On June 29th, 2017, I saw the crypto light, and became of the belief that for the first time in history we had a toolset to solve for the community, instead of the man in the middle. And I thought that was going to be the biggest thing to happen in the history of humanity. And that belief became stronger for four years. And then six months ago, I saw something even bigger than crypto, I saw the metaverse.
Defining “Metaverse”
The Oxford dictionary defines metaverse as:
… a virtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.
In an epic 33,000 word post titled “A Framework For The Metaverse”, Matthew Ball defines it as:
… a massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds which can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effectively unlimited number of users with an individual sense of presence, and with continuity of data, such as identity, history, entitlements, objects, communications, and payments.
But I think a more expansive view of the metaverse is helpful to see the evolution that is well underway. I see VR as the most immersive metaverse (per the graphic below), but I think you enter the metaverse once you start engaging with your mobile phone or any other device that brings you in to a computer-generated digital realm:
So I see the metaverse as everything on the spectrum above that is not “Real Reality,” that is not all the way over to the left. Given that definition, below are the five reasons why I think the metaverse matters:
#1 An Ever-Increasing Percentage Of Our Time Will Be Spent In The Metaverse
I posit that every day, for the last 25+ years, and every day for the rest of my life, humanity will spend a little more time in the metaverse.
That obviously doesn’t include the 4.5 hours we spend in front of computer screens per day, and the 3 hours and 12 minutes a day we spend on gaming devices.
#2 Every Day, Time Spent In The Metaverse Will Get More Immersive
Every day, per the first graphic above, humanity will be moving a little more to the right, a little closer to VR. That’s why Facebook bought Oculus, and why they changed their name to Meta.
#3 Crypto/Web3 Is The Technology That Will Power The Open Metaverse, Creating Staggering Levels Of Wealth
In the open metaverse, everything you own (e.g. art, clothes, weapons, …) will be an NFT. Everything you buy and sell in the metaverse will increasingly be transacted in cryptocurrency. The metaverse will be cross-chain, so you’ll be able to take your items with you wherever you go.
While we wait for Web3 technology to go mainstream in the real world, the metaverse is a crypto-first environment, mainstream from the start. And as we spend more time in the metaverse, the value creation in crypto, just via the metaverse, will be staggering. Case in point, The Sandbox increased 10X+, to over $20 billion, in less than a month, as the world woke up to the massive opportunity it addressing:
#4 The Metaverse Is The Next The Battle In The Humanity’s War With FAMGA (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Goole, & Amazon)
Since January 2017, I’ve been writing about the calamitous impact of FAMGA’s ever increasing share of tech market cap. When Facebook announced “Meta,” I penned “Facebook’s Rebranding To Meta Is The 1st Salvo In The Coming Epic Battle For The Future Of The Metaverse.”
We all know what happened to the promise of Web2 and the end of gatekeepers. We did greatly diminish the power of the old guard. But they were replaced by far more powerful gatekeepers, FAMGA. I believe that Zuckerberg is the next gen Sackler family. Like the Sackler family gave people opioids, because people wanted it and they could. Zuck is giving people fake news, because they want it, and he can.
So it’s the broader crypto community against FAMGA for the soul of the Metaverse, and the fate of humanity may truly rest on the outcome.
#5 Amara’s Law
Roy Amara was a professor at Stanford in the ’70s when he coined the eponymous term, which states:
We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run
In other words, however big we think the metaverse is going to be, it’s going to be bigger. WAY BIGGER.
Here’s a great overview of “The Metaverse” by Grayscale.