Facebook has announced it will allocate $50 million to a two-twelvemonth fund tasked with showtime work on realizing the house'due south vision for a virtual metaverse.

A Monday announcement articulates Facebook's roadmap for building its metaverse, with the funding slated to back "global research and program partners" looking to build out the platform in addition to internal research.

"The metaverse won't be built overnight by a unmarried company. Nosotros'll collaborate with policymakers, experts and manufacture partners to bring this to life," emphasized the announcement.

The metaverse will permit people to interact with ane some other, digital objects and the physical world through their avatar in a virtual environment. Funding will be disbursed through Facebook's XR Programs and Inquiry Fund.

Rumors of Facebook's plan to build out a virtual metaverse began circulating in June, with the firm announcing the formation of an executive team tasked with overseeing the project the following month.

In its latest announcement, Facebook asserts that its metaverse "is not necessarily about spending more time online — information technology's about making the fourth dimension you lot practice spend online more meaningful."

Despite the $50-one thousand thousand investment fund, Facebook believes it volition take more than than a decade until a comprehensive version of its metaverse volition be live and featuring a wide array of products and services.

To ensure its metaverse is deployed in a mode that is ethical and inclusive, Facebook has also partnered with multiple universities and nonprofit organizations representing minority groups, including Women In Immersive Tech, Africa No Filter, The University of Hong Kong and the National University of Singapore.

Related: New manufacture, new rules: Building the Metaverse without bias

As Facebook moves to mobilize majuscule to begin developing its metaverse, crypto developers have already made strides in building out decentralized and interoperable metaverses of their own.

Decentraland's open-world metaverse comprises a decentralized community-owned virtual globe built on the Ethereum blockchain. Users tin build 3D environments, create avatars or showcase a range of digital content wh tin be monetized.

Similarly, The Sandbox is a nonfungible token-powered game in which players tin buy digital plots of country and create gaming experiences on height of them to share with other users.