While the term “metaverse” once described an obscure fictional dystopia, today it refers to an all-encompassing virtual world in which users play, work, and socialize. Its proponents claim that the emerging metaverse will become so engrossing that it will be difficult to distinguish the virtual world from reality—though, needless to say, it does not exist yet.
There are two competing visions for how the metaverse could work, but for now neither is close to true immersion. The first is for a “closed” metaverse. That’s the version being pushed hard by Meta (aka Facebook), which is building a metaverse that runs on its line of VR headsets. The second, pushed by crypto advocates, is for an open and interoperable metaverse powered by blockchains.
Cryptopians envision a metaverse where virtual assets, like land and avatars, will be stored on decentralized networks that nobody can shut down. Popular crypto-powered metaverses such as the Sandbox and Decentraland are browser-based worlds in which users can own and explore a number of virtual plots.
For now, few people are spending much time in any of these metaverse worlds, and the design of these worlds remains primitive—but they have attracted plenty of investors. Gucci set up a Gucci Vault in The Sandbox, for instance, and someone paid $450,000 to be Snoop Dogg’s virtual neighbor. The market capitalization for LAND, the name of NFT plots of land in The SandBox, was $300 million as of October 2022 but had fallen to $120 million by May of 2023.
The hope is that one day people will live and hang out in the metaverse, and the companies that set up shop there now will become the first movers in thriving virtual worlds. That goal was the same with Second Life two decades ago, but that project is still more of a curiosity than part of daily life.
The renewed push aims to take advantage of a confluence of new technologies, but early efforts have stumbled out of the gate. One of Meta’s most celebrated innovations, for instance, was to give its avatars legs.
Go deeper:
Where crypto meets the metaverse—Piers Kicks
Where Web3 meets the metaverse—Packy McCormick
See also:
What is Web3?
What are NFTs?
What is Ethereum?
Try it:
Decentraland—roam in the metaverse