Metaverse dreams at the House of Mickey Mouse have been put on hold after Disney laid off its 50-person metaverse team as part of a broader job cut.
According to a March 27 Wall Street Journal report, Disney’s effort to streamline its business will affect its metaverse unit. The company is in the middle of laying off 7,000 staff as it attempts to reduce costs.
Disney first showed interest in the metaverse in 2022 and chose Polygon as its native blockchain. At the time, the company began hiring for its metaverse unit and also listed a job opening for an in-house counsel for NFTs and decentralized finance (DeFi).
However, the company’s plans for the space remained sketchy more than a year later, according to WSJ.
With the company cutting its metaverse unit, it joins the growing list of traditional companies getting out of the Web3 space after briefly dipping their toes.
Meta recently announced discontinuing support for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on its Facebook and Instagram.
Meanwhile, metaverse-related tokens fell by 4.71% in the last 24 hours, according to CryptoSlate data.
Their price performance reflects the general decline in the broader crypto market that witnessed a drawdown following the Commodities Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) lawsuit against Binance.
Disney shares were up 1.64% at the time of writing.
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