Metaverse: A US$1 Trillion Market Opportunity

Although the Metaverse is still in its infancy, market actors and investors are looking forward to the prospect of a US$1 trillion annual revenue stream, as anticipated by cryptocurrency firm Grayscale. Overnight, the company’s report has driven a flurry of market activity and boosted the trading value of several cryptocurrencies.

“The Metaverse is estimated to be a trillion-dollar revenue opportunity across advertising, social commerce, digital events, hardware and developer/creator monetization,” reads the report.

As the foundation of this digital infrastructure begins to take form and gain social traction, it is expected to revolutionize the way people connect with each other and companies, much like the internet did. Within this untamed frontier companies of varied industries are presented another opportunity to experiment with their business models, expand their market access and revolutionize their industries. This promise has captured billions in investment, incited play-to-earn projects, and bloated the values of cryptocurrencies, which are expected to serve as the platform’s currency.

Among the early indicators of the potential size of this market is the 400 percent appreciation of the Decentraland (MANA) cryptocurrency after Facebook rebranded itself to Meta. During the third quarter, crypto fundraising drew in a total of US$8.2 billion, of which US$1.8 billion were directed towards Web 3.0 and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or digital assets, such as digital art. This is an addition to Facebook’s intended investment of US$10 billion, and its emerging rival Gemini who raised US$400 million in its first outside financing round with expressed intentions of building a “decentralized” metaverse.

This comes on the heels of the largest parcel sale in the metaverse yet. Just the day before, Metaverse Group, a real estate company focused on the metaverse, closed a US$2.5 million deal. “Each parcel purchased in this transaction is equivalent to 52.5 square feet, making the acquisition equivalent to 6,090 square feet of land. The acquisition was purchased for 618,000 MANA, an Ethereum based token used as currency in Decentraland,” read the press release.

As money continues to pour into the metaverse and supporting industries, the legitimacy of this concept beings to gain traction at wider social level. For Mexico, this development may finally push legislators to submit to the Mexican Stock Market’s (BMV) petitions to finally allow cryptocurrencies trading.