‘NFT’ may have been the Collins Dictionary word of the year, but another concept has made its way into the mainstream consciousness in 2021 – the metaverse.
Pantera Capital investor Paul Veradittakit explained why he thinks the subject is worth a deeper dive.
What is the metaverse?
Veradittakit said he thinks it might be too early to predict what the metaverse will exactly morph into and eventually mean to people, “similar to how predicting Snapchat immediately after the release of the iPhone would have been miraculous”.
Some people think ‘metaverses‘ as a plural is more appropriate since there will be multiple virtual experiences that will be accessed by various interfaces.
Some don’t like to use the term at all because of how much of a buzzword it has become – the ‘metaverse’ has come to encompass almost any happening within the virtual world.
“Maybe ‘metaverse’ itself will eventually be retired for another term, who knows,” Veradittakit said.
For now, he added, it’s useful to at least try to arrive at a precise definition for the concept.
Veradittakit explained further that maybe the best definition came from Matthew Ball, an investor whose write-ups on the metaverse are “must-reads”.
While he acknowledges that a perfect description is impossible, he defines the metaverse as “a massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds which can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effectively unlimited number of users with an individual sense of presence, and with continuity of data, such as identity, history, entitlements, objects, communications, and payments”.
“There’s a lot to unpack there, but some of the elements that stick out are: it’s 3D, open to near-infinite numbers of people, and has some element of continuity, similar to real life,” he added.
So far, the builders of the metaverse, claimed Veradittakit, have fallen into two camps – non-crypto and crypto metaverses.