Key points to remember
- Vitalik Buterin said companies like Facebook’s Meta trying to build the Metaverse today would fail in their efforts.
- Ethereum’s creator said he believes the Metaverse is “going to happen,” but it’s still too early for companies to know what it will look like.
- Meta said it has been committed to the Metaverse since Facebook rebranded, but its latest earnings report shows it still has some way to go to succeed.
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Buterin said he doubts “existing corporate attempts” to create a metaverse will succeed.
Buterin is not convinced by the metaverse of Meta
Vitalik Buterin think any company trying to build the Metaverse today will be wrong.
The “metaverse” is going to happen, but I don’t think any of the existing attempts by companies to intentionally create the metaverse are going anywhere. https://t.co/tVUfq4CWmP
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) July 30, 2022
The creator of Ethereum share his take on where the budding space might be headed on Twitter early Sunday, saying he thinks companies trying to create the metaverse are unlikely to succeed in their endeavors. Although he said he believed the Metaverse “is going to happen”, he added that he did not believe “any of the existing attempts by companies to intentionally create the Metaverse are going anywhere”.
Undoubtedly, the most notable company to dabble in the Metaverse to date has been Meta, Facebook’s parent company which changed its name as part of a move to adopt the Metaverse at the end of the year. ‘last year. Buterin named Meta in his review of companies entering space. “Anything Facebook creates now will fail,” he wrote in response to a tweet, saying metaverse-focused companies would likely fail because “it’s way too early to know what people actually want.”
Buterin became known for his outspoken personality as his public profile has grown with Ethereum over the years, although he often uses his Twitter account and Blog to discuss Ethereum technology and the impact decentralization could have on the world. Although he has commented extensively on NFTs in the past, noting that he was surprised by the 2021 boom and doing subtle digs on the speculative side of the market, he rarely discussed the metaverse.
The Next Generation Internet
Although still a loose concept, the metaverse is widely used to refer to a next-generation internet where users will be able to work, play, and connect with others in immersive virtual worlds. It is believed that the Metaverse will incorporate elements of augmented reality, virtual reality, and blockchain technology. Hit MMPORG releases such as Fortnite and Runescape have been described as early examples of Metaverse worlds, but in recent years crypto-native titles like Decentralized and The Sandbox managed to embrace the Metaverse space. Both games allow players to own digital plots of land and explore virtual worlds. They also integrate their own tokens, which crypto enthusiasts believe will be key to the metaverse in the future. NFTs are also frequently discussed in tandem with space as they can be used to represent online characters, virtual lands, or other game elements, giving players true ownership of their assets.
Several major companies announced Metaverse gambling as the crypto bull run peaked in 2021, with companies like Adidas and Coca-Cola acquiring digital land, ditching NFTs and hosting their own virtual parties. The Metaverse hype peaked in October when Zuckerberg announced Meta and the company has indicated it’s ready to double down on the space multiple times since, including sharing plans for support NFTs on Facebook and Instagram. Zuckerberg said the company’s Metaverse arm, Reality Labs, would pump $10 billion into the space after the announcement, and he went on to report an 11-figure loss in 2021. This year hasn’t gotten much better past, with Meta revealing its first drop in revenue and a $2.8 billion loss on Reality Labs in its second-quarter earnings report on Wednesday. In other words, based on the numbers, the company still has a long way to go to prove Buterin wrong.
Disclosure: At the time of writing this article, the author of this article owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.