What is the metaverse

What Is a Metaverse?

January 28, 2022

Contributor: Ashutosh Gupta

Enterprise architecture and technology innovation leaders must explore and understand emerging Metaverse technology to facilitate adoption and implementation.

In short:

Technology innovation leaders need to identify, examine and track emerging technologies to help business leaders develop new products, transform the business or mitigate risks. The Metaverse is one such technology that’s impact upon driving strategic business innovations you need to proactively consider.

“Metaverse will allow people to replicate or enhance their physical activities. This could happen by transporting or extending physical activities to a virtual world or by transforming the physical one,» says Marty Resnick, VP Analyst at Gartner. «Although the goal of a Metaverse is to combine many of these activities, there are currently many individual Metaverses with limited functionality,”

What is a Metaverse?

Gartner expects that by 2026, 25% of people will spend at least one hour a day in the Metaverse for work, shopping, education, social media and/or entertainment. But what exactly is a Metaverse?

It is a collective virtual space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical and digital reality. In other words, it is device-independent and is not owned by a single vendor. It is an independent virtual economy, enabled by digital currencies and nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

A Metaverse represents a combinatorial innovation, as it requires multiple technologies and trends to function. Contributing tech capabilities include augmented reality (AR), flexible work styles, head-mounted displays (HMDs), an AR cloud, the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, artificial intelligence (AI) and spatial technologies.

To understand the concepts of a Metaverse, think of it as the next version of the Internet, which started as individual bulletin boards and independent online destinations. Eventually these destinations became sites on a virtual shared space — similar to how a Metaverse will develop.

Why is there hype around Metaverse?

There is a lot of excitement around Metaverse, much of it driven by technology companies preemptively claiming to be Metaverse companies, or creating Metaverses to enhance or augment the digital and physical realities of people. Moreover, activities that currently take place in siloed environments will eventually take place in a single Metaverse, such as:

It is expected that a Metaverse will provide persistent, decentralized, collaborative and interoperable opportunities and business models that will enable organizations to extend digital business.

What are the business opportunities of a Metaverse?

Today there are many individual use cases and products, all creating their own versions of a Metaverse. Opportunities across multiple industries include:

The adoption of Metaverse technologies is still nascent and fragmented, and we recommending refraining from heavy investments in a specific Metaverse. It is still too early to determine which investments will be viable in the long term, and the priority should be to learn, explore and prepare for a Metaverse without going overboard with implementation, based on a few use cases.

What Is the Metaverse?

Note: This post was updated on Aug. 9, 2022.

What is the metaverse?

The metaverse is the “next evolution of the internet, the 3D internet,” explained NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang during an address at SIGGRAPH, the world’s largest computer graphics conference

Commercialized two decades ago, the internet was about web pages hyperlinked over a network, Huang said.

A decade ago, Web 2.0 emerged, and “the internet was about cloud services connected to applications that are oftentimes enjoyed on mobile devices.”

“Now, Web 3.0 is here,” Huang said. “The metaverse is the internet in 3D, a network of connected, persistent, virtual worlds.”

The metaverse will extend 2D web pages into 3D spaces and worlds, Huang said. Hyperlinking will “evolve into hyper-jumping between 3D worlds.”

“Like games today, 3D worlds are experienced through 2D displays and TVs,” Huang said. “And, on occasion, with VR and AR glasses.“

Those ideas are already being put to work with NVIDIA Omniverse, a platform for connecting 3D worlds into a shared virtual universe, or metaverse.

“The opportunity of the metaverse is vast — larger than that of the physical world,” NVIDIA Vice President for Omniverse and Simulation Rev Lebaredian told the audience at SIGGRAPH.

“Just like in the infancy of the internet, no one can predict exactly how and how large the metaverse will grow — but today, we know we can lay the foundations,” he said.

“What are metaverse applications?” Huang asked. “They’re already here.”

“The metaverse will grow organically as the internet did — continuously and simultaneously across all industries, but exponentially, because of computing’s compounding and network effects,” Huang said.

“And, as with the internet, the metaverse is a computing platform that requires a new programming model, a new computing architecture and new standards,” Huang said.

BMW Group uses NVIDIA Omniverse Enterprise to create a future factory, a perfect “digital twin” designed entirely in digital and simulated from beginning to end in NVIDIA Omniverse.

How NVIDIA Omniverse Creates, Connects Worlds Within the Metaverse

So how does Omniverse work?

NVIDIA Omniverse weaves together the Universal Scene Description interchange framework invented by Pixar with technologies for modeling physics, materials and real-time path tracing.

Omniverse is built on USD, or Universal Scene Description, an interchange framework invented by Pixar in 2012.

Released as open-source software in 2016, USD provides a rich, common language for defining, packaging, assembling and editing 3D data for a growing array of industries and applications.

Lebaredian and others say USD is to the emerging metaverse what hypertext markup language, or HTML, was to the web — a common language that can be used, and advanced, to support the metaverse.

Omniverse is a platform built from the ground up to be physically based. Thanks to NVIDIA RTX graphics technologies, it is fully path traced, simulating how each ray of light bounces around a virtual world in real time.

Omniverse simulates physics with NVIDIA PhysX. It simulates materials with NVIDIA MDL, or material definition language.

Built in NVIDIA Omniverse Marbles at Night is a physics-based demo created with dynamic, ray-traced lights and over 100 million polygons.

And Omniverse is fully integrated with NVIDIA AI, which is key to advancing robotics.

Omniverse is cloud native, scales across multiple GPUs, runs on any RTX platform and streams remotely to any device.

You can teleport into Omniverse with virtual reality, and AIs can teleport out of Omniverse with augmented reality.

Metaverse Made Real

NVIDIA released Omniverse to open beta in December 2020 and NVIDIA Omniverse Enterprise in November 2021. Professionals in a wide variety of industries quickly put it to work.

And industrial manufacturing leader Siemens and NVIDIA are already collaborating to accelerate industrial automation.

The partnership brings together Siemens Xcelerator’s vast industrial ecosystem and NVIDIA Omniverse’s AI-enabled, physically accurate, real-time virtual world engine. This will enable full-design-fidelity, live digital twins that connect software-defined AI systems from edge to cloud.

Visual effects pioneer Industrial Light & Magic is testing Omniverse to bring together internal and external tool pipelines from multiple studios.

Omniverse lets them collaborate, render final shots in real time and create massive virtual sets like holodecks.

Multinational networking and telecommunications company Ericsson uses Omniverse to simulate 5G wave propagation in real time, minimizing multi-path interference in dense city environments.

Infrastructure engineering software company Bentley Systems is using Omniverse to create a suite of applications on the platform. Bentley’s iTwin platform creates a 4D infrastructure digital twin to simulate an infrastructure asset’s construction, then monitor and optimize its performance throughout its lifecycle.

The Metaverse Can Help Humans and Robots Collaborate

These virtual worlds are ideal for training robots.

One of the essential features of NVIDIA Omniverse is that it obeys the laws of physics. Omniverse can simulate particles and fluids, materials and even machines, right down to their springs and cables.

Modeling the natural world in a virtual one is a fundamental capability for robotics.

It allows users to create a virtual world where robots — powered by AI brains that can learn from their real or digital environments — can train.

Once the minds of these robots are trained using NVIDIA Isaac Sim, roboticists can load those brains onto an NVIDIA Jetson edge AI module, and connect them to real robots.

Those robots will come in all sizes and shapes — box movers, pick-and-place arms, forklifts, cars, trucks and even buildings.

In the future, a factory will be a robot, orchestrating many robots inside, building cars that are robots themselves.

How the Metaverse, and NVIDIA Omniverse, Enable Digital Twins

NVIDIA Omniverse provides a description for these shared worlds that people and robots can connect to — and collaborate in — to better work together.

The automaker produces more than 2 million cars a year. In its most advanced factory, the company makes a car every minute. And each vehicle is customized differently.

BMW Group is using NVIDIA Omniverse to create a future factory, a perfect “digital twin.”

It’s designed entirely in digital and simulated from beginning to end in Omniverse.

The Omniverse-enabled factory can connect to enterprise resource planning systems, simulating the factory’s throughput. It can simulate new plant layouts. It can even become the dashboard for factory employees, who can uplink into a robot to teleoperate it.

The AI and software that run the virtual factory are the same as what will run the physical one. In other words, the virtual and physical factories and their robots will operate in a loop. They’re twins.

No Longer Science Fiction

And the hardware needed to run it is here now.

Computer makers worldwide are building NVIDIA-Certified workstations and laptops, which all have been validated for running GPU-accelerated workloads with optimum performance, reliability and scale.

And in the data center, NVIDIA OVX computer systems, announced in March, can power large-scale digital twins. NVIDIA OVX is purpose-built to operate complex digital twin simulations that will run within NVIDIA Omniverse.

OVX will be used to simulate complex digital twins for modeling entire buildings, factories, cities and even the world.

Back to the Future

The metaverse is “the next era in the evolution of the internet — a 3D spatial overlay of the web — linking the digital world to our physical world,” Lebaradian said.

In this new iteration of the internet, websites will become interconnected 3D spaces akin to the world we live in and experience every day, he explained.

“Many of these virtual worlds will be reflections of the real world, linked and synchronized in real-time,” he added.

Many of these virtual worlds will be designed for entertainment, socializing and gaming-matching the real world’s laws of physics in some cases, but often choosing to break them to make the experience more “fun.”

Extended reality (XR) devices and robots will act as portals between our physical world and virtual worlds.

“Humans will portal into a virtual world with VR and AR devices, while AIs will portal out to our world via physical robots,” Lebaradian said.

What Is the Metaverse, and Why Does It Matter to the Crypto Space?

The concept of a metaverse first came from the fertile imaginations of fiction writers, who brought us such works as Snow Crash, Neuromancer, Ready Player One and The Matrix franchise. The term “meta” means “beyond,” while “verse” references the universe. In other words, the metaverse propels us to a space beyond the universe, taking us to new planes of existence and new experiences in virtual reality.

The metaverse is a newly imagined augmented reality where we can meet virtually and explore realms beyond the reach of the physical. In the metaverse, we’ll be able to enjoy a completely immersive experience while collaborating and interacting with others.

While today’s metaverse is largely centered on gaming platforms, there are other tools and options as well, including:

The metaverse is not a new concept, but interest in it soared when Facebook entered the market and rebranding themselves to Meta, creating hype in the crypto scene. This hype has led to skyrocketing costs for meta-related crypto and increased interest in metaverse platforms. However, gaming is only the tip of the virtual iceberg when it comes to the metaverse’s many possibilities.

With a truly evolved metaverse, we would be able to transcend countries, borders, cultures, brands — and even the laws of physics. We could use the metaverse to do virtually anything we wanted, from working and playing to those everyday necessities of life, such as talking to a doctor or studying for a test.

The key to unlocking the metaverse is found in non-fungible tokens and metaverse crypto. Also called NFTs, non-fungible tokens grant property rights to digital assets. People are able to use NFTs to buy and sell virtual property and artwork, travel virtually, or attend virtual festivals and concerts. Metaverse crypto is a type of cryptocurrency that funds each metaverse platform, and may include blockchain fees, node rewards, staking, and other standard crypto features and is ultimately used in the process of creating their own virtual world platforms.

While the metaverse is still new, it offers vast and possibly unlimited potential to transform the way we work, play and live. Its evolution has accelerated during the pandemic, and Facebook’s announcement is likely to continue to accelerate as more people become aware of its potential and sign onto metaverse projects.

The best time to invest in the metaverse is right now, and the best way to invest is through NFTs and metaverse crypto.

What Exactly Is the Metaverse?

The metaverse can be thought of as the next generation of the internet. Instead of the original information superhighway, however, the metaverse will offer a completely immersive experience. You’ll be able to access the metaverse through virtual reality (VR). Rather than typing on a keyboard and reading through a screen, you’ll use a display, such as a VR headset or smart glasses, and motion-tracking devices will empower you to move around freely in the metaverse. You’ll even be able to interact with other people and objects.

No single entity can or will own the metaverse, although companies and businesses will be able to use and engage with the metaverse as freely as anyone else. There will also be no single regulatory body to govern the metaverse. Instead, it’s organized using blockchain technology, which guards against fraud and offers built-in protection against security threats. You’ll be able to complete monetary transactions using cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH).

For now, much of the potential of the metaverse is conceptual, but gaming communities are working hard to bring it to life through the power of the internet. The earliest building blocks offer vast opportunities for growth and creative development, and people will be able to access diverse services and integrated products with exciting new capabilities. Many corporations, including Facebook (or Meta) are interested in taking the metaverse to the next level, but organic growth and evolution are the ultimate keys to the success of this new world. In other words, you are the key to the success of the metaverse.

No single company, government or entity has the power that you do when it comes to the metaverse. For true success, the metaverse must remain decentralized, focusing on the people who will use it, support it, grow it and evolve it.

Utilities of the Metaverse

The earliest concepts of the metaverse were escapist, offering people a dystopian future as an escape from chaos. Today’s metaverse is different. Largely focused on connecting with others — often in the form of gaming — the metaverse now offers open-world gaming and experiences, and new ways to connect meaningfully in an increasingly wired world.

With the metaverse, we can engage in a variety of real-world activities and social interactions through games that users both develop and play. These games are supported by a virtual economy with roots in the real world, granting you new ways to build actual wealth through virtual goods such as virtual land real estate, digital stocks, non-fungible tokens and cryptocurrency.

The most notable advantage of the metaverse is the fact that it completely makes geographic barriers irrelevant. Once you’re in the virtual world, your physical location doesn’t matter anymore and you are no longer bound by it. The metaverse will act as a neutral and immersive space where everyone can look how they want to look, making players feel more confident. On top of that, finding and meeting people and new friends with similar interests and ideas will be more convenient, all from the safety of your home.

While much of the metaverse currently revolves around games, it offers users much more in terms of artificial intelligence (AI), versatility and utility, including entertainment, education, arts and culture, shopping and economic opportunities. Users will be able to interact directly with celebrities and public figures, attend virtual concerts or festivals, and the virtual world will be at their fingertips. They can engage with their favorite brands in a more exciting new way, and brands will be able to stay a step ahead of trends, adopting new styles, interactions and game options.

Gaming might be the biggest part of the metaverse for now, but shopping is a close second. Users are buying up digital real estate, fashion, art and design pieces to enjoy endless customization options — not just for the digital representations of themselves, but their entire digital space. All of it functions thanks to NFTs and the power of the crypto metaverse.

One major concern that many people have about metaverses is addiction and how easy it is to lose track of time while you’re in it. People who are exposed to the metaverse for too long might lose their attachment to reality and in extreme cases, may not want to face the existence of the real world as they become addicted to the Metaverse without a need to leave their VR setup apart from eating and sleeping. To some degree, we experience this kind of addiction today with smartphones, with the average American spending roughly 5.4 hours per day staring at a screen, but this might worsen with the Metaverse, causing potential mental and health issues. However, with enough supervision and safety checks, these addictive behavior may be prevented.

The Qualities It Takes to Build a Metaverse

Although Meta is the latest company signing on to the metaverse, it’s not the first or only corporation that’s interested in the vast and as yet largely untapped opportunity. Microsoft, Unity, Amazon, Epic Games and other tech giants are also deeply involved, along with tech developers, designers and entrepreneurs. Computer chip maker Nvidia is working on the Omniverse, a foundational platform designed to create augmented reality simulations to support the metaverse.

There are several core attributes to the metaverse, including:

Today’s metaverse also features a fully functioning economy — thanks to cryptocurrency. Businesses and people alike can engage in this economy using crypto. They can create, earn, invest, and buy and sell virtual property using crypto, which can then be traded in the real world for fiat money.

Conceptualized as “the next generation internet,” the metaverse goes even further. It’s an augmented reality accessed through the digital realm, created through a variety of technologies that includes not just the internet but also decentralized ledgers, smart contracts, 3D tech, and more.

What Does the Metaverse Have to Do with Crypto?

The metaverse is designed to seamlessly marry the physical and virtual worlds, allowing you to earn or craft items in one world and share them in the other. In a world where you can have the virtual presence to be and do anything you want to be and do, you need funding — and funding is acquired through crypto.

Metaverse Blockchain

Cryptocurrency relies on blockchain technology, much like the metaverse. The internet we currently use is a distributed system, but the metaverse is decentralized, which means that it is owned by all those who access and own it. This same decentralized system is used by cryptocurrency networks.

Although the metaverse is still in its infancy, blockchain technology is somewhat better established. A blockchain is a specific type of database that depends on a network of computers. Information is verified and added to the blockchain, creating an immutable record of transactions and data. Blockchain technology is the pillar in the crypto realm, but other users are emerging as well, including the metaverse.

The metaverse blockchain has several familiar features, including more than 1,100 decentralized nodes in the Ethereum network alone; and portable content, which means that anything you upload to the metaverse can be moved easily to any other platform.

With the metaverse blockchain, you create and own your digital representation of yourself and what you produced. You can access, use, and import or export anything easily without third-party interference. You have complete autonomy over your own experience, and can use virtual, augmented, mixed or extended reality — or any other technology — to enjoy the best interactions possible without the limitations of physical space. The addition of digital assets and cryptocurrencies is simply the icing on the cake, boosting the global economy and helping to bring your limitless dreams to life.

Metaverse NFT

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are unique and cannot be traded for any other tokens. They’re a virtual asset which underlies the growth of the metaverse. They represent intangible items such as in-game collectibles, images, videos or other virtual properties. NFT ownership is recorded on the blockchain, and it can be traded for digital assets.

NFTs have smart contract features to automate and enforce an agreement, making it easy to buy, sell or grant access as desired. This means you can use NFTs not only to invite others into your own space, but to access invite-only events, such as festivals.

While many users enjoy NFTs as collectibles, others appreciate them as investment opportunities, much like cryptocurrency.

Are Metaverse Tokens Different from the Rest?

Non-fungible tokens aren’t just the currency of the various virtual world communities; they’re also fueling the growth of the metaverse. Some virtual reality platforms make it possible to participate at no cost, but to buy or trade virtual assets, you’ll need cryptocurrency or Ethereum-based tokens, such as MANA, GALA, SAND or APE. You can trade these tokens for virtual goods, services or experiences. You can also purchase access to user-created virtual world games.

These tokens are recorded on the blockchain and can be traded just like the assets they represent. The NFT market has surged, with some metaverse users seeing NFTs as collectibles and others using them as investments. The tokens are ultimately a way to own digital assets within games, the metaverse, or other digital environments.

Top Companies Working on Metaverse

Meta (previously Facebook) is currently developing a Metaverse known as Horizon Worlds. It allows users to create their own virtual identity and be in a real-time 3D virtual world using VR headsets such as Oculus, but they are not the only company working on this concept. Let’s explore some other companies who are also working on the Metaverse.

NVIDIA

One of the top AI and GPU comany, NVIDIA is working with Meta to develop an app called Omniverse for creating Metaverse-ready assets. It has a free version supporting artists as well as content creators to build virtual worlds and products. They are also part of a Metaverse Standards Forum together with Meta, Microsoft, Unity, and others.

Epic Games

One of the largest gaming company with one of the most popular gaming engine, Epic Games and their Unreal Engine is at the forefront of innovation and development for the Metaverse. They have announced a two billion dollar round of funding in 2022 to pave the way for game developers to explore a plethora of opportunities in the Metaverse. They have also invested and partnered with Gala Games and are launching their first blockchain game together called GRIT that will go live on the Epic Games store.

Roblox

They are building a creator economy while offering an open gaming platform for anyone to create their own interactive digital world. Users can access through VR as well as older technologies like Xbox One, computers, tablets and smart phones. Roblox is able to provide multiple games within their platform and offer virtual worlds where players can freely interact with each other and they can even host Metaverse events such as Lil NasXConcert. This approach is gaining popularity for building a business model for the Metaverse.

The Sandbox

Decentraland

Bored Ape Yacht Club

Regulations

As Metaverses are just beginning to gain popularity, this is an important time for governments to consider how they want to shape metaverses.

The federal government may want to create a regulatory framework to tackle questions around whether or how to tax commercial activities in the metaverses, as well as how to maintain national security and protect users against privacy risks and cyber harassment.

Metaverses will open new economic opportunities, creating rising demand for programmers and artists and it is a great way for marginalized communities to have equal access and participate in the emerging digital economies with new opportunities. The government should take steps to ensure that the talents working on metaverses should come from diverse backgrounds and perspectives to catch potential bias issues, equity gaps, accessibility challenges and other harmful impacts of the technologies and their uses.

This can help ensure the resulting platforms are accessible and inclusive to as much of the population as possible.

Is Crypto the Future for the Metaverse?

Online payments are well-established in both the digital and physical worlds. The concept of cryptocurrency builds on that technology, and NFTs take both concepts just a step further. In a virtual financial ecosystem, cryptocurrency simply makes sense, providing people with a simple, secure, and readily transparent way to transfer value from one user to another.

As crypto-based platforms emerge, they’re evolving technology with nearly unlimited opportunities for growth. Cryptocurrency and NFTs are largely fueling this growth, and will be essential for helping the technology reach its full potential. Whether you want to fully immerse yourself in the metaverse or simply enjoy its financial benefits, crypto is your all-access pass to wealth in both the digital and physical worlds.

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The Metaverse: What Is It, and Why Should You Care?

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The Metaverse. Some are calling it the next evolution of the Internet, others say it’s already existed for years. One way or another, it’s the focus of some of the most influential media companies in the world, and you should look into it, too.

I’ve always been fascinated with the Metaverse, long before I even knew there was a name tied to the idea. Going all the way back to when I was a young boy. Like most other little boys, I was dreaming of being a superhero, a knight, a swashbuckler, and on the most whimsical days, some conglomeration of those and many more action-y archetypes rolled into one as I adventured through various worlds built in the collective fantasy of my friends and I.

As time went on, I relegated those realm-treading ideas to the section at the back of my mind labeled «fanciful nonsense,» right next to light-sabers and world peace-thinking that videogames and books would be the closest of proxy for exploring other worlds that I’d have in my lifetime.

That course of thinking was changed in an instant one Saturday afternoon on a visit to a friend’s house. I had popped in unannounced to find many of my peers lumped into a crowd, trilling with unabashed awe. When they had enough sense about them collectively to notice the new arrival, I was ushered to the center of the crowd, and strapped into a bulky headset, the Oculus Rift, playing a game called Robo Recall – a simple affair where you shoot at errant robots rampaging through a futuristic city.

Totally enveloped, with a level of immersion I had never approached, even with the most thrilling of media I’d ever consumed, I was gleefully tearing through these hordes of robots.

I wasn’t pointing a crosshair at these robots and clicking like had always been the case before. Instead, I was looking down the sights of the wacky, futuristic weapons by moving my hand to eye level, pinching my real fingers together to catch a bullet, and slinging my wrist forward to throw things.

It was mere seconds before the thoughts of the bulky headgear and alien controllers were completely gone, and I was completely within this game. Alas, the game came not without danger- I whipped to my right to shoot one of those rampaging robots and felt a sharp crack in the back of my hand, and pulling the headset off, I realized I had clubbed one of my boys with the Rift’s controller.

«A disclaimer»

Before we delve into the vast and complex issue of trying to divine the future of technology – a task in which many more qualified before me have failed miserably – or become exalted in their unparalleled facticity, I would like to include something akin to a disclaimer.

Takes on the internet, smartphones, television, and basically every other innovation of technology at the time of their conception and adoption have a tendency to skew outwards to those two extremes. We highlight and make prolific use of the most egregious deniers using the clarity of hindsight to make those speakers of antiquity into a mockery, or highlight people who were ahead of their time while ignoring the middling opinions that make up the contemporary thought.

While I sing the praises of the amazing technological advancements, I also hope to forewarn that there are terrible dangers afoot. The more we become lost in the coming wonderland, the more the masters of that domain will have the ability to influence our lives, ideas, and perception… an opportunity we know they will seize if given.

I believe that the Metaverse is an inevitability, save for a catastrophe of infrastructure or a foundational shift in human behavior. As is the order of our society, what once was a whimsical idea will be breathed into reality moving forward, even if it manifests as malignant and damnably corrupted.

As I see it, humanity approaches the Metaverse, treading a narrow and harrowing path. Waiting at the end, the ultimate reward for going where we have never dared, nor had the ability to go before, an Eden where humanity’s technological staking will allow us to meaningfully transcend many of the boundaries of our primary physical reality and largely eliminate the logistical hurdles of space and distance from a myriad of activities.

The danger lies on either side of that path, pulling at us with an avaricious gravity towards gray quagmires of corporate control. Places where many of humanity’s base freedoms are an illusion. The barons of those desolate kingdoms having complete control over what may exist within this new reality that we adopt.

As we explore the idea of the Metaverse here today, I plead with you to consider that the technology that will soon be at our disposal does not have the innate quality of being a supreme good, nor an ultimate, undoing evil. It is something that will be built and guided by the actions and ideals of many people, and has the capability to end up in either of these final destinations, and so many in between.

Where did the word «Metaverse» come from?

The prefix «Meta-» means beyond, and «-verse» refers to the Universe. Combine them to get the rather fitting term «Metaverse,» meaning «beyond the Universe.» All things considered, Metaverse feels an appropriately extravagant word for the ideas it represents.

This shiny new buzzword we’re throwing around isn’t actually so new. It originated in the 1992 Sci-fi novel, Snow Crash. I feel it is of note that this is the same place that is thought to have popularized the term «avatar» when referring to a digital representation of someone, so just with that accolade you can tell Snow Crash had its effect on the tech decades beyond when it was written.

While that’s all good and dandy, choosing to use this term feels like a terrible, looming omen when you look at the source material. Snow Crash presents a dystopian, fractured state in a year very near to our own. In this shattered vision of America, what are essentially corporate oligarchs have all of the power in the presented society, and aim to employ literal memetic viruses that reprogram the human mind.

Facebook, a company constantly under fire for misuse of information and largely accused of shady and unscrupulous practices, taking up its new mantle of «Meta,» and pledging to build the Metaverse seems to be about as on the nose as falling face first into asphalt. The cynic in me almost sees this as a brazen admission. Like, they’re coming right out and saying, «Yup, we’re done hiding it. We are untenably unconcerned with the well being of you lowly peasants. Our hegemony over information will be brutal and unceasing.»

So what is it? The Metaverse in the real world

«Well,» you might be asking, «now that you’ve scared me with your grossly exaggerated pessimism, what actually is this Metaverse thing you’re talking about?» And I’d say that it’s rather difficult to pin down.

What might have someone said if you asked them what an automobile was in the early 1880’s, prior to their public sale? There were some brilliant people, and they probably could have come up with some idea of what that might be, but the first automobiles were not yet available for them to see.

The Metaverse exists in this same space at the moment. We can talk about it, and think about it, but it is rather impalpable in that the Metaverse is very different from anything that exists right now.

As simply as I can put it, the Metaverse is a network of virtual 3D spaces we would be able to venture into and move between, functioning as a sort of 3D internet- or an «internet of places.» Ideally, it would be engaged with using virtual reality devices, but would likely allow for augmented reality and traditional 2D displays to participate as well.

Imagine the world in The Matrix or Ready Player One. Those are two contemporary, and also dystopian (is anyone else noticing a pattern emerge?), examples of a Metaverse. Hopefully, the emerging real world version won’t involve enslavement by robotic overlords or a large, and rather uncomfortable looking port being drilled into the back of your head, but I’m not going to file it away as an impossibility.

There have been things that you might have interacted with before that are tiny microcosms of what the Metaverse might be when it comes into reality. Games like World of Warcraft and Runescape have full blown human-driven economies, in worlds populated by millions of people. Fortnite has been host to live and synchronous events for millions of users on several occasions now, and regularly incorporates through collaboration the intellectual properties of other companies in the form of events and cosmetics. Roblox allows users to create games, events, and cosmetics that other users can buy and use. Twitch and YouTube allow for viewers to consume content in a live and social way, regardless of location.

Now, to imagine the Metaverse all you need to do is roll all of those, and a million other things, into one simultaneously cohesive and disjointed package. I’m not going to lie to you here and pretend I know what’s going to happen in the future, but I sure can try to take my best guess.

The Metaverse wouldn’t just be for gaming, even if most of my examples might indicate otherwise. Digital games just serve as a great jumping off point for many of the ideas involved because they are our most common foray into virtual worlds. Instead, the Metaverse would serve as humanity’s new Mecca for interaction if everything goes as planned, where instead of heading to a website on the Internet, you would navigate to a virtual space within the Metaverse. At this point in time it’s a set of ideas that we have a rough outline to strive towards in the future.

What are the core elements of the Metaverse?

Matthew Ball, a venture capitalist in the realm of tech, and now rising to a higher strata of fame as some sort of Metaverse oracle figure, has many writings on the Metaverse that are openly praised by enthusiasts and the figureheads of tech alike. He laid out these core elements of the Metaverse as a part of a growing series of essays discussing this upcoming new era of technology.

A very solid example of this is the aforementioned live events hosted in Fortnite. When Ariana Grande’s music was playing at her digital concert, everyone was hearing it simultaneously and participating in mini-games with other players for the duration.

If you’re like me, the concept of digital property may sound preposterous, but in doing research about the Metaverse I found examples going back almost two decades that offered a small bit of legitimacy. Entropia Universe, an MMO that launched in 2003, has had virtual land and buildings sold for hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars in at least one case.

Like how anyone can make a website on the internet today, anyone should be able to set up their own space within the Metaverse and populate it with whatever they like. With the amazing programs – some of which I’ll touch on later in this piece – this creation will be easier and more accessible to people without the specialized skills you need to make similar things today.

This last criterion is one glimmering shard of hope for the Metaverse. I know it is the general impression that Meta, Epic and Microsoft own the Metaverse before it even exists, however this is not the reality. Just like the Internet, no sole proprietor will own the Metaverse. Undoubtedly, some of the existing titanic tech companies, and a handful of new ones, will have a large influence and an equally large share of the traffic there, but it is something that belongs to everyone. There is the possibility that if the Metaverse is treated as such from the get-go, we might steer it away from the failings that plague the Internet in its current state.

How do we get there?

The Metaverse won’t be some monolithic piece of sci-fi level tech. It is an intricate web of slowly developing pieces that will come together into a global conglomerate. Hopefully, just like the internet before it, there will be constant evolution and change throughout the life of the Metaverse.

Now that the Metaverse is on people’s minds and making waves in the media, we’re sure to see a growing wave of support pouring into its development. Even if there is no shortage of people who will disparage the very concept, the Metaverse is still likely to be adopted quickly if it follows the trend of emerging technologies of the past.

Humans are creatures of convenience, and if this new stuff makes their lives easier or more enjoyable they will use it. I may not be ancient and wizened, but I have been around long enough to remember when smartphones were «just a silly little fad.»

The corporations

Here are some examples of companies and their projects that are making a push into the Metaverse.

Meta (Facebook)

Meta, formerly Facebook, has made quite the show hiring a force of ten thousand European workers to develop the Metaverse. What exactly they have in mind is still shrouded in some mystery. We can take a look at one of their latest projects to get a glimpse into what they might be up to. Meta launched Horizon Worlds at the end of last year. This project works as a hub to explore user-designed 3D worlds in virtual reality.

In its current state, this appears to be rather rudimentary and impractical, but if you can look beyond the simplistic graphics and the horrifically puny 20 user limit per world, you can get a glimpse of how the Metaverse might work from a user standpoint.

Horizon has you open into a miniature hub-world where you can browse through community made content. Once you find a place to go, you just tap a button and you’re teleported there.

Something like this will be a necessity in a realized Metaverse. Just like the Internet, you’ll need some sort of browser program unless you just love punching in direct addresses. It looks like Meta’s goal here is to create Metaverse navigation tools and they are largely neglecting to make content of their own.

Epic Games

Epic has been very forward that they hope to be on the vanguard of the Metaverse’s creation. Massive hit game, Fortnite, has proven to be more culturally significant than you might expect from a cartoonishly styled game for all ages. Without trying to be disparaging, at least some of the astronomical success Fortnite has seen is from its events and crossovers with other massive brands.

At the peak of the hype around the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you could log into Fortnite to find a special game-mode where you had the chance to play as Thanos. When they changed the game’s iconic map out for a newer one, there was a lead up event with cutscenes starring Dwayne Johnson.

They have used the game as a platform for live digital events for massively popular musical guests. You can find character crossovers from every place imaginable. There’s John Wick, Spiderman, and even some real people like Ninja and Ariana Grande have been immortalized as skins in the game.

The point in all this is: Epic is doing the type of stuff that has to make the Metaverse a very fun and interesting place, and are setting a gold standard for the types of entertainment that will be huge within it. Furthermore, Fortnite gives people the opportunity to make their own island, and design the games and activities there, giving users a taste of that network-of-places style so important to the Metaverse.

Some of Epic’s other efforts can be seen as both steps towards establishing themselves within the Metaverse and being very developer friendly. They are selling access to Unreal Engine licensing at a very competitive rate, and offering a desirable shopfront for smaller developers by taking a much smaller cut of the pie when it comes to revenue relative to other major sellers.

They are also giving free access to developers for their Easy Anti-Cheat and Voice services, both used in the smooth multiplayer experience of Fortnite (and many other titles you’ve probably heard of). By having this shared communication infrastructure built into many games, including one of the largest of all time, they are establishing a stronger case that those platforms define the standard when moving forward.

Since the interchange of assets and information from place to place is a key element of a realized Metaverse, there will be a coming standardization of many things, and it appears that Epic is trying now to establish leverage for their own creations to set that standard in the areas where they are staked.

With those things in mind and the absolutely staggering visuals of the new Unreal Engine 5, it wouldn’t surprise me if Epic’s engine, communication services, and storefront are worked to become a foundational piece of the Metaverse as it moves forward.

Epic has also recently fought legal battles with Apple and Google over what they call antitrust behavior about their market practices, claiming that among other things, the high share they demand, is harmful to developers using their storefronts. While Apple was found in their case not to be monopolistic, there was an injunction made that forbids them from continuing some practices that limited consumer choices in their stores.

While none of us are green enough to think that this is done out of altruism on Epic’s part, the fact that corporate maneuvering has a side effect that is beneficial to smaller developers offers hope that some of these giant players might come to challenge the practices of their competitors moving forward.

For the Metaverse to live up to its potential, it will need to be an environment where developers of all sizes have the opportunity to add their own creations with fair chance at compensation.

Microsoft

Microsoft is trying to advance remote business solutions for the Metaverse with something called Mesh. Microsoft mesh is touting its «Holoportation» technology- live scanning and rendering of something inside of a virtual space.

In the Mesh trailer below you see the participants each wearing AR or VR headsets working together over a holographic display laid out on the table. Beyond that, Mesh allows integration with Office 365, and can allow users to introduce their files into the shared space for real-time edits from their team.

Any movement or changes should be visible wherever the viewers are within about a tenth of a second. As high-speed internet becomes available ubiquitously, this is just about as close to teleportation as we’re gonna get short of a real life teleportation device. By making remote work and meetings as seamless as they can be by utilizing this new software with augmented reality, we are likely to see more and more people become remote workers.

Nvidia

Nvidia is definitely a contender in the literal shaping of the Metaverse, with Omniverse, a suite of programs used to create virtual spaces and bring them to life. It is kind of like the aforementioned Mesh, but for building 3D environments.

By coupling with the tools that people are using today to shape, edit, texture, render etc. 3D places and things, and adding the ability to collaborate these things in real time, this program is leaping forward in how streamlined and cooperative the process of building in 3D can be.

Either Omniverse, or something like it is going to be what shapes the places that make up the Metaverse. Omniverse makes it easier than ever to create high quality virtual spaces, which are the foundation of anything happening in the Metaverse. Imagine the things that you might see if entire teams of environmental designers, and animators working together in one live space.

On top of all of that, there are AI-powered solutions within these programs to speed up the tedium inherent to these types of tasks. The most amazing tool that I saw automatically animated faces speaking by tying them to a video or script. As these tools become more and more powerful, making a world of your own will eventually become easy enough for most anyone to do it.

All of you

Even though I’ve only spoken of corporate endeavors in this section, in a place that’s designed to be an endless world of experiences, the user generated will vastly outnumber the proprietary in volume. Everyone, if they so desire, will be able to leave their own mark on this new world.

The Metaverse needs you to exist. There will be a need for the creative types to fill it with interesting things to do. We need to be technically oriented to design the necessary infrastructure to support it. We need the politically inclined to vote for policy makers that resist the iron grip of those that would pervert these new vistas for personal gain. We need people who understand this new technology and how to drive it to its fullest potential. Only together with our wonderful tapestry of skills can make real this new place that not long ago we all relegated as fanciful nonsense.

Possible pros and cons of the metaverse

As with every other wave of technology, this one will bring with it solutions to old problems, and pose new ones of its own. The creation and operation of a project of this scale will create many, many jobs. Meta is hiring ten thousand to work on building the Metaverse.

As it comes closer to reality, there will be a growing need for specialized development of hardware and software ecosystems that rise to the myriad challenges present in bringing the Metaverse to fruition. Not only will these rising fields create employment for many people, but they will need people to teach them, and design their software and equipment.

Furthermore, in this environment where you need only to log in to work instead of commute, startups utilizing the new tech can hire workers from anywhere in the world and invite them to their virtual space. As the Metaverse is embraced by the masses, many people will be untethered physically from their job.

As of March 2021, 21% of Americans were teleworking, and according to Global Workplace Analytics’ expectations, by the end of 2021, 25-30% of the global workforce was to be working from home. During the era of the Metaverse, that section of the workforce will only grow, and they can choose to live wherever they like with little consideration for where their employers may be. Perhaps this new paradigm will allow people to move closer to their families, or maybe an introverted professional would like a remote house far away from the bustle of cities.

There is something going on in Venezuela that we’ll see more of after the Metaverse becomes accessible. Due to a period of unprecedented inflation, many people there have turned to selling gold and items in the aforementioned multiplayer game Runescape, because it has a relatively stable in-game economy and using it to bring in foreign money from the global player-base was more sustainable and effective in earning than even high-skill jobs within Venezuela.

In ways similar to this, the Metaverse might be utilized creatively to open up avenues of capital to those that need it the most.

For certain types of disabilities, the Metaverse has the potential to be an even field in a way that real life can’t quite match. Those with reduced mobility will likely be able to participate in events they might be barred from in real life, while perhaps a deaf individual might have the option to render subtitles for the goings on in a way to feel more included. As a physically disabled person, the Metaverse shines as a rapturous decoupling of the bodies of the enfeebled and their ability to participate in things like exploration and socialization.

It’s no secret that being endlessly connected to everyone else has some negative modifier on social interactions and mental health, especially in teenagers. From 2008 to 2019, the reported rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in young adults rose by 47% – along with the meteoric rise of social media – and those two phenomena are largely believed to be intertwined.

The Metaverse might worsen this social woe, but some say the opposite. Virtual worlds are thought to be more socially intimate than scrolling through your feed. Maybe a new form of social media based on doing and experiencing things together will be a mentally healthier alternative than looking at selectively chosen snapshots and snippets of others’ lives. It’s unknown what effect this will have on socialization, but we can all try to hope for a turn to the positive. I for one, know anecdotally that Twitter and Instagram introduced leagues more strife into my life than stacking blocks with my friends in Minecraft.

The Metaverse will likely require a staggering amount of energy to keep running. We know little so far about how the Metaverse will be hosted, or how its data will be managed, but it is almost a certainty that it will have its costs. There’s no telling which available technology, or new ones, we will use to create and distribute electricity in the future, but as it stands now there is a likelihood that the Metaverse has the potential to be environmentally deleterious within the existing state in which energy is produced.

Like with the internet, we can imagine there will be an army of scammers trying to defraud normal people, and any new tech is going to empower them with new tools and strategies. Americans are defrauded out of billions of dollars each year through internet and telephone scam strategies. Unless preventive measures are taken to protect people in the Metaverse, or there is education made available on how to protect yourself in this environment, more Metaverse users than necessary will fall victim to these new methods.

Like all new things, the Metaverse will be unpredictable, and tainted by certain less than desirable elements, but has the potential to be something wonderful and fun – to reignite that childish whimsy so often pushed away in our modern world. A new and endless frontier for exploration waits just over the horizon. Together we can dive in and experience a whole new universe of possibilities as it unfolds right in front of us. Not long ago, this kind of technology would have been impossible to tell apart from magic, and we are so lucky to see it all coming together.

What Is the Metaverse?

TL;DR

The metaverse is a concept of a persistent, online, 3D universe that combines multiple different virtual spaces. You can think of it as a future iteration of the internet. The metaverse will allow users to work, meet, game, and socialize together in these 3D spaces.

The metaverse isn’t fully in existence, but some platforms contain metaverse-like elements. Video games currently provide the closest metaverse experience on offer. Developers have pushed the boundaries of what a game is through hosting in-game events and creating virtual economies.

Although not required, cryptocurrencies can be a great fit for a metaverse. They allow for creating a digital economy with different types of utility tokens and virtual collectibles (NFTs). The metaverse would also benefit from the use of crypto wallets, such as Trust Wallet and MetaMask. Also, blockchain technology can provide transparent and reliable governance systems.

Blockchain, metaverse-like applications already exist and provide people with liveable incomes. Axie Infinity is one play-to-earn game that many users play to support their income. SecondLive and Decentraland are other examples of successfully mixing the blockchain world and virtual reality apps.

When we look to the future, big tech giants are trying to lead the way. However, the decentralized aspects of the blockchain industry is letting smaller players participate in the metaverse’s development as well.

Introduction

The connections between the financial, virtual, and physical worlds have become increasingly linked. The devices we use to manage our lives give us access to almost anything we want at the touch of a button. The crypto ecosystem hasn’t escaped this either. NFTs, blockchain games, and crypto payments aren’t just limited to crypto geeks anymore. They’re now all easily available as part of a developing metaverse.

What’s the definition of a metaverse?

The metaverse is a concept of an online, 3D, virtual space connecting users in all aspects of their lives. It would connect multiple platforms, similar to the internet containing different websites accessible through a single browser.

The concept was developed in the science-fiction novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. However, while the idea of a metaverse was once fiction, it now looks like it could be a reality in the future.

Besides supporting gaming or social media, the metaverse will combine economies, digital identity, decentralized governance, and other applications. Even today, user creation and ownership of valuable items and currencies help develop a single, united metaverse. All these features provide blockchain the potential to power this future technology.

Why are video games linked to the metaverse?

Because of the emphasis on 3D virtual reality, video games offer the closest metaverse experience currently. This point isn’t just because they are 3D, though. Video games now offer services and features that cross over into other aspects of our lives. The video game Roblox even hosts virtual events like concerts and meetups. Players don’t just play the game anymore; they also use it for other activities and parts of their lives in «cyberspace». For example, in the multiplayer game Fortnite, 12.3 million players took part in Travis Scott’s virtual in-game music tour.

How does crypto fit into the metaverse?

If, in the future, we work, socialize, and even purchase virtual items in the metaverse, we need a secure way of showing ownership. We also need to feel safe transferring these items and money around the metaverse. Finally, we will also want to play a role in the decision-making taking place in the metaverse if it will be such a large part of our lives.

Blockchain developers also take influence from the video game world too. Gamification is common in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and GameFi. It seems there will be enough similarities in the future that the two worlds may become even more integrated. The key aspects of blockchain suited to the metaverse are:

What is a metaverse job?

As we mentioned, the metaverse will combine all aspects of life in one place. While many people already work at home, in the metaverse, you will be able to enter a 3D office and interact with your colleagues’ avatars. Your job may also be metaverse related and provide you with income directly usable in the metaverse. In fact, these kinds of jobs already exist in a similar form.

Metaverse examples

While we don’t yet have a single, linked metaverse, we have plenty of platforms and projects similar to the metaverse. Typically, these also incorporate NFTs and other blockchain elements. Let’s look at three examples:

SecondLive

Axie Infinity

While Axie Infinity doesn’t provide a singular 3D character or avatar, it gives users the opportunity for a metaverse-like job. You might have already heard the famous story of Filipinos using it as an alternative to full-time employment or welfare.

Decentraland

What’s the future of the metaverse?

Closing thoughts

While a single, united metaverse is likely a long way off, we already can see developments that may lead to its creation. It looks to be yet another sci-fi use case for blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. If we will ever really reach the point of a metaverse is unsure. But in the meantime, we can already experience metaverse-like projects and continue to integrate blockchain more into our daily lives.