What does financial services imply in the Metaverse? The process of monetization in the Metaverse, known as “of” and “in” models of business.

The phrase “metaverse” refers to the anticipated future iteration or evolution of the internet powered by Web3 technologies like blockchain and decentralized resource distribution and consumption principles, in which case it often refers to the metaverse.

In my view, while metaverse modalities such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), gaming, Second Life, avatars, and so on have gotten a lot of attention lately, they represent a significant shift from the digital transformation that occurred in recent decades.

That is the goal of the Metaverse. It may appear to be a jumble today, but if we separate out the components that make up the Metaverse, we can see a far different digital future.

Our characters and AR/VR representations may be sure, deterministic, and acknowledged with non-repudiation.

The value we place on things is represented by tokenized assets with valuation mechanisms that not only prevent double-spending, but also leverage blockchain as a transaction system, bringing the fundamental principles of blockchain to the Metaverse.

We reserve the right and ability to monetize our data, effort, talent, and all of the value they create, since our avatars may connect with various universes and their value systems. And we can utilize things we care about in order to build an economic and value system of our choosing as our representation passes through various modalities.

The success of the metaverse will be achieved through seamless interoperability and the transfer of value (tokenized or other semantic web technologies) across universes maintained by layer-1 and layer-2 networks.

I believe that the metaverse’s dynamic modality is supported by all of this. So, there’s a lot more work ahead of us. We should consider the commercial aspects of the Metaverse and how it is monetized today, as well as its potential to conduct business tomorrow.

What are the best ways to do business in the Metaverse?

We’ll start by looking at the economic aspects, since Web3 and the Metaverse deal with a construct of tokenized value. For example, I’m interested in what financial services imply in the Metaverse.

We see the financialization of NFTs, as well as the creation of additional asset categories, but what does it all mean? To get a better sense of this, let’s look at it in terms of consumable monetization options.

Commercializing protocols

This category includes current infrastructure and projects that rely on community development.

• Token-based models: This is a cost incurred by accounting to update the distributed database of the blockchain-powered business network.
• Tokens as a medium of exchange: This is a scenario in which you are selling a token to another user as a “step-through” currency, such as with in-network tokens.
• Trading of Asset-Pair: Using margins to make money.
• Protocol Commercialization: Cloud and software labs, as well as consulting services, are examples of IT-related services.
• The power of networks: Leading to new business models and generating economic value by extrapolating the power of networks and exponential co-creation models.

Simple token sales

The second category encompasses most token sales, which is why it’s so broad. Development is funded using tokens, which are similar to shares in a corporation. Security tokens are token sales with a profit objective, as defined by the conventional definition.

While these tokens are often referred to as in-network token currency, the hope is that if they become widespread, fungibility will follow and these currencies will be seen as a money.

These theories are packed with new jargon, definitions, and twisted economic models, yet we’re just talking about the industry as it progresses.

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are one of the subcategories, where as an asset class, nonfungible tokens begin to be recognized as a symbol and community faith instrument that is valued by a part or subsection of the community.

Game artifacts exist in gaming; they might be art, identification, or a niche social movement in other ecosystems. With imagery and cultural obscurity, NFTs appear to be attractive investment tool.

We’ve seen this transformation drive the Metaverse’s ultimate objective, and NFTs have become a de facto representative object in the parallel digital world.

In the digital realm, NFTs’ financialization might be compared to M-Pesa’s mobile payments phenomenon, which began almost 20 years ago and achieved a money movement volume of over $22 million each week with no financial intermediaries.

Although banks were enthralled by the amount, M-Pesa ended up being regulated, and financial institutions got involved via a telco-bank relationship structure. This method evolved and took the shape of actual payments made over mobile phones using telco as a platform.

The modality of the Metaverse today is characterized by virtual and augmented reality, digital art, gaming, and Second Life elements in comparison to the digital realm context. What holds the key to transforming the world is what lies at the heart of economic value transference.

Crypto market structure emergence

This is the market structure that can help to enable exchange, interoperability, and smooth value transfer between different types of tokens and assets. The following are some basic financial primitives: purchasing/selling, borrowing/lending/collateralization, and others.

We anticipate that like M-Pesa, which was initially offered by regulated companies but revolutionized the payments industry, banks will make inroads into the Metaverse.

Not only traditional banks but also de novo digital banks and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) will be affected. This shift will bring leverage, financing, and loans, among other things, but it may have a unique metaverse taste.

We’re seeing hints of this in DEXs, liquidity pools, automated market makers and NFT marketplaces, which imply a protocol-led approach that includes exchange, value, and collateral locking and borrowing.

Challenges

The Metaverse is a difficult and challenging business. The problems listed below are only a few of the obstacles you’ll face in this industry:

Regulation and compliance: The market is well aware of the worldwide changes in attitude and regulatory posture. The entrance of numerous exotic tokens and digital assets into the Metaverse has resulted in a general lack of clarity on fundamental digital assets.

To put it another way, the global movement of various asset classes in the Metaverse is now hamstrung by regulatory arbitrage. The broader sector will need to allocate some resources to designing a sensible and fair structure or framework.

Technology or protocol risk: The most serious technological roadblocks to the achievement and promise of blockchain are still around interoperability and identity.

We need it to be interoperable across various networks and universal ID transactions, as well as being able to work with different blockchains and smart contracts, in order for the Metaverse to go beyond modality. In addition, regulatory simplicity will be aided by this.

Talent: The IT industry lacks a critical number of people, including computer engineers, token economists, and company executives. To construct, maintain, and evolve on projects, the sector requires a large number of skilled personnel in areas such as software engineering.

This is a major problem. We also observe a great deal of money chasing too few projects, which has never been a good mix to get top talent and incentivize the right people’s development, retention, and commitment.

Final Thoughts

The current Metaverse is a symbol for the interaction modalities’ rhetoric.

In order to keep their promise, the project needs significant investment in Web3 infrastructure, regulatory and compliance structures, and talent, allowing the movement of various value artifacts from one universe to another with exchange, fungibility, and interoperability.

These modalities will become more powerful with the seamless conversion of user-controlled value in tokenized or data forms. We’ve witnessed some of these today in the financialization of NFTs and decentralized finance (DeFi) elements like DEXs, AMMs, and DAOs.