What is the Metaverse ?
The Metaverse can be defined as a virtual world where we can live, work, travel, and play. But it doesn’t actually exist; it may take a while to complete.
But that hasn’t stopped businesses of all shapes and sizes from trying to get involved. J.P. Morgan, HSBC, Gucci, and Coca-Cola are among a few of the firms that have explored the metaverse so far.
Many tech industries claim that the metaverse is the next phase of the internet. Companies like Meta are hailing it as this sort of dream land that will make the time we spend online more interactive and fun.
They also say it will present businesses with new ways to make money. A lot of money.
One report estimates that the metaverse economy could be worth between $8 – 13 trillion by 2030, but getting there is going to require significant investment.
The metaverse is already among us, and it’s nothing new! It’s simply the digital world we experience every day through our smartphones, the web, and gaming.
Tech companies are investing billions of dollars into developing hardware that has the potential to act as a gateway to these metaverses.
Facebook bought virtual reality firm Oculus back in 2014, and the company’s latest VR headset is the Quest 2 for $299.
VRChat is an app that allows you to create an avatar and explore virtual worlds with other people online.
Roblox and Minecraft are all virtual worlds where you can interact with other players.
Decentraland is another desktop-based virtual world that users can create, explore, and trade in. On Decentraland, people can buy and sell land, estates, and wearables for their avatars.
It’s basically a world of endless interconnected virtual worlds where people can work, socialise, and play using VR, augmented reality, and other devices.
Features of the Metaverse: –
1. No Limits or Lengths
The metaverse will never be off; it’ll never be down for maintenance updates or server restarts.
People will be able to log in or out whenever they desire without ever having to load or save their data.
Everyone will experience the metaverse at the same time and live synchronously.
2. There will be an Economy
So many people spending time in this digital AR and VR world (both businesses and individuals) will be able to sell goods and services within the metaverse.
Think of your favourite brand selling digital goods within the metaverse, like, for example, Louis Vuitton might be selling a digital bag that your digital avatar can hold.
I’m sure users will also be able to create their own small businesses within the metaverse.
3. Unlimited potential for user-created Content
While there will certainly be corporations and businesses creating experiences and content within the metaverse, individual users will have a large influence over the majority of the metaverse’s content.
A user-created content model also allows the metaverse to be highly scalable and always be relevant to the latest trends.
In addition to user-created content, many companies, such as Nike and Microsoft, have already jumped aboard the growing hype surrounding the metaverse.
4. Crosses Digital / physical Environment
Everything will be compatible and span between both the digital and physical environments, so augmented reality and virtual reality are going to be crucial parts of the metaverse.
Another interesting application is that the metaverse goods will be tradable with other goods using the same platform, regardless of community or branding.
How to Invest in Metaverse: –
So now you know a little bit about the metaverse, how can we invest in the metaverse especially now because it is still early, the metaverse is probably still a few years away, but there are going to be companies and stocks that are going to be vital to its growth.
According to Bloomberg intelligence the global metaverse market could reach 800 billion dollars by 2025.
There are two ways of investing into the metaverse, you could invest in the content creation side or the infrastructure side of the metaverse.
ETF –
If you’re looking for an easy all-encompassing investment into the metaverse, you could just buy an ETF (Exchange-traded funds) so i know that Round Hill Investments offers an ETF called the Meta ETF, which is designed to offer you exposure to companies that are actively involved in the metaverse.
ETF is buying some infrastructure companies like Cloudflare and Nvidia or gaming engines for virtual worlds such as Unity and Roblox.
Let’s actually go through two stocks that I think that are worth highlighting that you could look into for the metaverse specifically.
Matterport –
Matterport is a leading spatial company that digitizes the real world.
Their current business revolves around capturing real estate with cameras, digitizing the data, and then turning that data into 3D models.
Realtors can use these models and showcase them to clients without ever having to step into a home.
One of the biggest challenges that the metaverse is going to have is the need to digitize and import every physical aspect of the real world into a virtual environment, so that’s where Matterport comes in; it could be one of the biggest players in the metaverse space within 10 years as it currently dominates the growing market for the 3D digital transformation of the physical world to the digital world.
Matterport already has a portfolio of 38 patents and 28 pending patents, so any new competitors will have a very hard time entering the industry.
Matterport currently generates 52 percent of its revenue through SaaS (subscription as a service), and a strong component of Matterport is its diversified customer base.
Matterport currently has deals with companies like Redfin, Century21, Airbnb, Hyatt, Nationwide, Autodesk, etc.
Unity –
Unity offers software where developers can create and monetize their games on different platforms like Windows, Android, iOS, PlayStation, and more.
Approximately 60% of AR and VR games are currently created on the Unity platform, while the majority of their revenue comes from the gaming industry.
Unity is looking to expand into other industries and has acquired Metaverse Technologies, Inc., which is a 3D optimization software company.
Now professional creators can easily and quickly import 3D data into Unity and optimize the models for real-time development.
Unity is growing revenue at a compounded annual growth rate of around 142% over the past three years, but analysts actually expect that to be closer to 29.3% for the next 10 years.
Unity is that the stock is not cheap, but its high revenue growth rate plus a large army of monthly active users on all types of Unity applications is around 2.7 billion monthly active users.
So, both of these companies, Unity and Matterport, should have some impact on the metaverse.
Also Read – 5 Best Ways to Make Money with ChatGPT in 2023.
