?? Make it Rain, Metaverse
Arjun Vir Singh
Enthusiastic about the Future of Financial Services | Learning about AI, Web3, Digital Assets | Advisor | Investor | Podcast Host | Author | LinkedIn Top Voice | Father to two daughters | All views on LI are personal
Hello crunchers, and welcome back from the weekend.
At the time of writing this newsletter, Bitcoin is hovering just below $20k (from the highs of nearly $70k a few months back). As an article from the Alarabiya news states "Cryptocurrencies are valuable to the global economy, but too many people mistakenly believe that Bitcoin and its cousins will make them super-rich. Whether it was the lost city of El Dorado in the 16th century, Dutch tulips in the 17th century, Facebook shares during the 2012 initial public offering, or cryptocurrencies today, humans always cling to the myth that there is a high-speed, low-effort route to unimaginable wealth". The fact is that a number of us (including the 'believers') are reeling from what has happened with Bitcoin price over the last couple of weeks and especially over this last weekend (when it went below the USD 20k mark) and number of commentators are going as far as calling it the 'death of bitcoin'.
From big players to everyday investors, the impact is being felt far and wide. Even major cryptocurrency-related companies, like?Coinbase, Gemini, BlockFi and Crypto.com, recently announced layoffs?and headcount reductions—several of them having just spent millions on Super Bowl ads as crypto’s market cap was near its peak.
There is more content than one can read on why this is happening, why is this bad and/or good for the crypto market and what happens next. For me this is a a roller-coaster ride that I am on and I plan to see it play it out over the next few days, weeks, months and years (if not longer)...
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Note: The variance captures DoD movement in the price.
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THE METAVERSE... A MULTI-TRILLION-DOLLAR OPPORTUNITY?
The metaverse is one of the hottest buzzwords in tech these days, and this far-reaching vision of a next-gen internet relies upon an entire ecosystem of players to make it a reality.
The business world is obsessed with “the metaverse”: the concept of shared worlds driven by virtual products and digital experiences that are highly immersive and interactive. We already have virtual worlds featuring live concerts and online games where players spend hundreds of hours — but metaverse enthusiasts see a future where entire societies thrive in an online realm inhabited by avatars of real people.
While the space is still in early days, the longer-term implications may not be trivial. Some users — especially younger ones — may eventually earn, spend, and invest most of their money in digital worlds. The metaverse could represent a $1T market by the end of the decade, according to?CB Insights’ Industry Analyst Consensus. Other reports suggest that the size of the metaverse economy could be substantially larger; some suggesting figures as high at $13Trn by 2030 (according to Citi, the metaverse represents a potential $8 trillion to $13 trillion opportunity by 2030, that could boast as many as 5 billion users). Irrespective of who is more accurate with their number, the bottom line is that it is large enough to pay attention too.
This dollar potential has caught the attention of players across industries. Facebook rebranded to “Meta” late last year, and earnings call mentions of the metaverse?rose 4x?year-over-year in Q4’21.?Media discussion?surrounding the topic has similarly surged, as news outlets have speculated whether the metaverse?— and the emergence of full-fledged virtual economies, complete with property ownership, corporate offices, fashion seasons, and more — is poised to become the next big thing in tech, or if it’s hugely overhyped.
The metaverse is a vision, not a specific technology. For enterprises, this ambiguity can make it challenging to figure out how to tap into the emerging trends the metaverse represents. The metaverse represents a huge opportunity for businesses to reach new customers and create new experiences in the fields of infrastructure, access and interface, visualization tools, virtual worlds, economic infrastructure, and building experiences.
? QUICK INVESTMENT ROUNDS
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?? REPORT OF THE DAY
Metaverse and Money: Decrypting the Future
The Metaverse as a concept has been around for a few decades but only now are people beginning to explore and interact with it. Today, the most popular way to experience the Metaverse is via a video game played on a VR headset. But in this report by Citi, you can see the possibility that the Metaverse is moving towards becoming the next iteration of the internet, or Web3. This “Open Metaverse” would be community-owned, community-governed, and a freely interoperable version that ensures privacy by design. Check out my top 5 Insights from the report, plus a link to the full report here.
? BEFORE YOU GO…
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