메타버스

2022.05.13

 

메타버스란?

대체로 메타버스는 가상 세계 또는 컴퓨팅 기술을 사용한 물리적 세계의 확장으로 정의됩니다.

 

Stephenson의 Snow Crash 및 Ernest Cline의 Ready Player One(같은 이름의 2018 Stephen Spielberg 영화로 각색됨)과 같은 다른 소설 작품에서 메타버스는 가상 현실(VR) 헤드셋을 사용하여 액세스됩니다.

기본적으로 기존 컴퓨터, 스마트폰 또는 모니터에 표시하지 않고 사용자가 경험에 몰입할 수 있는 고급 컴퓨터입니다.

 

즉, 메타버스는 단순히 디스플레이에서 무엇인가(생방송, 웹페이지, 작업 문서 등)를 보는 것이 아니라 가상 경험에 보다 직접적으로 참여할 수 있도록 하는 것으로 상상됩니다. 가상 세계에서 사람의 존재는 가상 세계 및 그 안에 있는 다른 사람들과 상호 작용할 수 있는 아바타로 표현됩니다.

 

Lex Fridman 팟캐스트의 인터뷰에서 Zuckerberg에 따르면 "... 이것에 대한 한 가지 정의는 [메타버스]는 몰입형 디지털 세계가 우리가 삶을 살고 시간을 보내는 주요 방법이 되는 시기에 관한 것입니다." 메타버스의 일부 그것은 우리 모두가 이 가상 판타지 영역에 갇힐 때까지 메타버스가 존재하지 않는다는 것을 의미합니까? 정확히. 일부 정의에 따르면 메타버스는 VR을 사용하여 액세스할 필요가 없습니다. 3차원 세계는 오늘날 이미 존재하며 VR 없이도 사용할 수 있습니다. 일부 사람들은 그들이 "메타버스"의 일부라고 부를 만큼 충분히 몰입하지 않는다고 주장할 수도 있지만(즉, 2차원 화면에서 보는 것이 아니라 가상 공간에 있는 것처럼 느껴야 함을 의미함) 이 모호한 초기 버전의 일부입니다.

 

기술 용어가 여기에 있습니다. 메타버스가 어떻게 사용되는지에 관해서는 다음과 같은 세 가지 경우가 있습니다.

 

1. 비디오 게임

메타버스의 초기 사용은 비디오 게임 산업입니다. Microsoft(NASDAQ:MSFT) Minecraft, Epic Games의 국제적 히트작 Fortnite 또는 어린이 Roblox(NYSE:RBLX)를 위한 온라인 게임 및 제작 플랫폼과 같은 인기 있는 비디오 게임을 생각해 보십시오. 대부분의 사람들이 여전히 컴퓨터, 스마트폰 또는 게임 콘솔과 같은 기존 장치를 사용하여 비디오 게임을 하고 있지만 일부 게임에는 몰입형 경험을 위한 모든 구성 요소가 있습니다. 플레이어를 나타내는 맞춤형 아바타가 만들어지고 가상 세계와 상호 작용할 수 있습니다 플레이어에 의해 다른 플레이어와 사회적 요소가 있고 디지털 상품을 사고 팔 수 있는 경제가 존재합니다. 디지털 경제 구성 요소의 경우, 게임을 위해 특별히 개발된 통화(예: Roblox 플랫폼의 Robux) 또는 암호화폐(일부 블록체인 프로젝트는 NFT의 형태). 경제가 가상 세계(또는 인터넷 자체)로 확장된다는 이 개념은 비트코인(CRYPTO:BTC)과 같은 일부 암호화폐가 개발된 주된 이유였습니다. 오늘날 대부분의 게임은 일부 사람들이 메타버스 경제의 미래를 어떻게 상상하는지에 비해 기초적이지만 비디오 게임 내에서 디지털 통화를 사용하는 가상 제품의 디지털 교환은 작동 방식에 대한 일반적인 아이디어를 제공합니다.

 

2. 사회적 상호작용

메타버스는 게임 플랫폼으로만 개발되는 것이 아닙니다. Stephenson의 Snow Crash에서 메타버스의 중요한 측면은 사회적 상호작용이었습니다. 이것은 두 명 이상의 사람들이 물리적으로 서로 떨어져 있더라도 의사 소통하고, 정보를 교환하고, 다른 사람들과 얼굴을 맞대고(아바타 대 아바타?) 경험을 공유할 수 있는 능력을 열어줍니다.

 

이러한 관점에서 몰입형 가상 세계는 많은 의미가 있습니다. Zoom Video Communications(NASDAQ:ZM)는 COVID-19 전염병 동안 가명이 되었습니다. 그러나 2차원 영상을 통한 연락에는 한계가 있습니다.

줌인(Zooming)'이 일상화되기 전에는 눈맞춤과 자세와 같은 비음성 커뮤니케이션 신호가 당연하게 여겨져 왔다는 것이 밝혀졌습니다. Meta's Horizon Venues(공정하게 말하면 아직 개발 초기 단계임)와 같은 소셜 앱은 이러한 문제 중 일부를 해결하려고 합니다.

Quest 2 VR 헤드셋을 통해 사용할 수 있는 3D 아바타는 친구 및 가족과 상호 작용할 때 더 큰 존재감을 줄 수 있으며 라이브 이벤트도 앱을 통해 함께 참석할 수 있습니다. 예를 들어, NBA는 Horizon Venues에서 일부 게임을 사용할 수 있도록 하여 Quest 2 사용자가 다른 팬과의 상호 작용과 함께 농구 경기를 시청할 수 있는 몰입형 방법을 제공합니다. 바보 같은 생각처럼 들리나요? 아마도. 그러나 텔레비전이 새로운 것이었을 때 일부 사람들은 직접 참석하는 것보다 TV에서 생방송 이벤트를 보는 것도 어리석은 생각이라고 생각했을 것입니다.

 

3. 업무용

사회적 상호 작용은 메타버스의 다른 실용적인 용도로 연결될 수 있습니다.

많은 인력이 이미 비인간적인 디지털 도구(이메일, 문서, Zoom 회의 등)를 사용하여 대부분의 시간을 보내고 있습니다. 따라서 업무용 메타버스는 이러한 디지털 경험이 언제 더 몰입하게 되는지에 대한 질문입니다.

 

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Talking About the Metaverse With Venture Capitalist and Author Matthew Ball | The Motley Fool

What Is the Metaverse? | The Motley Fool

벤처 캐피털리스트이자 작가인 매튜 볼과 메타버스에 대해 이야기하기.

메타버스는 무엇인가?

 

Venture capitalist Matthew Ball is the author of the upcoming book, The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything.

벤처 자본가 매튜 볼(Matthew Ball)은 곧 출간될 책 The Metaverse:

"메타버스는 아떻게 모든 것을 혁신시킬 것인가"의 저자입니다.

 

In this podcast, Motley Fool analyst Asit Sharma talks with him about:

이 펏캐스트에서 모슬리 풀의 애널리스트 아싯샤마는 그와 다음에 대하여 대화할 것이다.

• The technical challenges in bringing the metaverse to life.
• 메타버스를 실생활에 가져오는 기술적인 도전.
•  
• A murky future for all involved.
• 연관된 모두에게 어두운 미래
•  
• Why Nike (NKE 4.74%) may have meaningful exposure to the metaverse.
• 나이키가 메타버스에 의미있는 지분을 가질지도 모르는 이유.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. To get started investing, check out our quick-start guide to investing in stocks. A full transcript follows the video.

 

Matthew Ball: [MUSIC] Cash, resources, and conviction are not sufficient to thrive in the metaverse.

Of course, Microsoft was as convinced as anyone; in mobile and in the Internet. It didn't really help.

They had all of the pieces. They put them together incorrectly.

In fact, the number of thesis errors that they made, was actually quite something.

 

Matthew Ball: 현금, 자원, 신념만으로는 메타버스에서 살아남기에 충분하지 않습니다.

물론 Microsoft는 누구와 마찬가지로 확신했습니다. 모바일과 인터넷에서. 별로 도움이 되지 않았습니다.

그들은 모든 조각을 가지고 있었습니다. 그들은 그것들을 잘못 결합했습니다.

사실 그들이 만든 이론의 오류의 수는 사실 꽤 많았습니다.

 

Chris Hill: I'm Chris Hill and that was Matthew Ball. From 2016 to 2018, he was the Head of Strategy at Amazon Studios. Today, he is the venture capitalist, rider, and author of the forthcoming book, The Metaverse and how it will revolutionize everything.

 

Chris Hill: 저는 Chris Hill이고 대화 상대방은 Matthew Ball입니다.

2016년부터 2018년까지 그는 Amazon Studios의 전략 책임자였습니다. 오늘날 그는 벤처 자본가이자 기수이자

곧 출간될 책인 'Metaverse와 그것이 어떻게 모든 것을 혁신할 것인가'의 저자입니다.

 

Recently, he sat down with my colleague, Asit Sharma to talk about the technical challenges

in bringing the metaverse to life, how gaming could change and one less obvious company with a lot of exposure to this new frontier

but Asit began the conversation by trying to learn when we're going to get the metaverse we keep hearing about.

 

최근에 그는 내 동료인 Asit Sharma와 함께 메타버스를 실생활에 가져오는데 있어 기술적 문제에 대하여 대화했다.

게임이 어떻게 실생활을 변화시킬 수있는지, 이 새로운 영역에 많이 노출된 덜 분명한 회사에 대해 이야기를 나누었다.

Asit는 우리가 계속 듣고 있는 메타버스를 언제 얻게 될지를 배우려고 시도하는  것으로 대화를 시작했다.

 

Asit Sharma: Do you feel, or do you believe that the rate of acceleration of interest in the metaverse, the rate of acceleration of capital put into this team is going to produce this common place bridge between digital and physical experiences in the near future

or we still looking at 10-20 years of evolution before we start to take metaverse as second nature and

how we live and work?

 

Asit Sharma: 메타버스에 대한 관심의 가속화 속도, 이 팀에 투입된 자본의 가속화 속도가 가까운 장래에 디지털 경험과 물리적 경험 사이의 공통 장소 다리를 생성할 것이라고 느끼거나 믿습니까?

메타버스를 제2의 천성으로 받아들이기 시작하기 전에 우리는 여전히 10-20년의 진화를 바라보고 있으며

어떻게 살고 일하고 있습니까?

 

Matthew Ball: Certainly to argue two different things.

One is that we need to truly depart from the idea that there is a before or after.

If the metaverse is a successor state to today's mobile and cloud Internet era, we should identify exactly when that era began. We can start in 1973 with the first wireless cellphone call. I wouldn't start there but one could argue that the mobile era began there. We can start in 1991, that's when the first 2G network was launched. That was the first wireless digital network for data transmission.

 

매튜 볼: 확실히 두 가지 다른 주장을 하는 것입니다.

하나는 전과 후가 있다는 생각에서 진정으로 벗어나야 한다는 것입니다.

메타버스가 오늘날의 모바일 및 클라우드 인터넷 시대의 후계자라면 그 시대가 언제 시작되었는지

정확히 파악해야 합니다. 우리는 1973년 최초의 무선 휴대전화 통화로 시작할 수 있습니다.

나는 거기에서 시작하지 않을 것이지만 누군가는 모바일 시대가 거기에서 시작되었다고 주장할 수 있습니다.

우리는 1991년부터 시작할 수 있습니다. 그때는 최초의 2G 네트워크가 시작된 때였습니다. 그

것은 데이터 전송을 위한 최초의 무선 디지털 네트워크였습니다.

 

The BlackBerry comes out in the late '90s, in 1999, we have the wireless application protocol,

allowing anyone on a mobile device to access a primitive altered version of the web as we knew it in the '90s.

Then of course we have the rise of consumer smartphones, BlackBerry Pearl in the 2000s, 2007, the iPhone 2008, the iPhone 3G, with the sufficient speeds to make most of the mobile Internet usable and the app store, which provides us with something to do.

 

Mid-next decade, half of Americans have a smartphone. Few years later, half of the world over 13 has a smartphone.

 

블랙베리(휴대폰)는 90년대 후반에 출시되었습니다. 1999년에는 무선 애플리케이션 프로토콜을 사용하여 모바일 장치를 사용하는 모든 사용자가 90년대에 알고 있던 원시적으로 변경된 버전의 웹에 액세스할 수 있습니다.

그 다음 물론 우리는 소비자 스마트폰, 2000년대, 2007년에 블랙베리 펄, iPhone은 2008,  모바일 인터넷의 대부분을

사용할 수 있도록 하는 충분한 속도와 우리에게 무언가를 제공하는 앱 스토어가 있는 iPhone 3G가 등장했습니다.

 

다음 10년 중반에는 미국인의 절반이 스마트폰을 가지고 있습니다.

몇 년 후, 13세 이상 인구의 절반이 스마트폰을 가지고 있습니다.

 

When did the mobile Internet era begin is both a philosophical and unanswerable question

but ultimately one of generation.

You take a look at Roblox today, 75 percent of those, 9-12 use Roblox regularly in many developed markets.

For them, they've already moved beyond the form of the Internet that you and I name.

Much like in the '90s and then certainly the early 2010s, many people were in the mobile Internet era.

Many companies were, but we wouldn't really say that society was at large. I see this as unfolding over the coming decades. Many people think the end of this decade is when you start to say, its advent is truly here but I think the lesson in the story that I just told you is, we can discount how much of the preparation needs to begin now.

 

모바일 인터넷 시대는 언제 시작되었는가는 철학적이면서 동시에 답이 없는 질문이기도 하지만

궁극적으로는 여러 세대중 하나입니다.

오늘날 Roblox를 살펴보면  많은 선진국 시장에서 9-12세낭이의 75%는 정기적으로 Roblox를 사용합니다.

그들에게 있어 그들은 이미 당신과 내가 명명한 인터넷의 형태를 넘어섰습니다.

90년대와 2010년대 초와 마찬가지로 많은 사람들이 모바일 인터넷 시대에 있었습니다.

많은 회사가 있었지만 우리는 사회가 일반적이라고 말하지는 않을 것입니다. 나는 이것이 앞으로 수십 년 동안 전개될 것이라고 본다. 많은 사람들은 이 10년의 끝이 진정한 도래가 도래했다고 말하기 시작할 때라고 생각합니다.

하지만 제가 방금 말씀드린 이야기의 교훈은 지금 시작해야 하는 준비의 양을 줄일 수 있다는 것입니다.

 

 

Asit Sharma: You named a number of technological milestones are going back decades.

For a lay person, what milestones still need to be achieved until we get to this state where the metaverse is no longer this conceptual thing that we're trying to explain to people but just a natural extension of our present approach to consciousness.

 

Asit Sharma: 당신은 수십 년 전으로 거슬러 올라가는 수많은 기술적 이정표를 언급했습니다.

평신도의 경우 메타버스가 더 이상 사람들에게 설명하려고 하는 개념적인 것이 아니라 의식에 대한 현재 접근 방식의 자연스러운 확장인 이 상태에 도달할 때까지 어떤 이정표를 달성해야 합니다.

 

 

Matthew Ball: There really are a few different things that we can keep in mind. One is to recognize that the Internet is actually pretty outstripped buyer ambitions when it comes to the metaverse. Many of your readers may have heard the term latency. Latency is something that we don't think of very often but it's essentially the transit time in milliseconds that it takes a given package to go from one point to another point. We usually think of how long it takes a button to be pressed.

 

Matthew Ball: 우리가 유념할 수 있는 몇 가지 다른 것들이 있습니다. 하나는 메타버스와 관련하여 인터넷이 실제로 구매자의 야망을 훨씬 능가한다는 사실을 인식하는 것입니다. 많은 독자가 대기 시간이라는 용어를 들어봤을 것입니다. 대기 시간은 우리가 자주 생각하지 않는 것이지만 본질적으로 주어진 패키지가 한 지점에서 다른 지점으로 이동하는 데 걸리는 전송 시간(밀리초)입니다. 우리는 일반적으로 버튼을 누르는 데 걸리는 시간을 생각합니다.

 

For context, if it takes Spotify longer than 200-250 milliseconds to pause when you hit the pause button,

your brain starts to say it's not working.

In an interactive environment, you're usually thinking about 40 milliseconds, 50 milliseconds, 70 seconds is when things really start to erode, but ideally 20 milliseconds.

 

문맥상, 스포티파이 일시 중지 버튼을 눌렀을 때 일시 중지하는 데  200-250밀리초 이상 걸리면

당신의 머리는 그것이 작동하지 않는다고 말하기 시작합니다.

대화형 환경에서는 일반적으로 40밀리초, 50밀리초,

70초가 걸리면 실제로 부식되기 시작하지만  20밀리초는 이상적이라고 생각합니다.

(1 밀리세컨드=천분의 1초)

 

The Internet was not designed for that, were in fact up against the practicalities of the speed of light. I know it sounds insane, but to put this in perspective, it takes like 45 milliseconds to go from New York to Tokyo. Light of course, can go there efficiently and essentially without disturbance.

 

인터넷은 이를 위해 설계되지 않았으며 사실 빛의 속도라는 실용성에 반하는 것이었습니다. 미친 소리처럼 들린다는 것을 알고 있지만, 이것을 관점에서 보면 뉴욕에서 도쿄까지 가는 데 45밀리초 정도 걸립니다. 물론 빛은 방해 없이 효율적이고 본질적으로 거기에 갈 수 있습니다.

 

What does this mean practically? Well, only 75 percent of Americans truly can participate in today's real-time environments. In the Middle East, fewer than one quarter of broadband homes can, and that's on a local basis, not an international basis. The extent to which infrastructure remains an impediment is hard to overestimate.

 

이것은 실질적으로 무엇을 의미합니까? 미국인의 75%만이 오늘날의 실시간 환경에 진정으로 참여할 수 있습니다.

중동에서는 광대역 가정의 4분의 1 미만이 할 수 있으며 이는 국제 기준이 아니라 지역 기준입니다.

기반 시설이 장애물로 남아 있는 정도는 과대평가하기 어렵습니다.

 

 

The other thing is the Internet, TCP/IP. The Internet protocol suite, actually does a bad job of managing because the Internet was developed to send asynchronous messages that were themselves static between one person and another, one lab sends it to one university.

 

다른 하나는 인터넷, TCP/IP입니다. 인터넷 프로토콜 제품군은 실제로 한 사람과 다른 사람 간에 정적이었던 비동기 메시지를 보내도록 개발되었기 때문에 한 연구실에서 한 대학으로 보내기 때문에 관리가 제대로 이루어지지 않습니다.

 

We're talking about a constant stream of live data to marry different parties who are collaborative. What that means is actually the Internet protocol suite does not manage for traffic very well. We're talking on one side of infrastructure, on another side, we're talking about protocols; private or public and then we can think of everything else, Computing devices.

 

우리는 협업하는 서로 다른 당사자와 결혼하기 위한 지속적인 라이브 데이터 스트림에 대해 이야기하고 있습니다. 이것이 의미하는 바는 실제로 인터넷 프로토콜 제품군이 트래픽을 잘 관리하지 못한다는 것입니다. 우리는 인프라의 한 쪽에서 이야기하고 있고 다른 쪽에서 프로토콜에 대해 이야기하고 있습니다. 사적이든 공적이든 우리는 다른 모든 것, 컴퓨팅 장치를 생각할 수 있습니다.

 

Obviously, we need the extraordinary improvements. Intel has had a thousand factor. Improvement is required. John Carmack has said that in 2000, if you asked him whether you could build the metaverse with a 100x compute, John Carmack said, consulting and former founding CTO of Oculus with a 100x compute, could you build it? He said, in 2000 he'd have said yes. Of course today we have 120x in average iPhone and we've got seven billion devices, not a billion. Computers required, but we can go on and on fundamental changes to app store policy, new platforms to make it easier for anyone to create. This is why we talked about it as an iterative process.

 

분명히 우리는 놀라운 개선이 필요합니다. 인텔은 수천 가지 요인을 가지고 있습니다. 개선이 필요합니다. John Carmack은 2000년에 100x 컴퓨팅으로 메타버스를 구축할 수 있는지 물으면 100x 컴퓨팅으로 Oculus의 전 CTO이자 컨설팅이었던 John Carmack이 100x 컴퓨팅으로 메타버스를 구축할 수 있다고 말했습니다. 그는 2000년에 예라고 대답했을 것이라고 말했습니다. 물론 오늘날 우리는 평균 iPhone이 120배이고 기기가 10억이 아니라 70억입니다. 컴퓨터가 필요하지만 앱 스토어 정책에 대한 근본적인 변경, 누구나 쉽게 만들 수 있는 새로운 플랫폼을 계속 진행할 수 있습니다. 이것이 우리가 그것을 반복적인 과정이라고 이야기한 이유입니다.

 

 

Asit Sharma: On one hand, we have the evolution of say content delivery networks or Edge Networks, which are part of the solution to this problem. On the other hand, we have companies like Roblox, which you talked about, which are more user-facing or building those worlds. I'm curious to know on the side of compute power, which you mentioned is another, what's that called it? A constraint, so much as an opportunity. But theoretical constraints, what role does say more slot or the belief that maybe that is not really a law, that theory isn't going to hold up? We see a lot of capital being poured into the extension of this by Intel, Nvidia, even Apple, so many companies. Do you feel that or believe that limitations on computing power will eventually put a hard stop onto the experiences that we can develop. Or this is something we can keep pushing beyond [inaudible].

 

Matthew Ball: It's great. Look, I would first disagree by saying that we are constrained by computing resources. I think what's important to recognize is many of the limitations that result from that aren't evident, which is to say, when we have more computing available, we tend to uncover problems that we didn't know about. And we tend to pursue more difficult problems, which is why computing remains scarce. There's never enough of it. Whether we're talking about a CPU or GPU. A good example would be to take a look at Battle Royale games.

 

Battle Royale games send roughly 100 players into a shared simulation. It's not new that game designers want to build Battle Royales, it's new that they can, they have the server power, broadband helps, of course. But then they have the widely deployed computing devices and iPad, frankly, mid-level laptop that can run those experiences. That led to the creation of Battle Royale's about six years ago. It's no mistake that many of the most popular games globally, there is about 450 million daily Battle Royale players, are new. We should recognize that when we have more compute available, new experiences are built, but we should not forget how constrained those are. I like to talk about the fact that it's incredible that we can get 100 players into a Battle Royale. But even that is a little bit of a cheat.

 

A Battle Royale takes place on an enormous map. Fortnite is two-and-a-half kilometers by two-and-a-half kilometers. What that means is if I'm playing, my computer actually doesn't really need to pay attention to most of the other players and doesn't even know they exist. They exist as a number in the match. I might see 20 at-once rarely, but it's really only processing 20 different people. When you take a look up and down the computing devices and platforms, you can see that difference. Call of Duty: Warzone only runs on gaming PCs and high-end consoles. It has just 150 people. Fortnite runs on most platforms, but far from all it has 100. When you play Free Fire, which comes from Garena, it's designed to run on low-end Androids and developing markets. You can have 50 people despite those limitations.

 

When you use an Oculus Rift or a metaquest, they have population, one, they're Battle Royale and it has 18 people. In fact, it has 18 people at half the resolution, half the frame rate as a result, it's roughly one-quarter of the pixels process per second. The graphics look closer to a PlayStation 3 title than a PlayStation 5 title. This limitation on compute really does change what you can do from which devices and certainly which new devices, AR and VR, we want. The primary reason why you can't use a HoloLens AR device or an Oculus for so long is both the fact that the battery can't process or can't power that computing device long enough. If you actually want to solve for some of the rendering potency, you need an enormous battery that's going to melt your face or break your neck. This is where you get into the more fueled ideas of do we need quantum computing? Alternatively, people talked about decentralized computing. The problem with Edge computing is Edge can give you more power.

 

But if you and I are playing a game against one another, ultimately, that doesn't solve for the fact that we need computers powerful and close to both of us, latency comes into play. But most importantly, people ask this question of decentralized compute, which is. Well, I don't think my neighbor's home right now. They probably have 10 devices in their home. We're well acquainted to the idea that two doors down in truth, there are solar panels on top of the house. They're leasing, supply, and capacity for compensation to the network, it might be powering my computer right now. But there is this question of not just do, we need more powerful processors, but do we need a better way to utilize processors?

 

Asit Sharma: Yeah, I really loved that last idea. A colleague of mine has a service at The Motley Fool Digital Explorers, and he's Bernd Schmid. He is very taken by the idea that money being poured into digital assets often times has a very real-world use case. Problems are being solved in this space which goes into this huge and I think, incoherent moniker of like crypto assets. There is a lot there that can help in terms of spreading out computing power. Between your first writings about the metaverse and this book, I'm curious as to any big aha moments that you had. Let me put it this way. In writing this book, what were the initial conceptions you had that turned out to be not wrong, but you had a very steep evolution between the way you first conceptualize this and again writing about it, to the time of now how you think about the metaverse, what has changed in your thinking about either what the metaverse is or we could also touch on topics of again, what is needed to realize the vision that you have of so many multiple worlds that are interconnected, not just a single entity that is called the metaverse, which I know some people like to think of. I also disagree with that vision.

 

Matthew Ball: I think there were a few primary themes that I've determined. One was, it was a lot of fun digging into the hardware challenges. You and I spoke about it a moment ago. But to some extent, AR and VR is a chartable problem. We know or we think we have a good sense of what minimum viable product looks like. We can start to understand all of the constituent parts around the interplay between battery life, sensors, resolution, computing, processing, power, price point. That was a lot of fun just digging in deeply because that actually is a bit of a solvable equation. The second thing is, I went deep into the history of what could you know and what couldn't you know.

I'm often asked the would be metaverse expert, though I would decline the term. So what does the metaverse look like in 2035 or 2030? I like to say, I don't know and that's important because first of all, confusion and uncertainty is a prerequisite for disruption. If we all knew, no one would be displaced. The other thing is, you can look back over time at TCP/IP, at the mobile Internet. There was no technical understanding or no high-level elements of more people with more devices and more places using the Internet more often. That told you about Instagram, of TikTok, of the impact of Robinhood and commission-free trading. It didn't really tell you what to build, when, why, how, and how it would be monetized as well.

So really unpacking that was fascinating because it allowed me to say, here's what I'm convinced of, here's what I think but I'm not certain about, and here are the things I would never speculate on. Because the third conclusion is really to understand that technological change of this nature is recursive. Someone produces an innovation. It leads to users, those users manifest new behaviors, that inspires a derivative innovation or technology that changes behaviors producing new use cases and this just continues to flow. It's one of the reasons why I would say one of the fourth biggest takeaways is cash, resources, and conviction are not sufficient to thrive in the metaverse. Of course, Microsoft was as convinced as anyone in mobile and in the internet. It didn't really help. They had all the pieces. They put them together incorrectly.

In fact, the number of thesis errors that they made, not execution errors, but thesis errors they made was actually quite something. That's a good parallel to Facebook right now. They have three billion users, two billion dials, billions a year in OCF, a founder with absolute conviction, an enormous headstart in VR, wide range of talented developers. But cash, resources, conviction not sufficient to thrive in this next era. Because we don't know exactly how it's going to play out.

 

Asit Sharma: You don't run, but you co-founded an ETF, which I mentioned at the outset. I'm not sure, the extent of your involvement in managing the portfolio.

 

Matthew Ball: No. We're the index provider.

Asit Sharma: Index provider. So my question just to begin is, when you thought through the themes that would underlie this ETF, did you find just a huge amount of companies that were in your selectable universe, was it something that after some time laying out your criteria, you realized wow, this service is going to have fewer stocks and companies than 100? Very curious about the size of the ETF and the companies that are indexed to.

Matthew Ball: Sure. Let me give you the macro perspective. I and my co-founders believed that the Metaverse is a multi-trillion dollar, multi-decade transformation. You will find Citibank, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs of all estimated by 2030, it's roughly 8-13 trillion are actually using my methodology and altering the exact forecast. But so the prospective becomes, how do you gain appropriately diversified exposure to that macro level, an extraordinarily large investment thing? My perspective, is there's certainly an opportunity for picking.

The challenge with picking right now is that that future is relatively uncertain for the reasons that I mentioned, we all wish we could go to 1995 buy Apple, 2005, buy Netflix. Yet some people instead bet on Nokia or BlackBerry good for a short period, not good after or Samsung. Others bet on Time Warner, a fine return, but nothing offer generative. Having a well diversified, structured, thematic index would have provided extraordinary returns even if it fell a little bit short of Apple or Netflix.

You can take a look at social media, social networking, mobile Cloud, enterprise Cloud, thematic ETFs over the past 30 years, and the results are great. From my perspective when you talked about composition, because it's such a broad theme, I didn't see that I could actually develop it solely myself, and so I built the council. Six others, former executives at Amazon, at Nvidia, at Square, Spotify, Andreessen Horowitz, at New York Times. Very securities professionals, the former executive producer and lead game design lead for Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto V. We produced this passive rules-based thematic index. We took a look at seven core profit pools, weighted them based on their projected and current share of the profit pools and then came out with the scoring mechanism for all companies.

We went through 3,000. Could we have provided some allocation to the hundreds? Certainly. But the goal here was to provide investors with as tight and exposure to the actual Metaverse team. Let me give you a good example. Many believe that Nike is going to be a large participant. From the Metaverse, they've got a good data C suite. We can understand how virtual existence has requirements for apparel, augmented reality for a fitness company. You wouldn't say that that's pure-play exposure, but you would say it's meaningful exposure. We just as easily put Adidas or Under Armour, but we came out with a methodology that tightens the selection down to between 30 and 70 companies on a relative basis. I think we're sitting at 42 right now.

Asit Sharma: That's so interesting. Did Nike make it into the index?

Matthew Ball: Nike did, but not at first. As I mentioned, we have a passive rules-based thematic index. The goal is not to pick. There are times in which i think x versus y is over undervalued, there are times in which I think that our allocation for a specific company is perhaps not ideal. But the goal is to have an ironclad experts criteria for qualification and waiting up and down and for rebalancing. Based on public disclosures, which is of course how we operate and the rules, but also what Nike wasn't doing, when we launched they were not included in, they are now.

Asit Sharma: Nike is one I've been following with some interest. Has something to do with some patents that they had. I think in advance of some of their competitors that play to strength I think in virtual worlds. I also interested in Nike, just because they had an understanding of this idea of scarcity, which is tied to the NFT world. We know NFTs will play a fun role in the Metaverse. Very forward-looking company in the way it approaches technology. They understood from, I want to say 1990s, how valuable single pair of shoes could be. They're thinking with the Air Jordan brand was far in advance. We have exchanges now in which sneakers or rare sneakers are traded. This is connected to the commercialization of the Metaverse as well. Thinking of Nike executives always impress me. They're not a technology company per se, well they are a physical technology company, but I'm interested to hear that even through your passive and rules based criteria the company made it in. We just have a few minutes left. I could go on for so long. This has been immensely fascinating. Let me ask you in terms of thinking about the Metaverse for a layperson. You personally, and I know you've very clearly stated, look, it's going to evolve, there's no point in trying to predict the endpoint of what it should look like, we don't know. But for you Matthew, what would be an ideal expression of the Metaverse for you, 10 years now, what would you like to see? What do you dream about sometimes or envision it becoming?

Matthew Ball: Well, let me hit a quick thing that I think often alludes people and also allows me to catch up on a question I didn't answer of yours, which is several years ago actually, the Chief Digital Officer of Nike left to become the President of Epic Games. A great example of a company that was not on many radars, but actually shows you the close cohesion between Nike strategic thinking. It's no mistake that the rest of the organization, even after Adam Sussman left, has been a pioneer. That allows me to get to this question is I think one of the things that's interesting is if we produced the Metaverse ETF two years ago or two and half years ago, two of the top four names would not be in there, and that is Unity and Roblox. We certainly expect that overtime the composition of this will fundamentally alter just like a mobile Internet ETF in 1996 and 2002 and 2005 would look different than it does today.

That's again why we have a passive thematic rules based index. I don't want to hypothesize specifically on companies or valuation or waiting, but there are some companies where people looked at large, 10-50 billion dollar companies, Epic, Niantic, Dapper Labs, OpenSea, that you can totally understand is being relevant to this theme could likely be public, but are not yet. When you ask, what's the ideal end-state? I would say we see an end state pretty similar to what we see today in the real-world. We often forget that even in this world of [inaudible] control, those companies have less than 13 percent of digital economy revenues on a gross basis. As a percentage of the global economy, they're small. In the United States, Amazon is the largest employer, Mcdonald's is quite close, but there's 33 million small to medium businesses in the United States. Those are the people who have more than half of jobs, more than half of GDP. My hope would be that we see similar decentralization in terms of rights of ownership of entrepreneurship and of profits.

Asit Sharma: Matthew Ball, this has been an amazing half hour. I look forward to reading your book when it's out this summer, and thank you so much for your time in joining us today. Thank you. [MUSIC]

Chris Hill: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what your hear. I'm Chris Hill, thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [MUSIC]

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2022.05.13

Why metaverse matters: Business opportunities and beyond (digitimes.com)

 

Why does metaverse matter? The short answer is that metaverse presents a generational opportunity for businesses, investors, and individuals. The article aims to answer the fundamental question of why metaverse matters.

 

메타버스가 왜 중요한가요? 짧은 대답은 메타버스가 기업, 투자자 및 개인에게 세대를 걸쳐 기회를 제공한다는

것입니다. 이 기사는 왜 메타버스가 중요한지에 대한 근본적인 질문에 답하는 것을 목표로 합니다.

"The next Internet" narrative: going meta with real dollars

"차세대 인터넷" 이야기: 실제 달러로 메타가 되다

 

Do you know that if you type the keywords "the next internet" in the search box on Google,

the first result page will be mostly about metaverse?

구글 검색창에 '넥스트 인터넷'이라는 키워드를 입력하면 첫 번째 결과 페이지가 대부분 메타버스에 대한

내용이 나온다는 사실, 알고 계셨나요?

 

If cryptocurrencies open up the expectation of a new type of asset class, the metaverse fits in the technological trajectory enabling people to spend more time (and money) in the virtual world since the Internet age.

암호화폐가 새로운 유형의 자산 클래스에 대한 기대를 열어준다면, 메타버스는 인터넷 시대 이후 사람들이

가상 세계에서 더 많은 시간(과 돈)을 보낼 수 있도록 하는 기술 궤적에 맞습니다.

 

Since 2020, COVID19 has also accelerated the trend on a global scale, which forced people to get used to working/socializing remotely online and purchasing virtual services.

From the science fiction Snow Crash to Ready Player One movie, humans have never stopped collectively

imagining a future where our real lives weave virtual reality.

2020년부터 COVID19는 또한 전 세계적으로 사람들이 온라인에서 원격으로 작업/사교하고 가상 서비스를

구매하는 추세가 가속화되었습니다.

공상 과학 소설 Snow Crash에서 Ready Player One 영화에 이르기까지,

인간은 실제 생활이 가상 현실을 엮는 미래를 집단적으로 상상하는 것을 멈추지 않았습니다.

 

The last time when a similar narrative appeared was the start of blockchain/crypto adoption, as people expected more decentralized applications can be built upon it. While it's still too early to say whether the narrative is correct or not, we do see the exponential growth of the total market cap of crypto growing to around US$2 trillion in 3 years with total transaction value (TVL) in decentralized finance increasing 1120% YoY in 2021.

사람들이 블록체인/암호화폐를 기반으로 더 많은 분산 응용 프로그램을 구축할 수 있을 것으로 기대했기 때문에 

유사한 이야기가  등장한 것은 블록체인/암호화폐 채택의 시작이었습니다.

설명이 맞는지 여부를 말하기에는 아직 이르지만, 탈중앙화 금융의 총 거래 가치(TVL)가 2021년에는

전년대비 1120% 증가하면서 암호화의 총 시가 총액이 3년 동안 약 2조 달러로 기하급수적으로 증가하는 것을

볼 수 있습니다.

 

With these experiences in mind, we can conclude some characteristics that mark a generational opportunity, which "metaverse" happens to share as well.

 

이러한 경험을 염두에 두고 우리는 "메타버스"도 공유하는 세대 기회를 나타내는

몇 가지 특성을 결론지을 수 있습니다.

 

The most direct impact of an emerging narrative can be reflected in VC investment in the metaverse and the official announcement of mega tech companies' metaverse strategy, represented by Qualcomm's announcements of the $100m Metaverse Fund and Facebook's renaming of Meta.

떠오르는 내러티브의 가장 직접적인 영향은 메타버스에 대한 VC 투자와 대형 테크 기업의 메타버스 전략 공식 발표에 반영될 수 있습니다.

여기에는 Qualcomm의 1억 달러 메타버스 펀드 발표와 Facebook의 메타로 회사며 변경등이 있습니다.

 

Coupling with the Web3 narrative, NFT sales, and virtual lands are also hitting high volume with new funds ready to deploy capital into the field.

Brands and even banks like HSBC and J.P.Morgan are also viewing metaverse as the necessary part of their strategy in engaging customers of the new generation.

In turn, the real dollars generated can attract more entrepreneurs and developers into the space creating even more great companies.

 

Web3 내러티브, NFT 판매 및 가상 토지와 결합하여 현장에 자본을 배치할 준비가 된 새로운 자금으로

많은 양을 달성하고 있습니다.

HSBC 및 J.P.Morgan과 같은 브랜드와 은행도 메타버스를 차세대 고객 유치 전략의 필수 부분으로 보고 있습니다.

결과적으로 투자된 실제 달러는 더 많은 기업가와 개발자를 더 많은 훌륭한 회사를 만드는 공간으로 끌어들일

수있습니다.

 

 

 

Umbrella of several frontier technologies and industries

The emergence of the internet can be attributed to several technologies' advancements across software and hardware such as TCP/IP standards, personalized computers, smartphones, and chips. The rise of cryptocurrencies also reflected the accumulation of different verticals in cryptography. These patterns can also apply to the metaverse, where a combination of technologies is needed across application/infrastructure/ network layers. Here is a broad picture of how metaverse incorporates different technologies.

While the layers of metaverse have different versions and the interactions of these technologies may also differ depending on the type of metaverse discussed, we can tell that metaverse sits at a great position as becoming the common applications of these technologies. As each technology improves, the compounding effect can lead to better user experience and interoperability.

It's also worth noting that crypto assets and blockchain technology have opened up the possibility of the Web3 metaverse that featured interoperability and digital ownership. Compared to the Web2 metaverse applications such as Meta's Horizon World, Web3 metaverse is still early and way smaller in market value, but the potential is no longer ignorable as more capital and sales are generated from the market.

Since the concept of metaverse incorporates holistic aspects of human behaviors in virtual environments, the affected industries can grow beyond technologies but almost all major sectors directly or indirectly including entertainment, gaming, education, consumer, and communications.

Credit: Andrea Chang

Still too early to call it a bubble: why this time is different

As one of the key components of the metaverse, Virtual reality (VR) has already experienced a boost which many labeled as a "bubble" in 2016-2017 when funding amount increased. However, if observed from a larger time scale, we can see that AR/VR investments from VC still reached multi billion dollars with strong yearly growth in 2021.

The argument for calling AR/VR "bubbles" was mainly because products didn't generate many sales due to bad user experience, lack of enough quality content, and high costs of VR headsets. But we think all these trials and errors have paved the way for technological breakthroughs, paving the way for the blossom of metaverse. This time is different for VR because:

VR headsets have been improved in user experience: Metaquest 2 has shown great improvement versus its predecessor with new headsets/ glasses in AR/VR launched by other companies such as Sony, HTC, and Microsoft.

VR content is driving consumer spending: As more game developers and creators are participating in the content creation of VR, we have seen more options for VR content than before, which is also reflected in the trend that spending on content has outpaced hardware since 2018.

Virtual reality has shown growth in multiple sectors: Beyond the consumer-facing market, other sectors like tourism, healthcare, and manufacturing are also adopting VR.

Metaculture: Metaverse can usher in a new generation of culture

Following the trend that more people are spending time and money in virtual worlds and on virtual products, it's worth thinking about how humans will present themselves and socialize. As every advancement of technology ushered in a new wave of culture, the metaverse can follow the course that extends cyberculture in the Internet age while opening up new paradigms in communication and entertainment.

One obvious change of culture now can be that people are spending thousands or even millions of dollars on NFTs, the scale and number of people involved didn't happen before in human history. One interpretation of people paying high prices is that digital assets signify the status and belongings of certain prestigious circles. While it's new to see people spending a high amount of dollars on "jpeg," the psychology behind the behavior is not new for humans if we compare it to the consumption of luxury goods, which also have high premium prices from their pure utility. Read more on Metaverse Culture (Part 1) - What it is and how it can change the world.

Metaverse has opened up opportunities for new companies to become recognizable "metaverse-native" brands and existing ones to approach new generations of customers. Some popular NFTs like World of Women have started allowing holders to use their NFTs as IPs to manufacture products. Fashion brands such as Givenchy, Gucci, and Nike have ventured into the metaverse by launching virtual series.

More than money – create the social value we want

The meaning of forecasts is not just discovering opportunities but also preventing risks. If more social activities are moving virtually, the same social problems that appear in real life such as fraud and different forms of discrimination may repeat virtually.

Understanding what metaverse stands for and its implications can help companies and individuals to insert the desired value such as inclusivity and privacy in new virtual worlds early on through processes like product design and code of conduct. Investors can direct resources to the teams that deliver value and positive social impact. Fresh graduates can have chances to understand new opportunities that make them unique talents in the job market while choosing the teams that match their values or even starting their own businesses.

As history shows, it's human nature to label every new popular opportunity as bubbles and mock the sweats of pioneers, and indeed under every new trend, there are lots of cash-grabbing fraudulent cases. But let's not forget that every start of technological innovation is a chance to make humans' lives better or worse.

That's why I think the metaverse matters.

Bio of Andrea Chang:

Chang is a partner at NGC Ventures, which is one of the first and largest institutional investors in crypto since 2018 and a Web3.0 metaverse-focused fund since 2021. She has 5+ years of experience in Crypto investment and Web 3.0 technologies globally. Before crypto and Berkeley Haas MBA, she was at Goldman Sachs global investment research in Singapore and technology VC in the Greater China region.