JP Morgan Enters The Decentraland Metaverse (MANA)

February 17, 2022 8:48 pm Comments

The largest bank in the United States just entered the Decentraland metaverse which is a virtual world that is powered by blockchain technology where users can buy and sell digital assets.

The metaverse is known for users being able to buy virtual land and exchange virtual items with the use of NFTs.

For JP Morgan specifically, the company announced the opening of its Onyx lounge within the virtual world indicating that the financial institution sees some potential in interacting with users in this new environment.

In fact, the financial institution is predicting that the metaverse will infiltrate a wide variety of industries in the future the same way that crypto and blockchain is starting to be able to do today.

EuroNews reports:

”The metaverse will likely infiltrate every sector in some way in the coming years, with the market opportunity estimated at over $1 trillion (€880 billion) in yearly revenues,” the report said.

JP Morgan said it plans to “play a major role in the metaverse,” and could help tackle issues in the virtual world currently dealt with in real life, such as validating accounts and fraud prevention.

Interest in the metaverse spiked last October after Facebook announced it was changing its name to Meta to reflect its focus on the virtual world, where users will be able to work and socialize.

The metaverse, which already exists especially in gaming, may provide massive advertising potential, which companies such as Nike are already trying to tap into with NFT-based products and shop fronts.

“This democratic ownership economy coupled with the possibility of interoperability, could unlock immense economic opportunities, whereby digital goods and services are no longer captive to a singular gaming platform or brand,” the report said.

So far, in-game economies are just in the early stages of developing as the bank’s report seems to indicate.

It mentions that it has observed that the price of virtual land has doubled from an average of $6000 to $12000 from June to December of last year.

The report also mentioned that it expects the advertising economy within the metaverse to continue to increase with advertising spending potentially reaching $18.4 billion by the year 2027.

Currently, there have already been significant milestones already reached as well where the metrics may surprise some investors.

The bank had pointed out that consumers are already spending $54 billion on virtual goods every year already and that it is very likely that this trend will continue to increase.

Decentraland is just one of the core metaverses that is available today, but there are multiple competitors.

CryptoPotato reports:

Decentraland is one of the games that aim to capitalize on the metaverse trend as it uses blockchain despite not being VR-enabled yet.

Blockchain technology could be essential for metaverse development, especially in Decentraland’s case, where it includes NFTs representing land and assets and the native MANA token.

Utility coins like MANA allow users to buy land, virtual goods, and services in-game. As such, its price depends on the game’s popularity. That’s why Decentraland’s token jumped by around 10% on the news that JP Morgan joined the game.

However, Decentraland is not the only metaverse game out there. The project faces most competition from the crypto game the Sandbox.

Still, crypto markets interpreted the JP Morgan news more as a vote of confidence to Decentraland rather than the Metaverse space in general. In fact, the SAND token, the native token of Sandbox, was only up 0.5% after the announcement.

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