Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) has reportedly won a court case to acquire Within Unlimited, the maker of the virtual reality fitness app Supernatural. According to several reputable media outlets, people familiar with the matter confirmed that Judge Edward Davila from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California denied an injunction by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as part of an effort to block Meta acquiring Within.

Nonetheless, the judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing Meta from closing the deal for at least a week. Following the report, Meta shares closed the first day of February trading at $153.12, up 2.79 percent. Additionally, Meta shares continued with the gains during the after-hours with a spike of approximately 20.16 percent to trade around $184.

“The case was based on ideology and speculation, not evidence. The idea that this acquisition would lead to anticompetitive outcomes in a dynamic space with as much entry and growth as online and connected fitness is simply not credible,” Meta’s spokesperson said.

Notably, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Meta last July claiming the company wanted to buy its way to the top in an anti-competitive manner. Following the court’s decision to grant Meta approval to acquire the Within app, FTC filed an emergency motion to stop Meta from proceeding with the deal for a week.

Meta and the Market Outlook

Meta has recorded an impressive three months despite a choppy 2022. According to market data provided by MarketWatch, Meta shares have gained approximately 69 percent in the past three months. Nonetheless, the company’s shares dropped about 52 percent last year. As such, the company’s market capitalization stands at around $395.99 billion.

The tech giant reported financial results for the quarter and full year that ended on December 31, 2022. During the fourth quarter, the company posted revenues of about $32.17 billion, a decline of 4 percent YoY. The company announced that it repurchased shares worth $6.9 billion during the fourth quarter. As of December 31, 2022, the company announced that it had approximately $10.87 billion available and authorized for its share repurchase program.

With increased job cuts in the tech industry, the company reported a total headcount of 86,482 as of December 31, 2022, an increase of 20 percent year-over-year.

“Our community continues to grow and I’m pleased with the strong engagement across our apps. Facebook just reached the milestone of 2 billion daily actives,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder and CEO. “The progress we’re making on our AI discovery engine and Reels are major drivers of this. Beyond this, our management theme for 2023 is the ‘Year of Efficiency’ and we’re focused on becoming a stronger and more nimble organization.”

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MATIC is one of the best performers amongst the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap after Meta announced an important update.

MATIC, the native coin of the Polygon network, is the second-best performer amongst the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap, only behind Litecoin. 

The coin has added more than 10% to its value in the last 24 hours, outperforming the broader cryptocurrency market.

The rally comes after Meta (Facebook’s parent company), announced that it would soon allow users to mint and sell Polygon-powered NFTs on Instagram. 

The social media giant revealed it would soon test these new features with a small group of creators in the United States, with the intention of expanding to other countries in the coming months.

MATIC’s positive performance as the broader crypto market continues its bearish trend. The total crypto market cap stands at $1 trillion, down by less than 1% in the last 24 hours. 

Bitcoin is also down by less than 1% today and is still trading above the $20k support level. Ether has maintained its position as the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap and is still trading above $1,500 despite losing 2% of its value so far today.

Key levels to watch

The MATIC/USD 4-hour chart has turned positive after Polygon added more than 10% to its value in the last 24 hours. The technical indicators show that MATIC is outperforming the broader crypto market.

MATIC/USD Chart By TradingView

The 14-day relative strength index of $68 shows that MATIC could soon enter the overbought region if the rally continues. The MACD line has entered the positive zone, indicating bullish momentum.

At press time, MATIC is trading at $0.965 per coin. If the positive trend continues, MATIC could surge past the $1.089 resistance level for the first time since May.

However, MATIC would need the support of the broader cryptocurrency market to move past the second major resistance level above $1.105. 

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MATIC

Days after Facebook’s parent company Meta called its quits for its stablecoin project Diem, Block Inc’s Jack Dorsey has come lashing out at the company.

The Twitter founder and former executive believe that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg should have spent so much effort in creating a new stablecoin. Dorsey believes that the company would have been better off had they focused on improving the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Jack Dorsey is an ardent fan of Bitcoin and has been working on ways to improve the ecosystem. Dorsey’s payment company Block Inc. is working on affordable and easily accessible (less technical) Bitcoin wallets along with creating affordable hardware for Bitcoin miners.

On Tuesday, Feb 1, Dorsey said that Meta’s approach to Diem wasn’t open enough. He further criticizes the company for putting too much focus for driving people to its own suite of products. Speaking at the MicroStrategy World Conference on Tuesday, Dorsey added:

“They tried to create a currency that was owned by Facebook — probably for the right reasons, probably for noble reasons — but there were also some reasons that would indicate trying to get more and more people onto the Facebook ecosystem. They did that instead of using an open protocol and standard like Bitcoin.

Hopefully they learned a lot, but I think there was a lot of wasted effort and time. Those two years or three years, or however long it’s been, could have been spent making Bitcoin more accessible for more people around the world, which would also benefit their Messenger product and Instagram and WhatsApp.”

Silvergate to Acquire Meta’s Diem Assets

As per the recent development, crypto-focused Silvergate bank shall be acquiring Meta’s Diem Assets for a reported bid of around $200 million. This will mark the end of Diem’s three-year efforts that started around June 2019.

Meta’s long-going regulatory discussions didn’t turn out to be in favor of the company! However, the interesting question is whether this will be the end of Meta’s crypto pursuit? Last year Tesla set precedence by adding Bitcoin to its balance sheet.

Currently, Meta is holding massive cash on its balance and many analysts are hopeful that it will be the next big organization to buy Bitcoin. Do you think we can hear a Bitcoin purchase announcement from Meta ahead this year in 2022?