.

Meta Shareholders Reject Call to Add Bitcoin to Company Treasury

In June, Meta investors overwhelmingly shot down a proposal urging the company to explore adding Bitcoin to its balance sheet, according to a May 28 filing.

The measure received just 3.92 million votes in favor, roughly 0.08% of all shares, while nearly 5 billion voted against it.

With CEO Mark Zuckerberg controlling 61% of voting power, the outcome was effectively predetermined.

The proposal came from Bitcoin advocate Ethan Peck, who argued Meta should allocate part of its $72 billion cash pile into BTC as a hedge against inflation and diminishing real returns on cash and bonds.

Peck cited BlackRock’s guidance supporting a small Bitcoin allocation and submitted the proposal on behalf of his family’s Meta holdings.

He serves as Bitcoin director at Strive and has pushed similar campaigns at other tech giants.

The post Meta Cuts Metaverse Spend as It Bets on AI Glasses and Wearables appeared first on Cryptonews.

The Metaverse-style meetings offer 3D avatars, spatial audio, and customizable virtual environments for hybrid teams.

The post Microsoft Teams Now Supports Immersive Metaverse Meetings appeared first on TechRepublic.

The Metaverse-style meetings offer 3D avatars, spatial audio, and customizable virtual environments for hybrid teams.

The post Microsoft Teams Now Supports Immersive Metaverse Meetings appeared first on TechRepublic.

With the recent releases of visionOS 26 and newly refreshed Vision Pro hardware, it’s an ideal time to check in on Apple’s Vision Pro headset—a device I was simultaneously amazed and disappointed by when it launched in early 2024.

I still like the Vision Pro, but I can tell it’s hanging on by a thread. Content is light, developer support is tepid, and while Apple has taken action to improve both, it’s not enough, and I’m concerned it might be too late.

When I got a Vision Pro, I used it a lot: I watched movies on planes and in hotel rooms, I walked around my house placing application windows and testing out weird new ways of working. I tried all the neat games and educational apps, and I watched all the immersive videos I could get ahold of. I even tried my hand at developing my own applications for it.

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Web3 is moving from promise to real infrastructure. And I don’t mean that as a catchy line — I mean it in the same way a city stops being blueprints and starts becoming streets, power lines, bridges, and people actually living in it. In 2025, Web3 is no longer just a future narrative. It’s an operating layer that moves value, coordinates communities, and enables new digital and physical economies.

In the last cycle, we saw a ton of hype. This cycle, we’re seeing something different: usage, data, and products people rely on. For builder communities like ours — Web3, GameFi, Upland, metaverse creators — understanding this shift matters, because it points directly to where the real opportunities are.

From “future idea” to global financial rails

The first big sign is the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs). This is not a lab experiment anymore. Institutions and protocols are bringing bonds, private credit, real estate, money-market funds, and even carbon credits on-chain to make them more liquid, programmable, and accessible.

A joint BCG x Ripple report projects that the tokenized asset market could grow to about $18.9 trillion by 2033, with ~53% annual compounded growth.

For a Web3 community, that translates into something simple but huge: verifiable ownership is becoming standard. The same logic that tokenizes a bond or a building is the logic that sustains metaverse economies — land, 3D assets, tickets, licenses, revenue shares, reputations, and creator rights.

Stablecoins: the internet’s native money

If tokenization is “ownership,” stablecoins are the cash that makes the city move.

The numbers speak loud:

• In 2024, stablecoins processed about $27.6 trillion in transfer volume, surpassing the combined volume of Visa and Mastercard.
• By late 2025, stablecoin market cap crossed $300B, and daily settlement volumes now rival major payment networks.

For metaverses and GameFi, this is a game-changer. Stablecoins enable stable, human-friendly economies for creators, gamers, and builders: less friction, more trade, more reliable income streams, and smoother marketplaces inside our digital worlds.

DePIN: Web3 becomes physical

Another clear sign of maturity is that Web3 is not just digital anymore. DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) turns real-world infrastructure into community-run networks coordinated by tokens.

Think connectivity, storage, compute for AI, mapping, mobility, energy, sensors. Messari’s DePIN research shows a sector around $50B in market cap across ~350 tokens, with 13+ million devices contributing daily.

Builder takeaway: Web3 is crossing the membrane into the physical world. Communities can now operate real infrastructure with aligned incentives. That’s the natural step from “play and collect” to “build and sustain systems.”

The invisible layer that makes Web3 usable

Real infrastructure is useless if it’s painful to use. That’s why 2025 is also the year of UX breakthroughs.

1. Layer-2 rollups keep scaling usage while driving fees down — essential for gaming, marketplaces, and high-frequency community economies.
2. Account Abstraction / smart wallets remove friction: app-like sessions, gas paid in stablecoins, passkeys instead of seed-phrase stress, safer recovery, smoother onboarding.

Web3 is starting to feel as easy as Web2 but with true ownership underneath. That’s what mass adoption looks like.

New frontiers on top of solid rails

Once the rails and UX improve, new layers accelerate adoption:

• AI + Crypto: AI agents with wallets, on-chain data markets, and decentralized compute are becoming core narratives for 2025.
• Restaking / shared security: EigenLayer proved the demand, growing to ~$18B+ TVL at its peak in 2024–2025, even with later volatility as slashing and risk models matured.
• GameFi 2.0: the sector is moving past empty “play-to-earn” into play-and-own / build-and-earn with sustainable token sinks, progression, and real fun.
• Dynamic NFTs (dNFTs): NFTs that evolve through usage and unlock real utility are growing fast, especially in metaverse/gaming environments.

Web3 is no longer living on promises. It’s living on infrastructure that’s hardening and expanding under our feet.

For those of us building in Upland and projects like RobotCity, this should feel familiar: we’re already practicing what the wider world is adopting right now.

So let’s keep doing what builders do best:

Build. Build. Build.

Web3 is moving from promise to real infrastructure was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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Annual Report

RobotCity +/ Chatsworth was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.