Metaverse: Untold opportunities and risks

WHILE still in the experimental stage, we’re already seeing a burgeoning economy within the metaverse, potentially creating a new frontier worth trillions of dollars that banks, consumers and companies can tap into for further growth.

Metaverse is built upon Web 3.0, which is the next iteration of the Internet. Just as the connected PC drove the first phase and the smartphone drove the second, we are now beginning to see the emergence of many of the technology building blocks – such as virtual reality, blockchain and computing power - needed to enable the metaverse.

With more than 60 per cent of the world’s population online and spending on average 5 to 6 hours per day digitally, in the near future our digital world will become as real and engaging as the physical world we are in.

The early innings of how the metaverse looks like will resemble the gaming universe. Most of the young – those in the Generation Z and Alpha – are already digital natives with their digital avatars, making transactions and living an alternate life.

With the share of the youth population expected to grow, the metaverse is expected to grow and become possibly the next Internet.

Navigating the opportunities

The metaverse is still in its early days, but the infrastructure is currently being built block by block and societal attitudes are changing to usher in a new era of the Internet.

We expect the metaverse to create investment opportunities, especially for those companies that are positioned for these trends.

Digital Content Creation: Creating 3-dimensional highly interactive content is key, especially in the Web 3.0. Digital content like virtual concerts and events, conferences, games and education which provides more engaging and immersive experiences will be the game changer. Consumers will first experience the metaverse via 2D apps, through commerce, with the buying of physical and digital products, or entertainment through a host of mixed-reality experiences such as virtual concerts or sporting events.

While such virtual commerce could gain traction, the initial applications of the metaverse are more pragmatic. The metaverse could primarily operate as an advertising and e-commerce platform for physical products. Similar to what we saw with the mobile Internet, consumer adoption of AR and VR will be a driving force for business opportunities.

On content creation, gaming platforms will move towards cutting-edge innovation, especially gaming platforms that offer infrastructure for people to create content or games; or gamified social networks which support more programmable experiences. Beyond that, gamers and programmers must be incentivised to remain in that metaverse through the reward of tokens.

Experiential Delivery: As the metaverse integrates with the real world, wearable devices are set to deliver the fullest and highly immersive 3D metaverse experience.

We see great investment potential in the metaverse hardware space, especially in the VR headsets which have upgraded design and functionality. Currently, VR headsets are heavy, less sensitive to sensory movements and difficult to wear over a prolonged period. For VR to grow beyond a niche product, wired devices need to evolve into wireless devices.

A fully immersive experience engages all of a person’s senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Today, VR mostly involves surround sound and images. The next generation of VR devices will give users physical sensations through electro-stimulation as they navigate a digital environment.

Infrastructure Platforms: To render avatars in a virtual world and allow users to interact with objects and other avatars in that virtual world—all in real time—will require huge amounts of data to be captured, transmitted, analysed and acted upon with extremely low latency. To make the metaverse work, large amounts of data need to be processed and exchanged, leading to strong demand for cloud servers, 5G, artificial intelligence and data centres.

Caveat Emptor – Navigating risks

Digital goods have been the mainstay of video games for many years, with users buying items like avatars and other virtual goods with virtual money. But typically this money can only be spent within the closed metaverses. The development of cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) holds the potential for wider metaverse transactions, across different platforms and in the wider real-world economy.

Active management is key

Still, before the metaverse becomes mainstream, it will need to overcome a range of hurdles, from regulations, to computing power and data privacy issues.

Being in its nascent stage of development means that investors need to steer clear of the more speculative elements, including NFTs, for now.

We think active management will give the best chance of identifying the winners, and sifting out the losers from the metaverse. We believe the winners will be the companies best positioned to ride on the emerging trends of digital content creation, experiential delivery, and infrastructure platforms – that is where we see the greatest potential.

Ultimately, before the metaverse becomes ubiquitous, there will be winners and losers along the way.

The writer is chief investment officer, Southeast Asia, for Global Private Banking and Wealth at HSBC.