The pivotal role of tokenisation in the metaverse

Several visionaries and tech gurus refer to the metaverse as the “future of the internet”. Yet, it is still at an early stage and there are different meanings and different definitions and concepts available. A key element to the metaverse is the availability of multiple “worlds”, with a promise for us to interact and socialise on a deeper digital level.

With technology advancement and mainstream adoption, the lines between the physical and digital world are certainly starting to blur. Meta (formerly Facebook) is allowing you to describe and build virtual worlds, VR devices are evolving into next-gen, Decentraland is selling virtual land at record sales, and several companies and brands are issuing more and more NFTs.

From a business perspective, the opportunities for the metaverse are limitless and JP Morgan predicts “The metaverse will likely infiltrate every sector in some way in the coming years, with the market opportunity estimated at over $1 trillion in yearly revenues.”

Tokenisation and the use of blockchain are shaping to play a pivotal role in the metaverse, allowing transactions to be settled in a decentralised and “trustless” state, and providing options for numerous tokenisation cases to be critically embedded, such as:

• The usage and creation of virtual currencies to be used as a means of payment.
• Providing the bridge via smart contracts between physical goods and their digital copies (such as art, classic cars, clothes, and general ownership) and allowing these items to be used in games, as virtual entry tickets and digital certificates (just to name a few).
• Allowing decentralised financial models (DeFi) to be integrated and used (i.e. borrowing and lending against virtual goods, mortgages on virtual land, etc.).
• Creation of ownership and reward structures (i.e. ownership of a virtual business, membership, and rewards of virtual activities, incentive models, and involvement in the virtual world).
• Brand recognition and loyalty (and again, the bridge between a physical brand and its digital counterpart).
• Secondary markets and metaverse economies.
• …

At WeOwn, we have recently developed two NFT-based physical asset types for our issuance and servicing platform, as a secure and safe environment to manage these tokens and their holders. We have several companies and brands that are planning to launch these tokens via our own blockchain or in bridge mode via public chains and to allow them to be ultimately used in the Metaverse.

There are hundreds and thousands of use cases in the financial services sector alone, and many will require some form of metaverse linkage or embedded service setup. The adoption opportunities keep shaping and going through defining a process to meet social and market needs. Stay tuned for more …