1. The metaverse is more than Facebook

Ten billion dollars. That’s how much Meta, the newly named parent company of Facebook (and Instagram and WhatsApp) planned on spending on its metaverse ambitions in 2021 alone, according to a report in Forbes. The metaverse is a virtual world where we will interact using augmented and virtual reality. Meta (the company) views the metaverse as an existential threat to its slowing social media business and is willing to spend what it takes to compete in this virtual sphere. But the metaverse is more than just Meta. Boosters of the metaverse think it’s going to completely change how we work and play over the next few years.

2. Web3 is a power grab (but not how you think)

So Web3 is all about taking that power back, eliminating the middleman via blockchain technologies. In the Web3 vision, users will control their own data and use a single account to go from social media to email to shopping, creating a public record on the blockchain of all that activity. Instead of big tech taking their data, users are rewarded for their participation in the form of community voting rights and even tokens (such as Bitcoin) that have a real-world financial value.

3. Blockchain underpins the metaverse and Web3

Blockchain underpins the ambitions that many hold for Web3. Blockchain is an immutable digital ledger, spread across nodes on the internet. The best known blockchain is Bitcoin, but there are literally dozens of other protocols. With blockchain, transactions and contracts are embedded permanently within the distributed ledger. People can use a unique blockchain to ‘mint’ digital goods such as music and artwork, then sell them to collectors in the same way as a physical object. The provenance of the work is in the blockchain, so there’s a chain of ownership and artists can receive royalties on secondary market sales.

4. Cryptocurrency is the money that matters in the metaverse

Cash loses value over time. Fiat currencies aren’t designed to hold value due to inflation, so investors seek to diversify. Surveys in 2021 showed that about 17% of Australians and 9.5% of New Zealanders had cryptocurrency holdings, and it’s crypto which will provide the financial engine for the metaverse and Web3. Crypto is, by its nature, anti-inflationary, as each crypto ‘coin’ is a unique string of identifiers. Users won’t need to exchange their crypto for fiat currency as buying and selling in the metaverse – of digital art, digital real estate and more – will be done via cryptocurrency and digital wallets.

5. The metaverse is already attracting embassies

The tiny Caribbean nation of Barbados is the first to open the doors of a metaverse embassy, making a piece of digital real estate into sovereign Barbadian territory. The launch of the embassy in metaverse site Decentraland is slated tentatively for January 2022. It’s seen as a unique opportunity to use technology to extend cultural diplomacy, including the trade of art, music and culture. The government is also exploring embassy arrangements with other metaverse platforms including Somnium Space and SuperWorld.

Read more: