The Metaverse Won't Go Away

Are you tired of hearing about the metaverse? I hear you but regret to say that the hype isn't going away anytime soon. The idea of an all-encompassing virtual world that includes its own currency, live events, social gatherings, and more continues to gain stream. Today, analysts at Bernstein wrote that "The combined annual run-rate of the most relevant markets is $2T and growing." That's T for trillion.

My colleague Eric Savitz, who is himself rethinking some of his metaverse skepticism, covered Bernstein's report today. His lead pretty much sums up the current conversation: 

The metaverse is going to be really, really big, which is about the only definitive thing you can say about it.

Here's why Bernstein thinks investors should keep tabs on it all: 

Despite the hype we believe that metaverse isn't just a fad and that it's an important concept for investors to understand when thinking about the longer-term growth prospects for many tech companies...

An alternate thought-provoking metaverse definition is one where the value of our virtual lives and possessions outpaces that of our real-world ones. Perhaps surprising, is that we're already closer to this line than one might think -- digital banking, social networks/connections/chats, online repositories of photos and videos, email/chat history, social graphs, in-game achievements and artefacts, etc. It seems inevitable that "virtual share" of what one finds significant – and financially valuable -- will increase over time.

You can read the rest of Eric's story here.