Metaverse – A New Era Emerging

It's been a long day. Meera spent the morning attending back-to-back meetings, stole 10 minutes in the cafeteria to talk to her colleague about a movie she’s going to that evening. She reaches the theatre and watches the latest release - The Matrix Resurrections. After the movie ends, she buys some groceries and thinks about what she’s going to eat for the dinner. An ordinary day.

Twist in the story: Meera did it all without leaving her house. Welcome to the Metaverse.

Future of Investing:

Did you miss the early internet boom in the 90s? Wish you were an early investor? Don’t worry. If you missed the first bus, another lucrative internet boom is coming your way. Gen-Z and Gen-X investors are already breaking away from the traditional investing ecosystems and are likely to drive the future of the Metaverse. So, let’s dive into it today to see the future!

What is a Metaverse?

If present-day internet is a 2D experience where you surf and scroll through a screen, the Metaverse will be 3D! Yes. Your digital twin will be ‘walking’ through it via connected headsets or glasses. As Mark Zuckerberg says, "Instead of just viewing content — you are in it." The Metaverse is an immersive next-generation version of the internet, likely rendered by virtual or augmented reality technology. The Metaverse is part of Web 3.0, the successor to Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.

Web 3.0:

Web 1.0 marked the arrival of the Internet. This period saw the dot-com boom and grabbed interest in e-commerce. Then came Web 2.0. It breathed new life into the internet. This time, Facebook, Uber, and others prospered. And boy, what we now cherish as a comfortable online environment falls short of even brushing the surface of the possibilities that Web 3.0 has to offer. It will essentially be an internet that will be decentralized and open-sourced.

Virtual reality (VR):

VR is an immersive experience via a headset. You can see, and operate within a digital world. Remember those Samsung VR headsets?

Augmented reality (AR):

If you've played Pokemon Go and caught a creature that you can only see through your phone, that's augmented reality.

Going forward, the lines between VR, and AR would blur as the metaverse becomes a reality!

The Unimaginable Possibilities, Cryptocurrencies, Gaming and the Economy

As a child, I always wondered if I could go inside the TV. It seems my naïve thought just became real! You will be able to teleport yourself anywhere, for a vacation or a meeting. One of the most important elements is the payments infrastructure, which will hold a significant place in the metaverse. The ability to buy, sell and own things in the metaverse could be the most transformative part. A virtual economy will need currency, and cryptocurrency and NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are answers to it.

While Metaverse is slated to enter through the gaming space, it will not only be restricted to the IT or gaming. Training, entertainment, sports, and the healthcare sector will change in unimaginable ways!

The Key Players

There are a few key players in this race, including Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Snap. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg renamed his company - Meta and believes India will play a major role in building the proposed Metaverse ecosystem.

The social media giant has already invested in Meesho and Unacademy, both of which are now unicorns. Apart from the startups, established tech players like Reliance Jio are also betting huge on AR, MR, and overall blockchain technology.

Roadblocks to the Metaverse Universe

The full functionality of the Metaverse is likely still decades away. The Metaverse raises some legal questions as well. Further, creating it will also require technical cooperation among companies. While we continue to solve issues of data privacy and data security, there are worries that Metaverse could further compromise digital security.

Investing in the Metaverse

However, the momentum is there, and the pandemic has hastened the development of the Metaverse. Still in its infancy, as per the Bloomberg Intelligence report, Metaverse could be a market worth $800 billion as early as 2024. That’s huge! As an investor, you can focus initially on the hardware needed to build the Metaverse. Then the software that will design and host it, and finally the businesses that create use cases on it.

So, are you ready for the Metaverse?

Data Sources:

Indian IT startups are jumping into the world of Metaverse and that can be revolutionary

‘India to be at core of Metaverse’