December, 20218 IN MYV EWELUCIDATING METAVERSE AND DIDSBY TYLER AVENI, HEAD OF INTERNATIONAL FINTECH PARTNERSHIPS, WEBANKThe metaverse is edging ever nearer. Just days following Facebook's high-profile name change to "Meta" this past October, Microsoft publicly disclosed plans to begin offering web conferencing services in virtual reality. Fuelled by greater connectivity and data from IOT devices, B2B firms are also investing heavily into visualization tools that use 3D renderings of real-world objects, which hold diverse applications across factory production, logistics and public security. Meanwhile, a host of "otherworld" building games already offer glimpses into new forms of online interactions. For instance, Epic Game's Fortnite held a virtual musical performance by Ariana Grande in August that, while pre-recorded, drew over 12 million concurrent users who could watch and interact with one another in their outfitted avatars.Bloomberg Intelligence estimates metaverse projects such as these represent a global market opportunity that could reach as high as $800 billion by 2024. As a result, tech companies are jockeying for position in VR and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software businesses. For emerging tech companies, the metaverse poses an opportunity to circumvent existing barriers in the form of app stores and closed ecosystems. For incumbents, it is being touted as essential for their future relevance. The last twenty years have shown that a dominant position for services distribution and access can be lucrative.So what is the metaverse? For all of the kerfuffle, one might expect a straightforward answer. But ask any two people what the metaverse actually represents and diverging opinions quickly arise. Naturally, pop culture references and gaming anecdotes conjure an immediate sense of the metaverse; however, the essays of Michael Ball and other industry experts have emphasized that the VR- or AR-enhanced visual space is but one dimension to view what is ahead. Rather, we should focus on the future development of interoperable systems, standards, and computing power needed to create a truly persistent and synchronous experience across metaverse services.Building the technical infrastructure and protocols to achieve such a fluid state of digital services is a tall order. "Web 3.0" could be the necessary infrastructure upon which the metaverse will work. Whereas the early 2000s through to today marked a shift in productivity toward developing large tech platforms in what we now know as web 2.0, web 3.0 promises to disintermediate these businesses by building self-sustaining, decentralizing services. Technologies like blockchain offer built-in trust and protocols between participants, solving two challenges of which platforms originally solved. If developed extensively enough, content and service creators could gain unfettered access to their target users, reaping a greater share of the benefits in the process.In the context of financial services, this narrative rings familiar. The disintermediation of financial institutions has long been espoused, first with alternative finance, then open banking, and now DeFi. Despite considerable growth in public interest and adoption of these services, a shift toward individual-led financial and privacy protection is marked with challenges. Firstly, accountability mechanisms for ensuring these protections are closely linked to existing governance structures. If an individual fails to protect his or her assets due to human error or a piece of poorly written code, then questions remain on what action could be taken, Tyler Aveni
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