METAVERSE: STATE OF THE ART AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

The term #metaverse, which has been on everyone's lips for six months now, was actually born 30 years ago: Neal Stephenson used the word "metaverse" for the first time in 1992 in his bestseller, Snow Crash. However, it is important to note that the concept has been around since the previous decade: in 1984, one of the most influential science fiction authors, William Gibson, released “Neuromancer”, a novel set in cyberspace with which billions of “cyberusers” interact; two years earlier, in 1982, a masterpiece of science fiction cinema came out, Tron. The concept of representing an immersive digital reality has therefore been in the making for at least 40 years. Steven Spielberg's 2018 film "Ready Player One" (based on the 2011 novel of the same name) is the tip of the iceberg. However the event that acted as a real detonator happened in October 2021: Facebook changed its name to Meta. This is how, within a few months, companies, corporations, small and large investors begin the race to the metaverse.

“The metaverse will be the successor to the mobile internet” Mark Zuckerberg

According to Mark Zuckerberg, the impact of the metaverse is equal to the success of the mobile Internet. It is no coincidence that McKinsey has recently carried out market analyses, underlining the huge amounts invested in a sector that is still in its infancy. In the first five months of 2022 alone, $120 billion have been invested, more than double the amount of last year, $57 billion. 95% of business leaders said the metaverse will positively impact their business within 5-10 years.

Yet what is the Metaverse? We can define it as the internet in 3 dimensions or as the extension of our real daily life in the digital world where, thanks to virtual reality and blockchain technologies, it is possible to have a business, work or simply meet and have fun with other people.

According to Paris Hilton, known as the princess of pop culture and the queen of social media with 18 million followers on Instagram and almost 6 million on TikTok, the metaverse will be the "future of parties and social media". And if she says so… ;)

The metaverse will generate a $5 trillion economy by 2030. The sector that will benefit the most will be the academic virtual learning market, generating between $180 and $270 billion. It is interesting to note that the forecasts show the academic market as more prolific than the gaming industry. The latter has already shown the positive impact of the metaverse: Activision said NFTs? will be implemented in future projects and, just after that announcement, the company was acquired by Microsoft for $69 billion. Grayscale, a well-known investments fund, has offered a metaverse-focused trust, adding Decentraland as one of its assets.

Metaverse as “a digital extension to everything that’s real” John Hanke, Niantic CEO

The Metaverse as a digital extension of reality. The claim comes directly from the CEO of Niantic, creator of the popular AR (augmented reality) game Pokémon GO. It is no coincidence that the leaders of the gaming industry support the adoption of the metaverse by other sectors. However, in order to achieve that, it is necessary to put its potential into practice. In addition to technological advancement, there is often a misunderstanding of what the metaverse is or is not. McKinsey emphasizes two key points:

• There is only one metaverse: what we live today are alpha versions or, as Matthew Ball would say, proto-metaverses. The concept of metaverse is about connecting all virtual worlds (#Decentraland, #Sandbox, #Fortnite, etc.), making all current platforms interoperable.
• The metaverse is not the #Web3: although the Web3 reflects fundamentals of the metaverse, such as decentralization and interoperability, the metaverse also concerns immersive experiences on either decentralized or centralized platforms (such as the Meta project).

The adoption and progress of both the metaverse and Web3 is a cornerstone, not just for companies and investors but for governments as well. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) of #Japan has announced the opening of a Web3 policy office. Among the political strategies, metaverse is on top of the list.

The Emirate of #Dubai and the Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed al Maktoum, on the other hand, after announcing a virtual HQ on The Sandbox, announced the "Dubai Metaverse Strategy", a plan to develop infrastructures and regulations in the metaverse and to accelerate the adoption of such technologies.

Dubai already hosts over 1000 companies in the metaverse and #blockchain sector. And the goal of the Emirate now is to become one of the strongest economies in the metaverse within 5 years.

The plan's impact will bring a $4 billion increase in Dubai's economy, creating 40,000 virtual jobs. These numbers were unthinkable a couple of years ago, but it is now clear that economic and digital transformation will go through the evolution of the World Wide Web.

Furthermore, South Korea will invest $187 million to create a nationwide Metaverse which will be called "Expanded Virtual World". To attract talented content creators and allow them to help develop the platform, many incentives have been provided including competitions and hackathons for Metaverse developers.

Important political decisions have been taken by either great powers and developing realities. Africa is among the most involved continents in the adoption of cryptocurrencies. Kenya is the African country (fifth globally) with the highest number of citizens owning crypto, 8.5% of the population.

Moving from the east coast to the heart of the region, the Central African Republic introduced what probably turns out to be the most fascinating project in the Web3 development. It is called Sango and the political strategy’s key point is the adoption of the blockchain. After the adoption of bitcoin as legal tender, the next step will be the creation of an institutional blockchain and a national token - the Sango Coin -, which will allow access to a plethora of services and benefits, such as the management of IDs, citizenship requests and participation in governance proposals through on-chain voting. In the near future, the country will sell land plots as NFTs, basically tokenizing physical lands and integrating them in its own virtual world, the Sango Metaverse.

These innovations will further push the demand for new professional profiles with new digital skills. Still, the skill mismatch in the labour market is expected to increase until 2030. This is a significant issue for companies, as the market frantically pushes towards a #digitaltransformation : the only solution is continuous #training for employees to prevent #skills obsolescence and #skillsshortage .

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