Metaverse Through the Eyes of JPMorgan

Recently, JPMorgan published a report on the metaverse. The information I shared on this subject has reached close to a quarter million views.

We can focus on some of the concepts in the report. The first of these is the “perfect harmony of digital identity and physical identity”. What is this harmony in question?

Let's rewind the story. Let's imagine that any high school student in an Anatolian city in the 1990s, namely in the Web 1.0 phase, was very interested in Japanese culture. It would probably be impossible for this person to go to Japan and experience that culture. Because to do this physically, socio-economic conditions had to be in place. It was not possible to do it digitally. Because in the Web 1.0 era, most users didn't have a digital identity, they were just readers.

In the Web 2.0 phase, digital identities began to emerge. Digital identities were included as part of our physical identity. Although the older generations found this situation strange at first, they gradually found themselves in the same adventure. In the Web 2.0 phase, we became friends with a Japanese through social networks and started to see his world in 2D.

In the phase called Web 3.0, digital identity will increase its area within the physical identity and will begin to crush physical identity, so to speak. Consider this same person who goes to the metaverse and lives in a house in Japantown. With virtual glasses, he spends hours every day with his Japanese neighbors. He experiences their special days, holidays and funerals. For him, physical identity is in the background as much as possible. "Second Life", which gave its name to a game in 2003, comes true. This is where the perfect harmony is born.

Well, if you say that the game was already doing this, don't forget. The main difference here is “ownership”. You own the assets on the Metaverse. In Web 2.0 platforms, your hand is actually in someone else's pocket, while in Web 3.0, the assets really belong to you. This security is provided by consensus algorithms offered by cryptology.

According to the research, this new generation gives importance to digital assets, not physical assets. If brands and companies cannot read this change, they will not be able to understand the new consumption paradigm. The democratization of experiences in the JPMorgan report comes to the same conclusion.

Maybe that's why the new generation prefers to buy a digital service with that money instead of eating at a luxury restaurant. This is where the crisis of "take out your phone" in the minds of older generations actually arises. Because the phone is a critical door to digital. While older generations see physical assets in front of digital assets, the post-2000 generation is not obsessed with wearing the same jeans or having a quick snack. But he cares about experiencing different country cinemas by purchasing Netflix. Just as in the case of Japanese culture, there is an increasingly democratization of experience in the case of Netflix. The movies we watched in the Web 2.0 phase will be replaced by virtual reality immersion in the movie set in the Web 3.0 phase. Maybe the new generation will use the money they cut from physical assets to live the experience here. Take out your phone will replace your metaverse. It is quite normal for the new generation to want to experience the opportunities offered by the information technologies they were born into.

In my opinion, one of the critical points in the report is the fact that the fake has taken a new dimension and its consequences. In the Web 1.0 stage, fraud was mostly done by playing the counters of the sites. If 1 person entered the site, 10 people were shown. In the Web 2.0 stage, fraud was done with Twitter bots, with fake YouTube views. This was a little more dangerous because it opened the door to perception manipulations. It was possible to set the agenda through these fake bots in both national and international politics. In the Web 3.0 stage, fraud may take a new dimension. Fake virtual protests, concerts with fake crowds will be possible on the Metaverse. The transfer of fraud to a new dimension may lead to a reinterpretation of the post-truth issue.

Mentioning that a new economy will also be formed here, the report calls it Metanomics. We will see what the limits of this economy will be in the future. It will contain certain intersection areas. For example, the intersection of blockchain and metaverse projects, virtual reality and blockchain projects are two of them.

So now? How will we be positioned? Don't worry, we are at the beginning of the road. Swimming isn't learned from a book, jump into the water, says JPMorgan. Start by learning first. Then own assets, generate your own, stay connected.