COMING to you every Sunday, 24/7 Crypto will help you keep track of every important news story that happened this week in the metaverse.
Amazon executive takes a swipe at Mark Zuckerberg
Amazon executive David Limp has become the latest name in big tech to take a swipe at Mark Zuckerberg and his plans to build a metaverse.
Appearing at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival this week, he said tech firms should focus on ways to “enhance the here and now” rather than focusing on building virtual reality worlds.
“I want to try to work on technologies that bring people’s heads up, get them to enjoy the real world about them, make the family a more communal experience,” Amazon’s head of devices said.
Limp also indicated that Zuckerberg will struggle with his project due to a lack of unified definition of what the metaverse is.
He told the audience: “If I asked these few hundred people what they thought the metaverse was, we’d get 205 different answers.
“We don’t have a common definition, it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.”
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Metaverse set to be worth $3trillion by end of the decade
New research by international consulting firm Analysis Group suggests the mass adoption of metaverse technology could contribute 2.8 per cent towards global GDP by 2031.
The analysts looked at the speed and spread of how previous revolutionary technology has been taken up by users.
They said that if interest globally was replicated for the metaverse, it would make up $3trillion of the world’s GDP by the end of the decade.
Read more HERE.
Americans ready to go to a metaverse gym
A new survey conducted by fitness website FitRated has found 40 percent of Americans would be willing to cancel their gym membership to join a metaverse alternative.
The survey found the “gamification” of exercise – whereby it exercise becomes more like a game than a chore – was a major contribution factor.
Of the 1,001 Americans surveyed, 63 per cent said fitness motivation was a “primary benefit” of blockchain technology.
In even more staggering figures, 81 percent said they would be interested in exercising in a virtual world if they would be more incentivised to stay fit if they were paid for doing so in cryptocurrency.
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Metaverse property crash warning issued by Morgan Stanley
US finance giant Morgan Stanley has warned metaverse property and NFTs could see a major wipe out in value following the crash in cryptocurrency.
The firm’s chief crypto analyst Sheena Shah warned there was no real value in blockchain assets, creating a bubble that is at risk of bursting.
“Hyped and leveraged areas of crypto, such as decentralised finance (DeFi) and crypto-backed stablecoins, are seeing mass liquidations, as it is becoming clearer that all the elevated prices were traded on speculation, with limited real user demand,” she wrote.
Read more HERE.
Nick Clegg says metaverse will become mainstream
Meta’s president of global affairs, Sir Nick Clegg, described the metaverse as the “logical evolution of the internet” in a blog post.
He said “one way or another” the metaverse would become mainstream, even though tech firms have “a lot of work to do” to build credibility.
He said: “When Facebook started 18 years ago, we mostly typed text on websites.
“When we got phones with cameras, the internet became more visual and mobile.
“As connections got faster, video became a richer way to share things.
“We’ve gone from desktop to web to mobile; from text to photos to video.
“In this progression, the metaverse is a logical evolution.”
Read more HERE.
Sony unveils push to join the metaverse rush
Gaming and technology firm Sony unveiled its plans this week to embrace the metavese going forwards.
Chief Executive Kenichiro Yoshida said at its annual strategy meeting this week that there were elements to the development of virtual realities that could benefit users.
In a statement released ahead of the meeting, the company said it “intends to leverage the unique strengths provided by its diverse businesses and expertise in game technology by creating new entertainment experiences in the area of the metaverse”.
The Smurfs are getting a village in The Sandbox
The Sandbox is welcoming the popular children’s comic book characters, The Smurfs.
A new “village” is being created on the platform to be home to the small, blue friends.
Smurf Village is set to launch this summer and players given missions to help the creatures and will also be able to buy a Smurf avatar.
“The project has developed quickly, The Sandbox team have been very creative,” said Guillaume Boudol, Head of Licencing at IMPS, who own the intellectual property rights to the Smurfs.
“Every day they added new layers to the virtual world, it was almost like seeing the village prosper and grow in an organic manner.”
NASA issues prize fund for metaverse Mars design
NASA has a $70,000 prize pot to handout to developers who can help create a new metaverse.
The US Space Agency is offering money to those who can help re-create Mars in the virtual world.
The winning virtual lands will be used by astronauts in training exercises.
More than 81 teams and 780 innovators are already contributing to the construction of the Martian simulation.
Read more HERE.
