Metaverse use to be everyone's favourite catchy buzzword on the internet last year, the fictional virtual reality world that aimed to disrupt centralized built internet seem to have lately been losing it traction as billion of dollars have been injected into this new decentralized internet frenzy, interestingly this new buzzword caught lot of attention from both crypto and none crypto users, the fear of missing out (FOMO) became even more intense when one of the world richest man showed interest in the virtual reality world project, with some crypto project tagging themselves to be the new decentralized internet.
Mark Zuckerberg's in late 2021 announced its giant company Facebook will be changing its name to (META) it aimed to give users a more appealing social presence where users can interact with each other virtually by inhibiting a digital space were they can socialize play virtual games and interact inside a virtual augmented world, arguably Internet computer (ICP) launch in early 2021 by a Swiss non profit organisation Dfinity Foundation which at it peak geared a market capitalization growing into billion with it token traded at over $700. Coingecko more gaming platform were also tagged as metaverse based projects the hype was really high as metaverse.
The hypothetical iteration of internet metaverse which aimed to unveiled a digital universe for users using virtual reality and an augmented reality headset seem to be losing the grip to the newly introduced artificial intelligence (AI) and social finance (SoFi) trends lately billion of dollars have been forfeited for the quest to make metaverse a dream come through for users but it pretty much seem the utopian world of virtual reality isn't yet ready to be fully utilized as it has failed to become fully functional for users access across globe.
Metaverse mayhem
Unlike DeFis and NFTs hype, virtual reality tokens the likes of Axie infinity (AXS), Sandbox (SAND), Enjin coin (ENJ) and Decentraland (MANA) draws game players attention into the metaverse world in 2021 these tokens peak in price exceeding a market cap of over $16 billion taking a recap of these four token market cap in September 2023 they have plummeted with over 92% with a market capitalization of $1.23 billion. Source
There four token offering virtual reality utility have gradually seen a major decline in investment and gaming activity investors have likely shift their focus to a more profitable project with AI and SoFi in play little attention is given to the virtual world.
Meta by Zuckerberg which started it's metaverse quest two years ago have been said to have lost over $21 billion from on it metaverse investment according to reports source Meta is focusing on long term profit but in reality it has fail to get attention of the general public.
What once seem to the everyone's favourite tech phrase is now been replaced by a new trends.
Criticism and concern surrounding metaverse shows the technology lacks infrastructure both hardware and software which will be used to scale the technology into achieving it's large scale goal of getting users, the financial aspect revolving around metaverse seem quite robust which makes it even difficult for small companies to keep up with it expenditures metaverse related crypto project have also been accused of manipulating their tokenomic which makes it difficult for investors to keep up with how these project manage projects token.
Why the cool off
Every hype in the crypto space somehow cools off with time but that of metaverse did not enjoy most of the bull ride although axie infinity and other metaverse related project saw a good price rally which was short lived.
Their quick fall ranging from multiple hack attacks, SEC lawsuit against metaverse token which were listed on centralized exchanges contributed to scaring off most investors away from metaverse investors couple with tokenomic mismanagement, robust finance needed to building infrastructure need for scaling metaverse into reality space for everyone.
Shift in trends: we can obviously say AI and web3 SoFi trends have captured a widespread of users lately and investors have seem to gradually shift their focus and funds to this new technology which have temporarily overshadow metaverse trend Mark Zuckerberg also seem to be focusing on AI lately which shows how important it is to always keep up with trends no to be left out this shift in trend makes metaverse hype to gradually cool off.
Emerging development: every community is driven by development how fast a community or project is able to scale in terms of adding more utility to an emerging industry will go a long way to determine how investors will be curious about such projects for metaverse it seem only more funds have been injected into the project but fails to deliver or live up to most investors expection.
- Lack of adoption: metaverse is a technical complex term on it own a good percentage of individuals and communities lack basic idea about it this lack of awareness of what metaverse is could slow down it adoption amongst users.
Some experts have speculated metaverse hype could return as more development are introduced to simplify and make the technology more users friendly while users need to stay connected by having a headset attached over their head for many this approach isn't much time convincing. Metaverse as am emerging technology has fail to deliver providing users with less friendly scaling usecase have gradually made most investors FOMO out and look for a better profitable trend.