The Struggle to Control the Metaverse: Crypto Die-hards Prepare for Battle with Facebook and Big Tech | Currency News | Financial and business news

[ad_1]

Facebook (now Meta) is convinced that the metaverse is the future of the Internet.

Facebook

A battle is brewing for the future of the metaverse, between crypto buffs and big tech companies like Facebook (now Meta). Crypto-focused metaverse games like Axie Infinity and The Sandbox have drawn people in over the past year or so. But crypto fans fear the tech giants will settle in soon and start to dominate with more centralized models.

Facebook is embarking on the metaverse and a lot of people aren’t happy with it. Just ask Keanu Reeves.

“Can we just not have the metaverse that Facebook made up,” he told The Verge earlier this month. “I’m just like, come on man.”

Reeves’ point of view is widely shared in the crypto community, where companies like The Sandbox are stepping up with their own metaverse.

In fact, a battle is looming between Cryptoland and colossal tech companies like Facebook – now called Meta – and Microsoft. Crypto fans fear that their vision of a decentralized world of rule-free creation and non-fungible token trading may be at stake.

What is the metaverse?

There’s little agreement on what the Metaverse is, or even if it’s going to become a thing.

Currently, the term fuzzy refers to virtual worlds in which people in the form of avatars can play games, socialize, work, watch virtual events, and create, buy and sell items. Sometimes they are accessible through virtual reality headsets.

For many true believers, the metaverse is a chance to move away from Big Tech domination of the Internet, and therefore needs to be “decentralized”. That is, it must run on blockchain technology which allows the creation of networks without giving an entity overall control.

Metaverseers like The Sandbox and Decentraland are already using crypto technology. Non-fungible tokens, which permanently safeguard property rights on the blockchain, are at the heart of their creation-play models.

“I think you need that opening,” Jon Jordan, blockchain specialist at venture capital firm Hiro Capital, told Insider. “Add virtual reality glasses to do what we’re already doing [on the internet] doesn’t really change anything. ”

Goldman Sachs analysts said in a recent memo that crypto technology will be at the heart of the metaverse as it allows users to securely own assets and move them across different platforms without a party’s permission. central.

Facebook bets on virtual worlds

Facebook is also convinced that the metaverse is the future. It is even renamed Meta. Microsoft and other big players are also getting involved, while unencrypted metaverse games like Roblox are already huge.

Meta’s metaverse is still in its infancy. Mark Zuckerberg posted a lengthy video in October in which he lays out some great ideas, including that people should be able to create and sell their own content.

Yet in his hour-long speech, although he briefly mentioned cryptocurrencies, he never once said “decentralized.”

Read more: ‘We’re clearly in a bubble right now’: Wharton blockchain and digital assets professor explains why Metaverse and Web 3.0 are still ‘too early to be real’ – and why investors should expect crypto dismantling in the year ahead

Many enthusiasts who want decentralized virtual worlds fear that the company’s financial firepower means it could dominate the metaverse just as it dominates social media. Meta did not respond to Insider’s request for comment.

“My biggest concern is how some of the ‘Web 2.0’, or centralized players, like Meta or Fortnite or Roblox, try to claim the title of metaverse themselves and simply offer a closed environment that is entirely controlled by themselves.” , Sébastien Borget, a co-founder of The Sandbox, told Insider.

Crypto fans fear that a high-tech metaverse will become like an app store, where creation is tightly controlled.

The battle ahead will be one-sided. Millions of young people are already spending hours a day in unencrypted virtual worlds such as Roblox or Minecraft.

And Meta’s financial weight is mind-boggling: It’s already been said that investing in its VR section is expected to cut profits by $ 10 billion this year, and that’s before it really gets off the ground. If Apple or Amazon get involved, the game could be over.

[ad_2]