Business professor | Founder | Author
Will the grand vision of the #Metaverse be ever realised - open, #decentralised, interoperable and, most importantly, ONE? This doesn’t seem to be the case.? The centre of economic gravity has firmly shifted to South-East Asia, particularly to #China. The real world of #geopolitics will play a key role in shaping the direction of the Metaverse.? The #internet was supposed to bring the world together, but instead we see that #technology is causing the world to divide. Abishur Prakash, geopolitical futurist, explains: ”The main reason why the reverse is now happening with technology is that governments no longer want to attach themselves to the global systems, platforms, and ideas that have governed the world since WWII. Now, nations are looking at technology through the lens of sovereignty, ideology, and competitiveness.” ? China has particularly strict regulations on #cryptocurrencies and other #digital assets such as #NFTs. For example, underlying assets of NFTs must not include bonds, insurance, securities, precious metals, or other financial assets .? In addition, China has recently passed laws that money, people, land and #data are considered national assets. In effect, this means total nationalisation of data, as well as requirements for localisation of data processing and storage. These regulations apply to all data on Chinese citizens, whether they are collected by local or foreign companies.? The notion of “statelessness” will not hold in the Chinese metaverse.? We will end up with 2 metaverses: 1?? Western decentralised metaverse(s) 2?? more centralised, censored metaverse(s) running on Chinese hardware and subject to political preferences and social controls from Beijing? The key question is whether these 2 metaverses will be wholly or partially interoperable.? I think not.
