- A battle is brewing for the future of the metaverse, between cryptocurrency fans and big tech companies like Facebook (now Meta).
- Crypto-focused metaverse games like Axie Infinity and The Sandbox have been drawing people in for the past year.
- But crypto fans worry that tech giants will soon move in and begin to dominate with more centralized models.
Facebook it's loading in the metaverse and a lot of people aren't happy about it. Ask Keanu Reeves.
"Can we just not make the metaverse be, like, invented by Facebook," he said The edge earlier this month. "I'm like come on man."
Reeves' view is widely shared in the crypto community, where companies like The Sandbox are gaining momentum with their own metaverses.
In fact, a battle is looming between cryptocurrencies and colossal tech companies like Facebook, now called Meta, and Microsoft. Cryptocurrency fans worry that their vision of a decentralized world of rule-free creation and non-fungible token trading is at stake.
What the heck is the metaverse?
There is little agreement on what the metaverse is, or even if it will become something.
Right now, the fuzzy term refers to virtual worlds in which people in the form of avatars can play, socialize, work, view virtual events, and create, buy, and sell items. They can sometimes be accessed through virtual reality headsets.
For many true believers, the metaverse is an opportunity to escape the dominance of the Internet by big technologies and therefore has to be "decentralized". I mean, it has to work blockchain technology It allows networking without giving any entity full control.
Metaverses like The Sandbox and Decentraland They are already using encryption technology. Non-fungible tokens, which allow property rights to be permanently saved on the blockchain, are at the heart of their creation and play models.
"I think you need that openness," Jon Jordan, a blockchain specialist at venture capital firm Hiro Capital, told Insider. "Add virtual reality glasses to do what we are already doing [on the internet] It's not really changing anything. "
Goldman Sachs analysts said in a recent note the crypto technology will be critical to the metaverse as it allows users to safely own assets and move them across different platforms without permission from a central party.
Facebook bets on virtual worlds
Facebook is also convinced that the metaverse is the future. Is even renamed Meta. Microsoft and other great players are also involved, while non-crypto metaverse games like Roblox they are already huge.
The metaverse of Meta is in its infancy. Mark Zuckerberg released a long video in October, in which he presented some great ideas, including the ability for people to create and sell their own content.
However, in his hour-long talk, although he briefly mentioned cryptocurrencies, he did not say "decentralized" once.
Many enthusiasts who want decentralized virtual worlds fear that the financial power of the company means it could dominate the metaverse just like 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, are trying to claim the metaverse title themselves and simply offer a closed environment totally controlled by themselves", Sebastien Borget , a co-founder of The Sandbox, told Insider.
Cryptocurrency fans worry that a big-tech metaverse will turn into an app store, where creation is closely monitored.
The coming battle will be uneven. Millions of young people already spend hours a day in non-crypto virtual worlds like Roblox or Minecraft.
And the financial weight of Meta is amazing: it is already said that the investment in its virtual reality section is programmed to cut earnings by $ 10 billion this year, and that's before it really gets going. If the likes of Apple or Amazon Get involved, it could be game over.
