There is an inherent demographic shift of how people consume entertainment and physical goods that are shifting to the metaverse.
“I’m going to blow your mind with another concept, and that’s the metaverse,” said Ed Lopez, managing director, head of ETF Product at VanEck (OUNZ) – Get Report during a recent webinar of rock star panelists discussing the evolution of blockchain.
“We are going to have digital art, tokens used to play and buy skins in video games, and use a video game to access different concerts and venues. There will be a whole new kind of digital world where digital natives, the younger generation coming up, are participating in this and used to it today. But, it’s developing even further and I think blockchain technology plays right into that,” Lopez added.
NFTs are bringing real-world assets into the crypto landscape making things like real estate or patents more accessible and more liquid.
“To me, that’s a fascinating area to think about. As someone who invests in real estate, the idea of not having to deal with a title company, not having to deal with an inspector or other intermediaries totally lowers the cost of that type of transaction. And, I think you’ll see that in other industries as well,” Lopez said.
Companies are certainly looking at the metaverse, according to Zev Fima, research analyst for Jim Cramer’s Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust. “If you read the first-quarter earnings call from Unity, they take time explaining what they see in the metaverse.”
Fima says the metaverse world sounds similar to Ready Player One while Lopez finds it similar to The Matrix — but, either way, if the idea is that NFTs can be tied to digital assets then it will interesting in terms of digital ownership.
Similar to many cryptocurrencies, it’s still the early days of NFTs but there’s value amid the speculation.
“I think that’s the market we’re in. Someone sold an invisible statue, or basically not a statue, for $18,000, so I think the technology is there on NFTs but what people are spending is more speculative,” said Fima.
Watch the full webinar sponsored by VanEck to hear more insight about the evolution of blockchain and how the foundation of crypto Is changing fintech: