The metaverse is often described in such futuristic terms that it is difficult to understand how you can participate in it today. In truth, however, metaverse-like worlds have been around for decades, and it's possible that you've already experienced some of them without even realizing it.
What is the metaverse, anyway?
Borrowing from venture capitalist Matthew Ball's concept, the metaverse is a persistent online world where the lines between reality and virtual reality blur. Far more than a Call of Duty game, the metaverse is a 24/7 online world inhabited by an economy that incentivizes a new network of creators and infrastructure providers. Crucially, this economy revolves around interoperable assets in the game. This concept departs sharply from the "walled gardens" - closed ecosystems - to which we are accustomed today; Ball cites the example of a skin for a CounterStrike weapon that could easily be turned into a decoration for a Fortnite weapon.
While Mark Zuckerberg's Meta (formerly Facebook) has its own ideas about the Metaverse, the cryptocurrency community believes blockchain technology is a perfect fit for this new kind of online world. Crypto games like The Sandbox and Decentraland offer early visions of how a creator-owned, crypto and NFT-powered economy could work. So that's what you can do today in the Metaverse.
Build, explore and play in virtual worlds.
Games like Minecraft and Roblox have offered metaverse-like experiences for nearly a decade; both Second Life and Eve Online have been active since 2003, and World of Warcraft launched in 2004.
Second Life is one of the most comparable metaverse experiences due to its developer-driven economy and expansive sandbox world. In Second Life, you can do whatever you want, and there are people who have been shown to spend their entire lives in the game, living off the virtual land, harvesting the game currency Linden Dollars, and participating in events.
In the 2020s, crypto games like The Sandbox and Decentraland are turning the video game economy on its head by bringing digital assets into the mix. Not only can you import your own non-fungible tokens (NFT) into the games and buy virtual land, but you can also use the games' fungible governance tokens to change the parameters of the virtual world you inhabit, explore, and build.
Both are powered by cryptocurrencies - The Sandbox uses fungible SAND tokens as in-game currency and uses NFTs to represent land and other game-specific items, the kind of assets that adorn your avatar, and Decentraland has fungible MANA tokens and equivalent non-fungibles for virtual assets.
To create accounts, all you need to do is connect a crypto wallet like MetaMask. However, in Decentraland it is also possible to play as a guest without connecting a crypto wallet. The sandbox is technically in alpha (testing) phase, and the first season has been completed, so you won't be able to play it until alpha season 2 is released, the date of which has not been confirmed yet.
Apart from the crypto-economy, these games play like any other sandbox game. You can move around the games' respective virtual worlds and hang out with the brands and celebrities that crowd around the market. In virtual spaces like shopping malls, art galleries or squares, you can walk around and talk to people, play games, build houses or participate in events. Decentraland even hosts its own music festivals. Unfortunately, despite advances in the graphics of modern computer games, many of these newer games look no better than Second Life did in 2003, but the magic, at least in theory, is in the relationships you can form with your virtual brethren.
Meet people from all over for work or play
In the metaverse, there are a variety of meeting places. You can meet in huge open worlds like The Sandbox and Decentraland, of course, but you can also play on platforms like Spatial with spaces you create yourself. These apps are designed specifically for events, conferences, and meetings. You can log into Spatial with a Web 2 login like Google or a Web 3 login like MetaMask. Spatial's virtual worlds are divided into rooms; you can either visit pre-built rooms or create your own. Spatial's galleries support NFTs. You can navigate Spatial's world on mobile, on Steam, in a browser, or with an Oculus VR headset.
Virtual reality is strong in one of Ball's criteria for the metaverse: presence. Put on a VR headset, such as an HTC Vive, Valve Index or Meta (formerly Oculus) Quest, and enter cyberspace. Meta (formerly Facebook) is building a social hub for its VR headsets, and Steam's VR software comes preloaded with a virtual home. Games like VR Chat existed before cryptocurrency and allow you to enter rooms full of other people wearing VR headsets and dressed with an avatar of their choice.
Companies like MetaHub create virtual meeting spaces for conferences and business events, and Decentraland hosted its first music festival in 2021 - though artists were doing it in Second Life long before it was cool. Hanging out blurs the boundaries of the metaverse, and the marketing buzz begins to unravel.
Is Zoom a fundamental part of the metaverse because it connects workplaces and sparks a revolution in home-based work? Or is it, as Mark Zuckerberg mentioned in his meta-keynote, an unconvincing alternative to reality that replaces face-to-face interaction with rows of faces on screens?
Create a 3D avatar that looks like you ... Or not
Your avatar is an important part of your identity in the Metaverse. For some, profile picture NFTs like CryptoPunks or the Bored Ape Yacht Club are sufficient for Discord and Twitter, mostly text-based platforms where a 2D image will suffice. For 3D realms, apps like Ready Player Me offer composable digital identities that can reportedly be used in 1,330 apps and games, including Nike's RTFKT, Somnium Space and VR Chat. You could also buy an NFT sneaker from RTFKT or an avatar from the upcoming "Avatar Project," though it's unclear in which games you can "wear" them.
In Somnium Space, an Ethereum-based virtual reality world similar to Decentraland, you can import a Ready Player Me avatar that consists of nothing more than a selfie. Under Ball's framework, this meets the criterion of interoperability - the ability to take your digital assets with you no matter what platform or app you use.
Invest in virtual land, NFTs or tokens.
Of course, if you're not interested in breaking away from reality just yet, you can invest in the vibrant virtual worlds instead. There are many ways to do this. You could invest in NFT avatar drops, like those offered by Nike or Adidas. You could speculate on virtual properties or game items, such as those offered at Axie Infinity, Decentraland, and The Sandbox.
You could also invest in the fungible tokens offered by these games that act as in-game currency. If you're not sure which token to invest in, you could also invest in a Metaverse index fund, such as the Metaverse Index (MVI) offered by Index Coop. The MVI bases its portfolio on the largest Metaverse coins of the day.
If cryptocurrencies aren't your thing, you can also invest in stocks of virtual reality and Metaverse companies. Meta is a company betting big on the future of virtual and augmented reality - an analyst at Seeking Alpha estimates the company will have $70 billion invested in the concept between 2014 and 2023. Shares of virtual reality and Metaverse companies, as well as private investments, are also under discussion.