Metaverse

The term comes from Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel Snow Crash and describes an immersive online space where people meet, play, work and trade. Big tech companies embraced it in 2021, when Facebook renamed itself Meta and announced heavy investment in virtual and augmented reality. Crypto projects offered their own version: open worlds where users truly own their land, avatars and items as NFTs and can trade them freely.

Blockchain metaverse platforms such as Decentraland and The Sandbox sold land parcels, hosted brand activations, concerts and fashion weeks, and issued tokens used for purchases and governance. During the 2021 to 2022 boom, investors spent large sums on virtual real estate and metaverse tokens, and banks and luxury brands opened virtual stores.

Activity rarely matched the hype. Daily users of crypto metaverses stayed small, many brand spaces were abandoned and token and land prices fell by more than 90% from their peaks. Interoperability, the idea that items move between worlds, remains largely unrealised. The concept survives, but most building has shifted to gaming and to non-crypto virtual worlds.