Grayscale Report: Metaverse will be a $1 trillion opportunity after a 10-fold increase in users

Cryptocurrency investment giant Grayscale has released a report on how bullish the Metaverse is, estimating that the “market opportunity” for bringing the Metaverse to the mainstream could be worth more than $1 trillion over the next few years.

The report, titled "The Metaverse, Web 3.0 Virtual Cloud Economy," was authored by Grayscale Research Director David Grider and Research Analyst Matt Maximo. The duo primarily explores this emerging field from the perspective of an open metaverse world powered by an "interconnected crypto-economy" such as Decentraland.

The report highlights that the Metaverse platform integrates encrypted tokens, decentralized finance (DeFi) services such as staking and lending, NFTs, decentralized governance, and decentralized cloud storage, “creating a new online experience.” , is rapidly attracting new users.

Analyzing data on "metaverse wallets that have been active globally" since early 2020, the report finds that the user base has grown tenfold since then, to around 50,000 as of June 2021.

"Metaverse virtual world users are still in their early stages compared to other Web 3.0 and Web 2.0 sectors, but if current growth rates remain on the current trajectory, this nascent field has the potential to become mainstream in the coming years."

The report highlights that there is no shortage of venture capital firms making bets on the industry's potential. According to the report, funding for blockchain games totaled $1 billion in the third quarter. This accounted for 12% of the total funding raised in the entire crypto space during the quarter, making it the "top sub-sector" in the Web 3.0 and NFT categories.

Market opportunities

The researchers note that there are a number of key factors that may have contributed significantly to the growth of the Metaverse industry, including growth in average leisure time and money spent on digital hobbies, a cultural shift from pay-to-play to free-to-play games, and the rise of Web 3.0. Innovation, such as Play-to-Earn (P2E).

In 2020, the total revenue of virtual world games worldwide is 180 billion US dollars, of which "paid consumption" accounts for about 40 billion US dollars, and it is estimated that by 2025, the revenue of this industry may exceed 400 billion US dollars, mainly driven by in-game consumption models .

The report argues that this transition is “accelerating further with the shift from the closed corporate metaverse of Web 2.0 to the open encrypted metaverse network of Web 3.0,” due to the earn-by-play potential.

The report reads: “Web 3.0 metaverse virtual worlds benefit from rapid innovation and increased productivity. By eliminating capital controls and opening digital borders to free market capitalism, encrypted virtual worlds create a value for creators and asset owners.” Multi-million dollar primary and secondary markets.”

Native tokens of open Metaverse platforms like Decentraland (MANA) and The Sandbox (SAND) have been on the rise lately, up 49% and 102%, respectively, to $5.03 and $7.60 at the time of writing.

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