9th January 2023 > > The metaverse.

tl;dr

The metaverse has potential revenues of $4-5 TRILLION by 2030.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

The stock market rally finally pushed BTC past the 17-handle, accompanied by an increase in leveraged shorts raising the risk of a short squeeze higher.

In contrast to the US – and perhaps the UK too – interest rate rises for the Euro area are likely far from over as the ECB (European Central Bank) predicts “very strong” wage growth. The ECB was slower than other Central Banks to raise rates following the lockdown induced supply chain issues and accompanying inflation. To be fair their hands were tied by the fear of peripheral contagion, but the latest bout of QE (quantitative easing) is aimed at capping the gap between Italian 10-year yields and those of Germany. This cap has so far been successful, and we must all hope fervently that this happy state of affairs continues without intervention from the German judicial system.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary — The Metaverse

McKinsey & Company have released a report into the potential for the metaverse.

Though discussion around the concept has generated much enthusiasm, little progress of a practical nature has been made, except perhaps in the area of virtual meetings which got a boost from the totally inappropriate political response to Covid, in the form of lockdowns. McKinsey expects this situation to change dramatically during this decade:

That estimate of $4-5 TRILLION suggests a host of money making opportunities.

Some may think that this must be an overestimate, and it is true that putting a figure on the potential of the metaverse is fraught with difficulties.

McKinsey highlights four areas for advances in technology that are a prerequisite for a functioning metaverse. These are devices (AR/VR, sensors, haptics, and peripherals), interoperability and open standards, facilitating platforms and development tools. However, these are necessary but not sufficient requirements – adoption and usage will be intimately tied into the quality of the user experience.

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Two important adoption areas are live events and virtual dating.

McKinsey estimates that up to 50% of live events will be held in the metaverse by 2030. On the face of it that strikes me as an underestimate – the ability to reach much greater audiences in the virtual world compared to the physical world will be difficult to ignore for anyone trying to monetise their creative output.

As for virtual dating, the potential is clearly vast given the success of online and dating apps.

Subscribers to the free Curious Crypto’s Airdrop Circular have already made their first foray into the Metaverse dating with the recent airdrop of NBLU (Nuritopia) at zero cost to the new holders. If you are interested in these opportunities going forward, please let me know.

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And as an answer to the obvious question, yes this is the same metaverse that will form a key part of Web3 that a journalist at the Financial Times described in an article published last June as “… just a fresh serving of the same old crypto bull****”.

Which perhaps indicates that the level of professionalism at that institution is found to be somewhat lacking at times.