Metaverse: Evolving our present and our future
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As we enter the metaverse, new possibilities await.
Recently, the term ‘Metaverse’ was added to our vocabulary. The term gained popularity after Facebook’s name was duly changed to Meta. While it has been making headlines and capturing attention recently, the term was coined in 1992 by author Neal Stephenson in his book, Snow Crash. The metaverse is basically a virtual world, which is at the intersection of the Internet, virtual reality, and augmented reality, bereft of the limitations and restrictions of the real world.
In 1995, the Internet changed people’s lives, arguably for the better. There was growing skepticism about the possibility of ordering food or paying online, but today it is a very normal part of our daily lives. The juxtaposition of today’s skepticism and that before 1995 is clearly visible. There is growing confusion about where the metaverse will lead the world.
But the metaverse has the potential to open doors to another realm i.e. 3D world, where humans can play, learn, interact, and perform any action that they would in the real world.
The metaverse has the potential to do anything: anything that can exist in our imagination can be done in the metaverse. We can swim in the Mariana Trench or descend the sides of a volcano. Everyone has been fascinated by science-fiction films and novels, but the metaverse is making our lives align with sci-fi. The CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, believes that “This Metaverse is going to be far more pervasive and powerful than anything else. If one central company gains control of this, they will become more powerful than any government and be a god on Earth.”
According to a study by Business of Fashion Insights, non-fungible token (NFT) sales were $10.7 billion in Q3 2021, more than 8 times the sales of previous quarters. NFTs provide proof of ownership of a digital asset. This exponential increase shows the growing appetite for purchasing and owning digital assets. Digital assets are analogous to real assets and exist in realms including fashion, currency, financial assets, artwork, avatars, and more.
It will be interesting to see the value of assets in the metaverse and how our lives are changed by them in the future.
