Image source: Elevenews
The Metaverse has been the talk of the city for months with many eager to see and experience virtual space.
Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, believes that while large companies build to establish their own Metaverse, many will fail.
Buterin’s Meta sentiment
According to Buterin, Facebook’s parent company Meta’s attempt to corner the Metaverse will “fail” due to a lack of understanding of the term.
Discussing what the Metaverse might look like on Twitter, he said the business projects underway don’t look promising, especially Meta.
““My critique is deeper than “Metaverse Wikipedia will beat Metaverse Encyclopedia Brittanica,” tweeted Buterin, responding to user Venkatesh Rao.
“It’s that we don’t really know the definition of “the metaverse” yet, it’s far too early to know what people actually want. So anything Facebook creates now will misfire.”
The Metaverse
The Metaverse is described as an evolution of the Internet centered around immersive 3D worlds.
The digital space hosts online communities that allow them to interact within forms of augmented reality via virtual reality headsets.
Although critical of how companies view the metaverse, Buterin describes its creation as an inevitable step in today’s technology.
“The ‘metaverse’ is going to happen but I don’t think any of the existing corporate attempts to intentionally create the metaverse are going anywhere,” Buterin said.
Read also: Canada and USA Branches of KPMG Will Be Investing In the Metaverse for the Future of the Company
Industry divide
In terms of Metaverse design, there is a tension between the decentralized forms of ownership offered by blockchain technology and the centralized authority of corporations.
A group of Web3 companies have come together to set standards for the Metaverse, with companies such as Microsoft, Meta and Sony announcing a separate alliance.
The Sandbox is one of the major Web3 metaverse projects that tied virtual lots to NFT ownership.
Yuga Labs, the startup that founded the Bored Ape Yacht Club, is currently in the early stages of developing its own Metaverse game project.
The project, called Otherside, recently organized a first technological demonstration of the virtual world.
Origins of the Metaverse
The term Metaverse refers to a “computer-generated universe” accessible to users wearing glasses and headphones.
It first appeared in a 1992 science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson called Snow Crash.
Meta
Last year, Meta was renamed and changed its name from Facebook to Meta.
The rebranding follows the company’s 2014 $2 billion acquisition of Oculus, the company that makes VR headsets for gaming.
With the change in October, Meta made an official offer for the Metaverse.
“I believe the Metaverse is the next chapter for the internet,” said Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta.
“Today, we’re seen as a social media company, but in our DNA, we are a company that builds technology to connect people, and the Metaverse is the next frontier.”
Meta shared its latest earnings report for the Metaverse division, Facebook Reality Labs – the division lost $2.81 billion in the second quarter.
Last year, Meta lost $10.2 billion developing software, technology and content for Metaverse.
“This is obviously a very expensive undertaking over the next several years,” said Zuckerberg.
“But as the Metaverse becomes more important in every part of how we live… I’m confident that we’re going to be glad we played an important role in building this.”
References:
Vitalik: Metaverse ‘is going to happen’ but Meta’s ‘will misfire’
