Metaverse Is a Trillion-Dollar Market Opportunity According to Grayscale
A Grayscale report published on 25th November suggests that Metaverse could potentially churn out over $1 trillion annual revenue, without specifying the timelines around this prediction. The Crypto investment company’s report, dubbed “The Metaverse, Web 3.0 Virtual Cloud Economies,” analyzed the opportunity in virtual gaming that leverages blockchain infrastructure to link the digital and physical worlds.
Grayscale’s Head of Research, David Grider, and research analyst Matt Maximo drafted the Metaverse report. According to the two, Metaverse is an “interconnected, experiential, 3D virtual worlds where people located anywhere can socialize in real-time to form a persistent, user-owned, internet economy spanning the digital and physical worlds.”
Grayscale noted the increase in time spent online with the evolution of web 3 technologies and the urge crypto industry players had in potentially tapping into this new development through the visualization and actualization of the Metaverse. The Grayscale report partly read:
“As we spend more of our time in these digital world experiences, we also spend more of our money within these digital realms to build our social status within these online communities.”
Grayscale also iterated the new development involving payment for time spent online by online platforms to users. According to Grayscale, platforms like Decentraland provide a means through which users govern, interact and earn tokens for their online presence.
Grayscale’s Profile
Grayscale is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group (DCG). DCG is an investor in MANA, Decentraland’s native token and the company behind Coindesk. Coindesk is an online media platform invested in news and data delivery, events, and investment research, focusing on disruptive and emerging decentralized financial systems.
Virtual Gaming Potential
The Grayscale report tabled the virtual gaming potential following the advent of Metaverse development by companies like Facebook, which rebranded to Meta to tap into the metaverse potential.
The report further states that virtual gaming will amass $400 billion annual revenue by 2025, up from $180 billion in 2020. Most share of this $400 billion revenue will result from in-game purchases, contrary to the popular belief that gaming revenues majorly come from premium purchases.
The report took note of companies at the forefront of Metaverse development. Facebook has already allocated $10 billion towards Metaverse development. The Metaverse report predicts that Metaverse is in its early innings following the recent Metaverse funding initiatives led by Facebook and other tech giants like Microsoft, Winklevoss brothers, and other additional players.
Metaverse - A Boost to the NFT Craze
The Metaverse report by Grayscale further informed of Q3 fundraisings in the crypto sphere. Total crypto fundraising was $8.2 billion. $1.8 billion of this lumpsum got allocated to web 3 developments and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Within the NFT umbrella, gaming applications received the highest funding from the fundraising, amassing about $1 billion, much higher than other NFT elements.
2021 has been an NFT year in the crypto corridos, especially with the wide acceptance by various creatives like artists and athletes. Metaverse presents an astounding opportunity for NFT development. According to the Grayscale report, the Metaverse development will further steer the NFT boom going into 2022.
Conclusion
The web3 space has grown out of its experimental stage and is poised to drive significant economic activity. 2022 will bring continued growth as market adoption increases, but it will likely take another few years to see the early majority moving parts of their lives into the metaverse.
Web3 pioneers who start building their understanding and skills about this will be rewarded with a once-in-a-generation opportunity over the next decade. If you are interested in learning more about our courses or the web3academy, sign up and get started.