Future of Web3 or just a market gimmick?

The Metaverse as a concept is an attempt to fuse physical reality, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) into one seamless and immersive experience.

The term “metaverse” was first used in Neil Stephenson’s 1982 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. Stephenson’s metaverse was a virtual place where characters could go to escape a dreary totalitarian reality. Some of the key attributes of the Metaverse include:

Even before the Metaverse became a phenomenon amid the nonfungible token (NFT) craze and crypto market boom, the concept was already in focus with the likes of Facebook, now Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and several other leading companies investing heavily in AR technology since the early 2010s.

In 2014, Meta acquired Oculus VR in a $2 billion deal with of focus on developing augmented and virtual reality-based games. In the same year, Sony and Samsung announced they were creating their own VR headsets, and Google released Google Glass AR glasses.

In 2020, Apple introduced. Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) to iPhones and iPods, which offered better depth scanning for photos and introduced AR features. The technology is also paving the way for mixed-reality headsets in the future. In 2021, Facebook rebranded itself to Meta to shift from purely social media to leading the metaverse race.

With a downturn in crypto markets, both NFTs and the Metaverse saw a rapid decline in interest and capital flow. Google trend data suggests metaverse was piquing interest until January 2022. However, as the bear market progressed, wiping out nearly 70% of the market valuation, interest in the Metaverse and NFTs have taken a dip.

There has been a drastic change in the approach from brands that, at the start of the year, were all about the Metaverse and NFTs. Recently, Tinder, the popular dating app, has cut down its metaverse plans in the wake of disappointing Q2 earnings. 

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Efforts at creating a futuristic AR-based virtual world are presently at a very nascent stage, and some experts believe that current technological barriers both at the hardware and software levels are partially to blame. Lili Zhao, director of ecosystem growth at Neo Blockchain, told Cointelegraph:

“The Metaverse is still in its infancy, so existing projects are industry pioneers which mean trials and errors before it reaches product maturity….