Metaverse and Money

 As Metaverse crystallizes, what could be the opportunities for money and finance ? Is it another hype inducing buzzword to sell technology and services? Or will it be too late to leverage , when ( and if ) it becomes real?

Approximately 100 years ago, 1920s marked the onset of great depression, spanish flu, epidemics, earthquakes and nobody would have predicted that 100 years later world would have been lot more prosperous, living longer and better, trillion dollar tech companies exploring alternative universes and electric cars. Yet here we are. As Metaverse takes shape, should we even bother?

Humans are possibly the only species that can dream and visualize worlds. our books and dreams help us expand our mental horizons, our simulators help us get trained, our games help us achieve fantasies and our fiction comics help us get entertained. Before we rubbish all these, the sheer businesses that comics/games/ comic character based movies generate is no laughing stock. The most successful ( almost guaranteed hit) theme for hollywood is Comic sequels. We are not as realists as we consider ourselves to be.

Money and the financial world has multiple opportunities to explore in Metaverse, given this background.

1. Conceivably, there would be metaverse natives ( just like digital native millennials) who engage in metaverse /web and mobile 2.0 seamlessly. For these generations, metaverse is not an odd ball but part of their digital lives. Offering financial services to them / managing their wealth/investments is an obvious area.
2. Metaverse can be an excellent test market for new offerings once there is enough 'population' and activity. Tiktok got its first billion users in half the time it took Facebook (Meta) to get.
3. Digital goods /services and their market ecosystems can be easily enabled in Metaverse which can be transacted through NFTs/ tokens/ digital barter and other tokenized value forms that are yet to emerge. Creating/valuing/enabling/accounting/holding are all opportunities for financial services firms.
4. Conceivably physical wealth/assets would be proxied in Metaverse and all of these need planning/management/optimization. Digital assets would also be part of estate planning for future generations as they hold value.
5. Traction will be followed by Regulation eventually and the participants need help in ensuring compliance.

1920s could not predict 2020s and the same is true going forward. Resilient enterprises need to keep experimenting and funding green shoots that keep them relevant as market cycles become shorter. Early bird gets the worm!!!