The Metaverse – just another ‘fad’, or the future of how we live, work, and play?

Last week we invited all Copenhagen Fintech partners to the Lab for an Open Innovation Masterclass on ‘The Metaverse & Money’, cohosted by Nisha Surendran?and?Ronit Ghose?from Citi, and covered live by TV2 Danmark.

The focus of the event: The Metaverse – just another ‘fad’, or the future of how we live, work, and play??

?But first, why do we care about the Metaverse??

The Metaverse has the capability to change how we live our day-to-day lives, from shopping for art, to hosting global conferences, and everything in between. ?

In the words of?Ronit Ghose: ‘We believe the Metaverse will be used for everything we do digitally today, simply in a more 3-dimensional, consistent and immersive way.’?

Training surgeons have the opportunity to practice countless times under realistic simulations before attempting the real thing, children in remote communities have access to full-time education they wouldn't have otherwise, and people from all over the world can ‘travel’ to global conferences without ever having to leave their homes.?

Just as with the real world, the Metaverse will also require a form of currency, or money to allow for any transactions. This currency is expected to be very different to the physical money which exists in the real world today, providing countless new opportunities within fintech. Different forms of cryptocurrency are expected to dominate, but given the multi-chain trend in the crypto ecosystem, cryptocurrency will likely coexist with fiat currencies, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and stable coins, as explained by Nisha Surendran, Digital Assets Product Manager at Citi.

For this to be a reality, a device-agnostic Metaverse would have to be accessible via personal computers, game consoles, and smartphones. It's believed that this emerging digital reality will include events, concerts, gaming, entertainment, media, commerce, education and much more. With such wide-spread usage,?Citi?predicts a total addressable market of $8 trillion and $13 trillion by 2030!

The Metaverse may not be rolled out at such a large scale as of yet, but it is most definitely already open for business. During the event last week, we were joined by Mads Troelsgaard, CEO and co-founder of SynergyXR, a powerful presentation platform that helps companies share big ideas in augmented and virtual reality. Mads gave our partners first hand experience in the corporate Metaverse through a trial corner set up in the Lab. Participants were shown first-hand how this next iteration of the internet can facilitate business; from exploring a wind turbine and generator setup, to viewing art in the virtual Copenhagen Fintech Lab.

So, what's next?

One of the biggest take-aways from the event (besides the immense capabilities of this technology), was that while the implementation of an 'Open Metaverse' would have numerous benefits, there is still a-lot of work which needs to be done for this concept to be rolled out at scale.

The content streaming environment of the Metaverse is likely to require an improvement of todays computational efficiency by over 1,000%, as well as significant improvement within areas such as storage, network infrastructure, and computing power. In essence: the Metaverse requires the entire plumbing of the internet network to be restructured.

But that's not all. An 'Open Metaverse' will face all of the challenges of Web 2 and more. Areas such as data security, privacy, content moderation and ownership will attract the attention of global policymakers and regulators, in order to make this trillion dollar market a safe domain for widespread use. In addition, a blockchain-based Metaverse will be required to adhere to currently-evolving laws surrounding cryptocurrencies and decentralised finance around the world.

So while this event taught us firsthand that there is no doubt surrounding the capability of the Metaverse, we still have some kinks to work out before it can be operated and implemented in our everyday lives. In the meantime, we are super excited to keep testing and trying it out here at the Lab!

Interested in knowing more about the Metaverse, its potential and the impact it might have on our lives? Citi has just released a?comprehensive report on the Metaverse & Money, read it here.

Want to know how major players in finance are already using the Metaverse? Check out these articles on JPMorgan and HSBC.