To keep myself as in-the-know as possible, I read all research and reports on blockchain gaming and the metaverse I can get my hands on. This report by Grayscale Research is one of the most concise and elucidatory documents I have seen and it is well worth your time.
The report, The Metaverse: Web 3.0 Virtual Cloud Economies by David Grider and Matt Maximo breaks down the opportunities and trends emerging from the initiation of Web 3.0. Much of mainstream media appears to see the metaverse as transient, whereas major players in all industries are swarming to every month. This disconnect means it’s difficult to get a read on what exactly the general consensus is and thus the pace of its adoption.
Key Takeaways
One common area of confusion is what Web 3.0 is, how it will impact society, and how it differs from Web 2.0. A simple illustration of this is in Grayscale’s report, and while I won’t be taking much from it to repost here as you really ought to read it firsthand, this table is useful
There are a number of other important takeaways in this document. For example, the disparity in leisure activities between the oldest and the youngest members of society. Both the number of hours spent watching TV and the number of hours spent playing computer games follow the rough gradient you would expect. However, the stand-out stat was just how central video games and social media are to the youngest generations.
It’s ought to go without saying, but Gen Z, for example, is a relevant marker for the future as wealth trickles down the generations. With so much of their lives experienced digitally, the metaverse becomes less of an important cog of society’s future and more the foundations of it. With that, of course, comes the potential for economy-impacting financial gain.
“The market opportunity for bringing the Metaverse to life may be worth over
The Metaverse: Web 3.0 Virtual Cloud Economies — Grayscale Research
$1 trillion in annual revenue and may compete with Web 2.0 companies worth
~$15 trillion in market value today”
Final Thoughts
The wealth of critical information in this report is astounding. While I feel I ‘knew’ much of what the document lays out in evidence-based data, the collation of it all highlights the gravitas of the implications. To suggest that the metaverse — a slippery and novel term thrown around loosely at present — will be foundational to society could be (and might well be) seen as hyperbole. It isn’t. We are experiencing the early stages of a tectonic shift in modern life.
