The Metaverse Beyond the Hype: Three Ways It Will Change Our World
Apple's Vision Pro refocuses attention on the hottest tech of 2022!
Thanks to Apple’s new Vision Pro and the stream of articles about the USD 3500 plunge into “spatial computing,” it’s once again a good time to talk about the metaverse!
Remember the metaverse? Before GenAI became the “sweetheart” of VCs, Web3 and the Metaverse dominated the news in 2022.
In 2022, McKinsey went as far as to predict a USD 5 Trillion market by 2030. While McKinsey still has six years left on the prediction, they, and many others, got it wrong!
But Apple’s Vision Pro may be showing us that the metaverse wasn’t all hype and the BIS just launched a report showing three ways that it will change our world.
👉TAKEAWAYS
Three ways the Metaverse will change our world
Blurring of lines between the tradable and non-tradable sectors
The metaverse will accelerate the process of taking non-tradables (as opposed to tradables such as oil and stock) such as such as education and allow them to become tradable by allowing for realistic interaction between users in geographically distant locations.
Greater cross-border economic integration
Geographic barriers that prevented the exchange in services across countries may fade, allowing for providers in one jurisdiction (eg educational institutions, music and language teachers, healthcare providers, financial and tax advisors) to more easily offer services to clients elsewhere.
New demands on payment services.
Services in the metaverse could lead to new demands on payment services,
including a surge in demand for real-time and cross-border transactions. There are competing candidates to fulfill this demand, including traditional payment cards, new digital payment providers, cryptocurrencies, CBDCs, and (interlinked) FPS. Winners in this competition may see a substantial boost in their overall adoption. This could influence their use in the real world, too.
For all the talk of crypto use on the Metaverse, it's stunning to see how “old school” payment methods like Paypal, Debit Cards, and Fiat currency still comprise a large share of transactions. One partial explanation is the collapse in the value of metaverse tokens.
👊STRAIGHT TALK👊
I’m glad that the launch of Apple’s Vision Pro has refocused the world on the metaverse!
Despite the dystopian pictures of people walking the streets while staring into their headsets or driving cars, the potential for the metaverse to change our world remains very real!
What is interesting is how payments will be affected, and the use of CBDC, deposit tokens, and, yes, cards aren’t going away despite the proclamations of crypto aficionados that the Metaverse will be a crypto haven.
The BIS throws in an interesting line that makes it clear that the payment systems that win users on the metaverse will likely impact the real world, too.
This is true, but the BIS is getting the order wrong:
The payment systems that dominate the real world will likely dominate the metaverse, not vice versa.
This view may not please crypto aficionados or others who see the metaverse as their launchpad to succeed in the real world.
So far, the charts of payment use (above) on the nascent metaverse show “old school” payment methods not just doing well but leading!
Yes, we’ll get new ways to pay, but the real world, not the metaverse, will likely be the driver!
Thoughts?
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