From stablecoins to the metaverse: Meta's biggest bets that failed

​Meta is preparing to launch its prediction markets platform, hoping to capitalize on one of technology's fastest-growing sectors. But this is far from Mark Zuckerberg's first attempt to enter an emerging market. History shows that several of the company's biggest experiments have cost billions of dollars while falling short of expectations.

According to the NY Times, Meta has assigned a small team to develop a standalone application called Arena, which would allow users to make predictions on future events in a format similar to Polymarket and Kalshi. Initially, the platform will use a points-based system, although Meta has not ruled out introducing real-money wagering in the future.

Arena's arrival is hardly surprising. Over the past two years, prediction markets have evolved from a niche product into one of the fastest-growing segments of the digital economy. In 2025 alone, trading volume on Polymarket and Kalshi exceeded $50 billion, while the combined figure has already surpassed $130 billion over the past six months.

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The rapid growth has attracted not only crypto companies but also established players from the traditional gambling industry.

For Meta, however, this strategy is familiar. For years, Zuckerberg has closely tracked changing user behavior and repeatedly tried to enter emerging markets with products of his own. While some became major successes, several high-profile initiatives produced far less impressive results. Arena represents yet another attempt to establish a foothold before the market fully matures.

When billions fail to buy success

Its Reality Labs division received massive funding to develop Quest headsets, the Horizon Worlds platform, and a broader virtual ecosystem.

The scale of investment was unprecedented. Analysts estimate that since 2021, Reality Labs has accumulated operating losses exceeding $70 billion, with losses continuing to grow. Rather than entering an established market, Meta was attempting to create an entirely new form of digital interaction.

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Mass adoption never materialized. Expensive headsets, limited real-world use cases, and weak user engagement prevented Horizon Worlds from becoming the next major social platform. In early 2026, Meta carried out layoffs at Reality Labs before announcing it would discontinue development of the VR version of Horizon Worlds.

Another ambitious initiative was Libra, later renamed Diem. In 2019, Meta set out to build a stablecoin for billions of users across its ecosystem. The project attracted major partners, including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Uber, and more than twenty other companies.

Ironically, the scale of the project became its greatest obstacle. Almost immediately after its announcement, Libra faced intense regulatory scrutiny from authorities in the United States and Europe.

Most consortium members withdrew before launch, and in 2022 Silvergate Bank acquired Diem's intellectual property for approximately $180 million. Despite years of development, Meta never succeeded in bringing its digital currency to market.

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Even earlier, the company tried to reinvent the smartphone experience itself. In 2013, Meta introduced Facebook Home, an Android interface that turned Facebook into the primary operating environment of the device. The company also launched the HTC First, a smartphone designed specifically for the platform.

The experiment proved short-lived. Within weeks, sales fell far below expectations, prompting AT&T to cut the handset's subsidized price from $99 to just $0.99. Facebook Home was soon discontinued.

Second attempt at prediction markets

Back in 2020, the company launched Forecast, an application built around collective forecasting. Users could make predictions about the pandemic, the economy, and other events, earning points instead of monetary rewards.

Meta positioned the platform as a collaborative knowledge-sharing tool rather than a betting product. It failed to gain meaningful traction and was shut down in 2022.

Today's market looks quite unfamiliar. Over the past two years, prediction markets have evolved into a standalone industry. Polymarket gained widespread recognition during the U.S. presidential election, while Kalshi significantly expanded its presence after securing regulatory approvals.

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Crypto exchanges, sportsbook operators, and even Trump Media & Technology Group have begun exploring the sector.

Viewed in that context, Arena is less a brand-new experiment than a second attempt to enter a market that may simply have been too early the first time around.

Why Zuckerberg's strategy still makes sense

Meta rarely tries to invent entirely new technology categories. Instead, the company typically watches how consumer behavior evolves before introducing its version of products that have already demonstrated market demand.

That approach helped Meta successfully compete in areas such as short-form video and stories, among many other features originally popularized by rival platforms.

Arena follows the same playbook. Rather than acting as a first mover, Meta is entering the prediction markets sector only after other companies have proven the concept. Thanks to the combined user base of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, the new application could scale much faster than most independent startups.

At the same time, Meta's history serves as a reminder that even the world's largest technology companies cannot guarantee success simply through the size of their ecosystems. Whether Arena can break that pattern will become clear only after the platform launches.