Metaverse markets are blurring the lines between ‘virtual’ and ‘reality’

Seemingly every week there’s another blockbuster transaction in the metaverse, like the Yuga Labs “land” grab from a few weeks ago that saw users spend the equivalent of more than $300 million on virtual real estate, nearly crashing the Ethereum network.

The next step might be a metaverse economy that crosses over into the real world of atoms, not bits, as they say. What if you could do your shopping not from an Amazon list, but in a sort of virtual supermarket, or shopping mall, without leaving your home?

“These marketplaces are new, small, and still evolving,” said Public Utility Research Center Director and Gunter Professor Mark Jamison, an economist and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has studied the metaverse. “You’re involved in trying to project into the future whether it’s going to be a viable product, and a viable place to engage in your transactions.”

Read more insights from Jamison on the metaverse in this story from Politico.