Facebook to ‘squash’ metaverse, says Axie Infinity co-founder

Jeffrey Zirlin, Axie Infinity co-founder, said a battle over the future of the internet was underway, following Facebook’s rebrand as ‘Meta’.

The co-founder of the NFT-based online game made his feelings known about Facebook during a crypto gaming panel at the NFT BZL conference.

While Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg insisted that his mission will be to “be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first”, there are those who question his intentions and believe he has ulterior motives regarding the rebrand.

At the conference, Zirlin initially joked that Meta “copied” Axie Infinity’s logo but then spoke on the future of the internet and discussed his positivity about Axie’s future.

“I think we are entering a battle for the future of the internet,” he said.

“But I think that we have a lot of trends on our side, we’re starting to see that grassroots internet communities are having incredible power in the physical world as well.”

Axie Infinity has been described as the perfect bridge between the physical world and the metaverse and Zirlin said Facebook was threatened by this and will look to rival decentralised companies.

“The stakes are going to get larger and larger, and we’re going to face more powerful enemies,” he said.

“They’re going to try to squash this beautiful thing that we built because it threatens them—it threatens their business model, their way of life, and their philosophy.”