Unchained - Is the Metaverse Already Here? Two Experts Disagree - Ep.282

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

Andrew Steinwold, managing partner at Sfermion, and John Egan, CEO at L'Atelier BNP Paribas, discuss NFTs and debate the characteristics of the metaverse. Show highlights:  their backgrounds and how they got into NFTs how they each define the metaverse what NFTs have to do with the metaverse how John and Andrew’s depiction of the metaverse differs what John thinks about Facebook’s entrance into the metaverse whether Second Life is a metaverse game how blockchain technology allows for an open metaverse (and why Web2 is “communist”) what NFTs currently unlock for the metaverse whether the metaverse will necessarily have to be experienced through augmented reality whether there will be multiple metaverses across different blockchain platforms why John thinks NFT maxis and crypto maxis are destined to clash how the metaverse is changing how people generate income  how to make the metaverse more accessible whether regulators will force the metaverse to be siloed how the metaverse will handle jurisdictional disputes what happens when someone’s Web3 avatar/identity is stolen in the metaverse what John and Andrew predict will happen in the metaverse over the next 6-12 months.  Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021        Nodle: http://nodle.io/unchained    NFT Research John Egan Twitter:  https://twitter.com/iamjohnegan  Website:  https://www.iamjohnegan.com/  LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndegan/ Content NFTs are like gambling, but could be the bedrock of virtual economy https://decrypt.co/62809/buying-nfts-like-gambling-in-a-casino-analyst Wired article on NFTs https://www.wired.co.uk/article/crypto-tokens    L’Atelier  NFT Content How NFTs are changing ownership https://atelier.net/insights/nfts-art-ownership-collecting The Virtual economy https://atelier.net/virtual-economy Real estate NFTs https://atelier.net/insights/tech-real-estate-nfts-tokenisation  Metaverse Content Unified coms vs. the Metaverse https://atelier.net/insights/unified-communications-metaverse-tech Primer on the metaverse https://atelier.net/insights/primer-define-metaverse-fortnite Digital anthropology https://atelier.net/insights/nathalie-bechet-digital-anthropology    Andrew Steinwold Twitter https://twitter.com/AndrewSteinwold LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-steinwold/ Blog must-reads A quick overview of the NFT ecosystem  https://andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/-quick-overview-of-the-nft-ecosystem  NFTs will introduce the world to crypto?  https://andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/nfts-will-introduce-crypto-to-the  Why functional NFTs will gain value slower than crypto art https://andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/-the-promise-effect-why-functional  History of NFTs https://medium.com/@Andrew.Steinwold/the-history-of-non-fungible-tokens-nfts-f362ca57ae10  NFT Value Drivers https://andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/-nonfungible-token-nft-value-drivers  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained. You're no hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, a journalist with over two decades of experience. I started coming crypto six years ago, and as a senior editor at Forbes, was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full-time. This is the October 19th, 2021 episode of Unchained. My book The Cryptopians' Idealism Greed lies in the making of the first-day cryptocurrency craze is available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, or any of your other favorite bookstores. Go to Bitley slash Cryptopians. That's B-I-T-L-Y-S-C-R-Y-P-T-O-P-I-N-S and pre-order today. The Crypto.com app lets you buy, earn, and spend crypto, all in one place. Earn up to 8.5% interest on your Bitcoin and 14% interest on your stablecoins, paid weekly. Download the Crypto.com app and get $25 with the code, Laura. The link is in the description. The Nodal Cash app makes earning crypto on your smartphone as easy as turning on your Bluetooth. Notal Cash is private, secure, and available on iOS and Android.

Visit nodle.io.com slash cash. That's Nodal.io slash cash to start earning. Today's topic is the Metaverse. Here to discuss our Andrew Steinwald, managing partner at Spermian, and John Egan, CEO of Letelier B&P Peribaba. Welcome, Andrew. and John. Hi, Laura. Thank you for having me, Laura. So let's start by having each of you briefly describe your background in the space, how you came to your current position and to be involved in NFTs and the Metaverse.

And Andrew, why don't we start with you? Yeah, so essentially I first got involved with Bitcoin in 2013, and I attempted a few blockchain-related startups 2014-2016. Those did not work out. 2017 I launched a long short hedge fund that was focused on liquid crypto assets and then 2019 launched a Fermion which is focused entirely on the NFT asset class. So that is my, that is a, you know, very brief overview of my my background. Okay. And John? I was a VC in London and around 2015, 2016, we began to see more and more references within pitches to to blockchain and

blockchain-based businesses. And that was the initial exposure that I began to see. And at the time, I was cynical, I think, about a lot of it as well, because we began to see then companies who were looking for $2 million in funding and VC funding, doing an ICO and raising $25 million when they couldn't get it off us. So it was, though, at that point for me, a personal experiment, beginning to engage with the space and understand how the mechanics have to work. And my background is, as an economist. And I think from that point of view, I found it a fascinating space.

Moving forward, I now run, I'm the CEO of Littlia, BNP Parbas. A lot of what we focus on is emerging markets. And in particular over the last couple of years, we've been looking at emerging digital markets and digital assets, digital jobs. And our core focus has been on what we refer to as a virtual economy, including the Metaverse.

So from our professional and personal, point of view, it has been a large part of my kind of daily constituency of work for the last six or seven years now and various different degrees. All right. So we're going to now switch to our topic, which is kind of an interesting one because we often toss this word around Metaverse, but I don't know if people really have a good grasp on what that is, if it even exists yet, or if we're just working towards this or what's going on here. So let's start with some definitions. How would you define the metaverse? And then let's also break that out into what you think the metaverse currently looks like

or whatever its incarnation is and then where it's going. So who wants to start? Andrew. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. So me and John always tease each other because it is it is such a hard term to define it's almost like saying the internet it's very very broad but I try to simplify it as much as possible and what I you know I basically say the metaverse is just a virtual environment that people live work and play in I keep it very very simple high level and how it looks today is is I think so for for for me I think that we were we were able to kind of work inside the metaverse we were to kind of live inside the Metaverse and, you know, via Zoom, you know, by remote work and we are able to play into the

Metaverse through, you know, online gaming. But really what's enabling it to come to fruition now is NFTs, which are just property rights because no one wants to live inside of a virtual environment that they, they cannot own their lives in, their livelihoods, their, you know, their stuff. And so for me, I think that Metaverse currently in its form is now just getting started because of NFTs. And I think that, you know, right now it's very, very rudimentary. It's only been out for, let's call it, two years max, right? And it's, it's all these things combined.

It's a little bit of OpenC, it's a little bit of Zoom. It's a little bit of Facebook even, unfortunately. But it's all these kind of things together. And then where we're headed towards is a world where really the value paradigm is shifting from value extractive of users to value additive. And that's the, you know, the menaverse that we're working towards, you know, at my firm. But that's my definition. I'm sure John is going to have something totally different.

So I'm excited to hear. Yeah. Well, actually, before we go to that, I do want to ask you, like you keep saying Zoom is part of the Metaverse. I've never thought that myself. I'm on Zoom a lot. I never feel like I'm in the Metaverse. But you were saying that that is part of the Metaverse.

I think that any sort of activity that we do online is somewhat part of the metaverse. I think that so communicating online, you know, that that is definitely part of the metaverse, but in order to actually have the quote unquote true metaverse, the full vision, you know, that you need property rights, you need ownership of your stuff inside the digital world. And yeah, so it is a part of it. It's not like obviously the main part, but as a way for people to communicate very easily. So it is a important piece. But going forward, it's going to be, you know, all sorts of different platforms, protocols, products, that,

allow people to really earn value from their activities online. Right now, we're not earning, I'm not earning anything from using Facebook. I'm not earning anything from using Google. Those platforms are extracting value for myself as a user. And so where, you know, where we're headed is a internet or, you know, a metaverse, if you will, where users are getting value in return for their activities online. Okay, John, what are your thoughts? What I differ from, from Andrew is not necessarily philosophically,

but it's the timing of it. So I don't believe the metaverse exists yet. And I don't believe that NFTs are, by definition, are part of the metaverse. And I don't believe that even Web 3 is actually part of the metaverse. I believe in the metaverse as this aspirational concept that we are working towards. And in that way, we can actually define a little bit more clearly because we can see it in the future. I resent sometimes the ambiguity and the opacity that comes with many, many definitions for this thing, many different use cases for it from Facebook's articulation of it, which is murky and loose and poorly constructed, right through to people who use terms like metaversus as a plural term. So for me, which is when you think about it, that is a meaningful difference.

So when you have a panel and some people are talking about metaverses and some people are talking about metaverses and some people, people are talking about the Metaverse, that is a vastly, vastly different approach to everything we're looking to do. So for me, I hold it up as this aspirational concept that we're striving towards. It is a dimension within which can exist endless and infinite creativity. It is the moment in time where we arrive as a species at a place where anything we can imagine can now be created within an immersive environment. And I think those parameters, are really important. I think the Metaverse necessitates a level of immersion. That immersion can come through that pseudo-physical immersion in the sense of haptics and VR and brain

computer interfaces, but it can also come in the Digi-Physical landscape that you can interact with through lensware. So whether that's mixed reality contact lenses or mixed reality glassware, I think that is absolutely essential for us to begin to say the Metaverse is here. I will, however, say that when we do arrive at that point, there will be a lot of derivative hybrids, places that exist halfway between the internet, as we know it now, and the metaverse that are clearly reliant on, or derivative to that construct, but not necessarily part of it. So, and I'm sure we'll come to it, but in my mind, I've always had this kind of anecdote that I will look to, and I will know that when this thing happens, that's when we know conclusively

the metaverse has arrived. But for me now, it's still an aspirational concept or construct. Okay. So one quick thing I want to get out there is a disclosure that I do write a newsletter for Facebook. So if we're going to keep talking about Facebook's metaphors, like you did mention, you didn't like their murky definition, as you call it, but I don't know what that definition is. So what is that definition? What do you not like about it? Well, so I suppose that's, you've just summed it up. I don't think anybody knows. I think it's very, very, work-oriented, but any VC will tell you that about 10 years ago, all of the decks that came across their desk had the words AI in it.

And then a few years later, they all had the word blockchain in it. And recently, they all have the word metaverse in it. These are, at this point, it is jargon that adds premium to proposals. That's kind of a lot of where it exists in the investment space. When Facebook started talking about a metaverse, they didn't explain. what we're talking about, aside from to say, this is a work, a labor-oriented environment that people can exist within. And I'm sure over time, Facebook will expand on that greatly. But right now, there's very few people in this space who are not aware that Facebook are actively speaking about

the metaverse, but there are also very few people in this space who understand what Facebook are actually talking about when they refer to the metaverse. And that is a, that's a problem. So when I said murky and ambiguous, that's what I meant. Facebook have spoken about it at shareholder meetings. They've spoken about it publicly, but as yet, it is not clearly defined. And I haven't spoken to anybody who understands what the mean by it. But it certainly makes it a more significant conversation when a company the size of Facebook are talking about it. And just for both of you actually, from things that you were saying, it made me wonder, oh, so then would you guys consider something like second life to be a metaverse? Because

because Andrew kind of said, oh, Metaverses don't exist until you have NFTs. And then, John, you were saying that you felt, you know, nothing fits that definition out. And it needs to be immersive. And something like Second Life is pretty immersive as far as I understand. So I was curious, you know, if you would consider something like that, just not part of it at all or what. For me, I think Second Life is the best in case example that has ever been created. like as a preamble to the metaverse. I still think Second Life is extraordinary.

From a digital anthropology point of view, it's an incredible construct, something I think will study for decades. It's really an amazing achievement. And the people who participate in that are certainly the people, I think, who are closest to achieving that because there are people who get up for work every day

and they go to work in Second Life. I know people who are Second Life entrepreneurs and they've bought their homes, they've raised their families on the income. They have employees within Second Life. And they've been there for years. there's millionaires who have made their fortune in second life. And I think that's a really important part of this.

The paradigm is that people can go to work in this environment. They can distill value. And I'm going to pass up to Andrew now because there's one very important consideration here philosophically is that for most of the discussion about the metaverse since the 60s and William Gibson through the 90s and Stevenson and Snowcrash through contemporary time. with Ernst Klein, ready player one, has always been centralized. But what's happened in the last couple of years that's really important is that the conversations become about an open metaverse. And I think that's probably a good place to hand this over to Andrew because he is an authoritative voice on that distinction.

Yeah, so I think that I agree with what John was talking about, about Second Life and how it is an extremely important platform that we can look at and say, hey, this is a incredible that people were able to earn a living, make friends, socialize, attend events, basically live their full lives just on this platform. And John pointed out that that platform is centralized, but it is also very important just kind of, you know, historically. But yeah, basically my whole thesis is essentially that we're headed towards that world where second life type of environments will be ubiquitous, whether they be immersive, whether it be through Zoom or whatever. It's really about having the ability of ownership and the ability to earn

and be able to pay your rent, buy your groceries from your activities online. And so, yeah, I think that the open metaverse is the concept that people, it's basically a virtual environment, virtual world that is, that utilizes blockchain or distributed ledgers in some sense. And that allows people to, again, own their stuff, own their lives, own their data, own their whatever. And that simple aspect, about having ownership, what it does is it has a huge psychological impact on people because essentially they say, okay, now I feel secure in this environment. So because I feel secure, I'm confident. And I'm going to spend even more time, money, and effort into this environment

than it would if it was a centralized version. And it's almost like I always use this analogy, which I don't know if it's that good. But I say that like the internet today is communist in the sense that, again, we're adding value to the central entity and we're not getting anything in return. But if you had the option to go add value to it, to a capitalistic system where you know that the value is accruing to, you know, yourself and your family and your friends and whatever, you'd much, you know, people would rather work and live in that environment. And really the open metaverse and blockchain-based metaverse and NFTs are enabling that

world. So the internet is now enabling property rights through NFTs. And that's the biggest paradigm shift we've had since, you know, since forever. And so, you know, each of you has a different take on kind of the current status of the metaverse or these multiple metaverses. And I think, you know, what you're, Andrew is probably saying, okay, maybe we have a few mini metaverses going or, or there's like glimpses of the future metaverse. And John is saying, like, we're working toward it, but, you know, it's not quite here. It's sort of different, different phrasing for kind of this current state. But going back to

Andrew's definition about how the metaverse will be where we work, play and live, How would you characterize what we have now? Is it more of a work metaverse or a play metaverse or a live metaverse? And, you know, what do you think will be, will drive the development of this space? So, yeah, so I think that with through NFTs and, you know, blockchain more broadly, we are now, the work part was now fully enabled because we were able to play through gaming, through other activities, you're able to, you know, live work and play. And so you're able to socialize.

So that was already possible through Zoom, through Facebook, or whatever. But that work aspect, you're able to use Zoom to work remotely, but you weren't able to earn natively through the Internet. You weren't able to do some sort of, I don't know, some, you know, basically go for Axi, for example, Axi Infinity, which is a very popular game, you can now play a video game and earn value from that game, right? So that was impossible before. And now that is enabled.

Now it's like, okay, great, you know, the, the metaverse can start to begin to emerge and to eventually, you know, form what, what, uh, it's basically going to be the internet of value. So to speak very broadly, it's going to be people being able to earn through all types of activities and through that earning, they're able to essentially have better lives and be compensated for the value that they're adding to these platforms. So, yeah, again, quite a kind of a nebulous definition, but yeah, that's how I see it. I agree very strongly with Andrew.

I think that what we're seeing right now is the early stages of the economic infrastructure and mechanics for the metaverse being created. For instance, NFTs and emerging NFT protocols are really, really important to be able to construct, to do that world building. And if I take this back to the seductive concept that draws us towards the metaverse ultimately, it's every one of us has found ourselves getting lost in a novel or lost in a film. You fall asleep at night in another world.

That's the promise of the metaverse, that those worlds can be created, that a Tolkien fan can actually experience that. A Star Wars fan can experience that in a very visceral way. And we try that all the time. Anyone who's been to Disneyland or something, we've seen the attempt to do this in a low fidelity way. The Metaverse promises this in a high fidelity way. For that to be feasible, there's a couple of things need to fall into place.

The first of them is the economic infrastructure, the guide rails, need to be put in place for any of that to actually be useful, to justify the investment that's required to get the rest of the technology. up to the point it needs to be to provide that. So I think what we're seeing now is actually the economic infrastructure. It's the train tracks being laid. The problem is the towns that are going to exist along that line have not yet been built. And we'll take some time to be built, I suggest as well.

But it's really important those tracks get laid because without them, there is no future. But I think if we were trying to place it in time, for me, that's where we are now. We're building the economic infrastructure for an open metaverse. and it's absolutely fundamental. It's extremely valuable. And the tools that we're building have mass applications in and out of the metaverse. For instance, digital assets and ownership, a unique ownership of digital assets. That is not just a metaverse proposition.

That's a very, very real world proposition for most people as well. The scorebed app here with trusted stats in real-time sports news. Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well, statistically speaking. No more statistically speaking. hot takes. I want knee-jerk reactions. That's not really what I do. Is that because you don't have any knees? Or? The score bet. Trusted sports content, seamless sports betting. Download today. 19 plus, Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you,

please go to conicsontera.ca. Yeah, actually, this reminds me of Carlotta Perez's book, financial capital and technological revolutions or something, maybe it's the reverse. But you know, like people are financially motivated. And so, of course, I can see how the work or earn aspect of this is driving. I mean, we're seeing it already happening with Axi Infinity and stuff like that. But it's same with the ICU craze where people thought, oh, you know, we can get people to throw money at us. So let's do it. And here it's, it's similar. Oh, I can run into the central land and grab a part of this virtual real estate early or, you know, I can earn axes and then lend them out. But John, going back to some earlier comments that you made, you kind of really

seem to talk about almost like an augmented reality and you called it like digit physical reality and you talked about certain gadgets we would need to wear our eyewear that we would need in order to access this world. And so I wondered like for you, do you feel that the metaverse is really dependent on things like a VR, AR headset, or how much of this will be more virtual in the sense that we'll just be at home and through our avatars will interact in these other worlds? For me, yes, for me, requires some level of immersion because I think what we're seeing now a lot of games are being called metaverses, when really all they are a blockchain-based games that allow for people to derive value from them. That's a very important step forward. And I don't

mean to denigrate them at all. They're very, very worthy projects and best have looked to them. But that does not necessarily, in my view, make it a metaverse or make it even tangential to the metaverse. So for me, it requires some degree of immersion to make it a realistic metaverse in any real sense. We need to be able to interact with a new dimension of digital reality. And I think that the reason I speak about digifysical is because it uses proxy old the time. For any gamers who are listening to this, there was a game released about two years ago called Red Dead Redemption 2. And it is an extraordinary technological accomplishment. It is something just incredible. The detail is phenomenal. It's an open world environment that people can roam

around. But it took seven years for one of the world's best game publishers to create that. And even at that, it's still a limited world environment. You can reach the edges of it quite quickly. So to create something which is fully immersive and generative is still a long, long way away. And to my mind, that's a real indicator that the first instances of this are going to be digifysical. We will interact with the virtual reality that emerges around us. And to use the anecdote or the proxy that I've often spoken of is virtual pets. I think when you want to know, if you want to ask stuff, is the metaverse here or not, when people have virtual pets that they can interact with through mixed reality lensware, those pets, those semi-intelligent

agents can interact with them, the infrastructure around them, both the physical and digital infrastructure, other individuals and other virtual agents. That's the metaverse. That is, you've now created new species of semi-intelligent agents that you can interact with and can interact with you. And that gives rise to a whole new universe of opportunity that we can go into in detail. But then just one other thing is, so if I need to be wearing, you know, either a VR-A-R headset or, you know, some kind of eyewear in order to access this world, then how much of this is just kind of a world that I've created for myself versus, like, do a lot of other

people also need to be wearing the same thing at the same time in order for us to create this metaverse and make it a true world, or is a lot of it just? kind of a self-contained interaction that I'm having with virtual things. It's a bit of both. There's been a real spade of patent registrations in eyewear over the last 10 years, both contact lenses and glassware. I think Google Glass was somewhat prescient of what was to come, but it was poorly timed and maybe execution falls short.

But they knew what the future looked like and how we would interact with things in an augmented way. Now we see so many patents coming through about this particular technology. And the likelihood is there will be a digifysical common space to which we all interact with that's layered over physical landscapes around us. Ownership of that will be a curious construct, but we'll also be able to individualize it through the acquisition of very specific data streams, for instance. That we'll be able to buy data assets that potentially personalize our experience in different ways. But that doesn't take away from the shared commonality of that environment that we're interacting with. So if you walk out on the street, the general common part of it comes from the fact that you might be able to interact with virtual monuments that you can only see through a lensware. The individual layer of it may come from offers that are coming from restaurants or shops directly to you in a specific way that's catered to you that only you can see that nobody else can see.

So a high level of personalization within a common space because that's the dynamism that's offered within that technological environment. And, Andrew, what's your take to you? Are you more into this kind of digital physical aspect where people do need to be wearing gear to access it? Or do you feel that's not as necessary? Yeah. So John and I actually differ on this as well. I'm of the opinion that you can have a metaverse come to form just through. our computers. You don't need to have a headset. You don't need to have the suit. You don't need to have

any of that stuff can be happening just through our computers. And as long as you can live, work and play inside of digital environments and you have ownership over your stuff, then that means that you're able, that that means that the metaverse is there. So, but, but saying that, there's, there's kind of, you know, we can look at some trends that are happening that will, that will, that are just marching towards this world that John's talking about of kind of deeper immersion and more technologically enabled gear that that will be wearing. If you look at number one is just screen time. So screen time around the world is on the rise. It's, you know, it's an average American is like around seven hours per day. The average Filipino is around 11 hours per day. And that,

that number is just going up everywhere. I'm at like 13 hours per day, something absurd. But I'm just ahead of everybody, I guess. So that's number one, screen time just on the up and up. And number two is technological immersion. So if you look at it's a head of everybody, I guess. So if you look at kind of our communications technology, it's constantly gotten more immersive over time. So we start with the, you know, the telegraph, which is Morse code, it's like not, like, not immersive at all. They went to telephone. So suddenly you could now hear someone. That's a huge leap up, you know, in immersion because that's your sense of, you know, sense of hearing audio. And then now we're doing video calls. You can see me and hear me. So that's two senses now,

another huge leap. And then in the future, 10, 15 years from now, we're going to be in some virtual environments. We'll be able to shake each other's hands. We'll feel the handshake. brains will actually think that we're there. Well, our brains will have no idea that we're actually not, you know, in, you know, sitting in our office or whatever. And so, so that thing is, that is happening regardless of NFTs or whatnot. But really, what, you know, what we did is we just added NFTs along with those trends. And so now we're able to own.

And so now it's like, okay, well, despite those trends that are happening regardless of NFTs, now the metaverse can come to fruition. So, yeah, I differ slightly in John's views. I think that we're headed there regardless, but I don't think that. that it's required for the Metaverse to actually form. In terms of digital physical, yeah, I agree with that. I think that we're going to have our digital lives, our digital lives are intertwining with our physical so much that,

you know, even looking like going back to the screen time example, we're already spending most of our time on screens, you know, online, right? We don't, we don't really notice it day to day because it just becomes so natural for us. But I'm sure like most of the people listening to their screen time is probably, you know, seven, eight, nine hours per day. So that's the majority of your waking hours are spent online. So in some sense, we're already living in this virtual world. But when you add an NFTs, it's okay, now we can, now we feel confident, now we can own stuff.

And therefore, they'll spend even more time in these environments and we'll just go, go deeper. Well, so going back to your comments about NFTs and also about just how right now we, or I don't know about right now, but how we're already seeing glimpses of different metaverses in different ways, even if it's from something like Second Life. At the same time here in the world of blockchain development, we also have all these different competing blockchains. We've got layer ones, we've got layer twos. And so I was wondering at this moment, just in terms of NFTs, even,

it feels like the NFT world is a little bit siloed. And I wondered, will that also mean a more siloed development for metaverses? or and will that mean then we might have a metaverse that's more like for gaming and then another one for fashion, another one for real estate. How do you view just from a technological level how that's affecting the development of the metaverse? Yeah. So just first I'd say that like there aren't really like going to be segmented metaverses.

It's almost like saying one internet for gaming, one internet for this. It's almost just like the whole broad concept is the metaverse. It's like the internet. So there's that. And then in terms of the technological development of these different blockchains and whatnot, yeah, I mean, most people didn't know that NFTs existed until January. That's a vast majority of people before that, you know, really most crypto people, because I remember talking about what I was doing in summer of 2020 to other crypto people.

And like most people were just totally destroying, you know, the idea. They're like, what are you talking about? NFTs are not even a thing. And so I was with crypto people, right? So I think this is brand new. So we're seeing a lot of kind of people developing, you know, experimenting, creating new things and trying to test what works. We are just on the very, very, very, very bleeding edge of kind of all this development.

And so there's going to be just a big explosion of different chains, different technologies, different NFTs, different standards, et cetera. And that'll happen for a certain period of, you know, months to most likely years. And it'll expand. And then it'll inevitably at some point. start to contract and will end up with, you know, kind of three to five maybe kind of base chains or based kind of infrastructure components that are really powering most of this, in my view. And I do agree that with your kind of original thoughts about how maybe it'll be, you know,

Solana will be used for gaming and maybe Ethereum will be used for art and collectibles, things that are more kind of, you know, slower but more expensive and but more kind of decentralized and hearty, if you will. So, yeah, it's too early for me to kind of predict on how that will end up. One thing I've learned is that my predictions are always way off. So I'm not good at that. But yeah, I think that we're really early. There's going to be an explosion of activity.

We're seeing that now. And then in, you know, five plus years, it will be consolidation into some core components that most people are using. I think Andrews may have been a little bit hard on himself there. It's fun performance would suggest otherwise. I think he's pretty good of predictions. But I agree with a lot of what he said there, particularly in the sense that they're one holistic metaverse.

I do, and maybe this is a bit of a provocation, and it's partly because I'm looking at it from a more neutral point of view. But I see a schism coming between the NFT maximists and the crypto maximus because they are politically and philipzig. philosophically very different groups. And I'm not entirely sure they're totally aware of this yet. But it's to Andrew's point there. Andrew was so some, so the promise of NFTs and how important the idea of unique digital assets and digital ownership was. That's a long, long, long way away from the core digital libertarianism, digital anarchism of crypto maximists who want to liberate themselves

from a kind of a state construct, state position that drove a lot of the crypto space. And clearly, the majority of participants in crypto don't feel that way, but their overarching philosophy drives it that way. I don't believe that's the case for NFTs. And I share Andrews enthusiasm about the importance of NFTs moving forward. NFTs are critical. NFTs are the great innovation. It's a crypto and blockchain.

was a necessary step on the journey towards NFTs, which is the real point of arrival at something extraordinary, the ability to create a whole new class of digital assets. And I think that needs to be understood within the context of the world we're living in now, which is still the shadow of 2008. The world we live in now has been crafted by the hands of the giant of 2008.

That's the reality we live in low yield rate, low yield, low inflation environment. And for anybody under the age of 40, probably very, very difficult to access yield or to buy a home. We've seen wage of stagflation across the world. And we've seen significant inflation when it comes to childcare and healthcare, accommodation costs, education costs. And as a consequence of that, there are a whole lot of people all over the world who feel like the traditional economy holds no hope for them. There's no opportunity. They've done everything they're supposed to do.

They've got a great education. They got a good job. They work hard, but there's no opportunity for them in the medium to long term. And that's creating a significant rift. So I think for a lot of those people, the opportunity to immerse themselves in this new economy, this new reality that is the metaverse and the primary asset construct, which is not an asset class, NFTs are not an asset class. They're the mechanisms through which we create new assets in this environment.

that gives them hope and opportunity unlike anything for the last 30 years. This is the first time now in three decades that people of a certain age profile, a younger age profile, can hope to be middle class and upwardly socially mobile. And it's not because of traditional economy. It's because of this virtual economy and at the core of that as NFTs. This is the perfect segue because my next questions for you are about financial opportunities in the Metaverse. but first a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. With Nodal Cash, you can earn crypto on your mobile device for free with no hardware to purchase.

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critva.com app and get $25 when using the code Laura. L-A-U-R-A. The link is in the description. Back to my conversation with Andrew and John. So, I mean, we kind of started already discussing this, but why don't we just talk a little bit more about the ways that you see the metaverse changing, the way that people are earning money. And yeah, why don't we just start with that? Yeah, so I think it's really exciting because the design space for people to earn is like, there's no limits, essentially. And what we're seeing today, though, is again, very, very, very early. We're seeing, I guess, the best example would be Axi Infinity, which essentially is kind of like a Pokemon type game where you have these creatures, you battle them. If you win the battles, they drop these kind of potions, which are E or C20 tokens.

You can then sell those potions for Ethereum, which then you can sell that Ethereum for, fiat currency. So to, you know, pay your rent, buy your groceries. So that's very exciting. And that's, that's kind of one very basic way. There's also ways that you can, you know, host events that are ticketed. And then you can sell tickets to those events. Maybe it's a talk. Maybe it's a, it's a concert, you know, all sorts of different things. There's, there's breeding. So again, in Axi, you can breed these Pokemon together, you know, these Pokemon creatures together and sell those creatures. You know, there's renting land. There's, there's doing advertisements on virtual land. There's, there's, you know, making art, there's creating collectibles. It's, it's really

unlimited design space. And what we've done through NFTs right now, who is we've enabled the gamification of basically everything, which I think, you know, on the surface, it sounds kind of spooky, but, but really, it's very, very kind of, it allows for so much opportunity, because now anyone can say, hey, I have a really cool idea and they can be living in anyone in the world and be like, I have access to the internet. So therefore I have access to this global 24-7 uncensoredable economy, which is the crypto economy. I'm going to create a new set of, you know, paintings that, you know, I'm going to upload.

And with that, I can now earn natively on the internet. So, yeah, I think that there's today a plethora of different ways people can earn. And there's going to be just so many more that I can't even, it's almost like if you ask me, hey, like, what, you know, about Airbnb or Uber back in 2002, like, I would have no idea how that will work or what that even is. But yeah, I'm sure in five years from now, or even less, we're going to have so many different ways that are just very interesting and very unusual that people can earn through their activities online.

If I was to build on that, and Andrew covered most of it, I think we can already see there's a not insignificant number of people who are earning their primary income through these environments. So they have already decided to give up on a traditional. economy and they've got better prospects and better opportunity within this space. And games are a great example of it. But I think this is tangently related to other, for instance, vice industries. So we see the likes of only fans and others providing kind of a safe haven environment

for sex workers who can now work in a space that's just far safer for them. They're more controlled and a much higher upside for them as well. So we're seeing people make choices about the way they choose they earn income, which are markedly different than anything we've seen before. And it's an enormous shift. Everything from e-sports to streamers to people now in the likes of Axy or in second life earning incomes through those environments. What we're likely to see my expectation is that we'll see a greater and greater number of people earning a supplementary income from these environments. Maybe, for example, they have a state. of axes and they're using the scholarship program to allow other people to use those axes and they're splitting the revenue with them. And now maybe that leads to, you know, like $100 or a couple hundred dollars extra a month for them. And over time that grows, I think we're likely to see more and more of that. So there is an increasing necessity or dependency on supplementary incomes because like I said before, traditional incomes are not keeping up with inflation

of major costs. And this is becoming more of a necessity for people, especially those who want to be kind of socially stable and not fall down the ladder. So that would be the thing to look out for in the short term. Yeah, one thing actually that I find a little curious about what's happening already is that even though play to earn obviously has enabled a traditionally underprivileged population to earn money, as I'm sure you're all well aware of the price of axes, which is what you need to get started, three axes, has really risen. And I just did a quick search before we started recording. And the cheapest axes are now $166. And so if you need three, at the very minimum, you need $500. But apparently if you get the cheapest ones, like, you're not

going to progress very far. So it's really better to go with ones that are more expensive. And I actually saw the most expensive ones are like hundreds of millions of dollars, which I think is insane. But I just wondered, you know, how do you feel different creators in the metaverse can kind of enable the Metaverse to be accessible to that population? Well, I'll take this one first, Andrew. I think there's a couple of things on this point. I suppose the company have indicated that they're going to provide a much cheaper axi that doesn't have breeding capacity.

So people will be able to engage with the game. They'll be able to earn tokens in the game, which then they can use over time to buy the full axes. That gives people an access point. There's a couple of other things, I think. One is that there's a very reasonable case we made that you've got people in wealthy countries now buying axes because they can afford them. And then they're using cheap labor in Southeast Asia in particular to actually go out and work those axes and earn them more money. So it's a form of rent that they're deriving in a very pure capitalist way.

Is that really ethical or moral? I think a lot of capitalists might look at that and say, well, two things. One is that as long as they're paying a fair wage as negotiated with the employee in this case, well, then that should be okay. No one's enforced to do it. And the second thing is the company, so actually has no obligation to provide cheap axes if the market demand establishes a market price for it. That's not their fault. They've done nothing wrong. There will be plenty of other players you were in opportunities and propositions for people to get into early.

So I don't, I don't, it's a tricky one. I kind of see both sides of it. I think there is a genuine ethical question. Do you feel comfortable hiring people in cheap labor economies to basically farm your asset for you and then pay them what may be a disadvantage rate? But at the same time, it's pure capitalism. This is the market determining the price of all of this. And the company has no obligations to do anything else.

So there will be plenty more opportunities. And there are a ton of people. We've all seen stories of people. who got in early to some of these projects and were paupers and are now millionaires. And they themselves will fund some of these projects moving forward as well. Yeah. And then going off what John said, he's absolutely corrected just about market forces. So right now, Axi is really the only scale played earn scale is in like crypto scale.

Not even like, you know, you can't even scale to regular games because that's massive. It's, you know, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of users. We're talking 2 million users maybe. And so Axi is the only game right now that has their plate-durn mechanics really kind of enabled. And there are, you know, 50 other games coming out that are going to all include some sort of played-derm mechanics. And so right now, of course, the demand for Axis and the price of Axis is very, very high. But, you know, as more of these games get launched and as more people, you know, come online

and start to utilize these platforms, then again, market forces will probably have an impact. and things will hopefully equalize or become more accessible for people in low-wage countries to actually access these assets in order to earn. And I think that that's what we'll see. But I'm not certain. And what about the fact that there are different regulations in different countries affecting even things like whether or not a token is a security or an NFT is a security? And I just wondered how that would affect the probability of a single metaverse.

developing. I'm sure we're well aware that now in Defi often we'll see things like, there's an air job for everyone but Americans. And so, you know, how does that affect kind of a virtual world where, you know, it's technically borderless? Will it just be, there's one metaverse for Americans and one metaverse for the rest of the world? Or how do you see that affecting things? My side, I don't think it'll have any significant bearing. It'll just mean certain things are not accessible to certain users. But I also think that those things that are not accessible are quite rare.

So it won't be a regular occurrence. Security tokens are a really good example. I do feel like security tokens are going to play a major role over the next decade because security tokens are how mass affluent get access to the yield of the super rich. And there's no other instrument that provides that. at low cost. I think that is a huge opportunity. So security tokens, I think, are really important,

but there is a very blurred line between something that is a security token and something that is another form of token, whether that's NFT or social token. It's really ambiguous, and that ambiguity tends to fluctuate country by country. So there will need to be unified regulation when it comes to some of these tokens,

and it will be to everyone's benefit when it is established, and there will be workarounds. You know, the same things will be wrapped. Your yields will be sold in other ways to the jurisdictions that don't have access to a particular token type. I mean, in the instance of the US, if it's a security token, I don't see that being a huge issue. The other thing is location in the metaverse is kind of a, it's a fuzzy idea because if you're using a good VPN, then your location is yours to choose and a lot of it to the large extent. And if you're holding those assets in the Metaverse, it really kind of becomes a very ambiguous guess. There's a legal fidelity about declaring those assets and any revenue you generate from those assets.

But the jurisdiction in which those assets are held, the jurisdiction in which those assets are acquired, and the jurisdiction in which you engage with those assets is not defined. Yeah, right now, the current regulatory regime, the current regulatory environment, at least in the states, is not really compatible. with, you know, defy and a lot of things that are happening in crypto more broadly. So I think that we need to update those laws because those are, the securities laws are something like 100 years old and based off of like something to do with like an orange farm in Florida or something like that, right? So that definitely, we need to update that. That's number one.

Number two, I think it's work with NFTs specifically, we're going down an area that is unknown because, you know, I don't think that toys or art, I mean, some, you know, most art or collectibles, you know, baseball cards are securities. Like they shouldn't be. They weren't in the physical world. So why would they be inside these digital environments? And just because you can earn through playing a video game doesn't mean that should also be a security.

If you, you know, in World of Warcraft, you could also earn money by doing missions or doing quests, acquiring gold. You could sell like gold on eBay. That doesn't mean that your character is a security. So why should your AXI be labeled security? In my opinion, it should not. Right. Yeah, I don't think it's axes, but things like on.

OpenC recently, they delisted some where it was provide, it was sort of like a Dow and it was saying, oh, if you're part of the Dow, then you will get some of the royalties from the sale of these. And so I think that that kind of thing is more like a security. But this actually leads me to a broader question, which was just in general when disputes arise in the metaverse. And it's for, you know, between people of different jurisdictions, then how do you think those will be handled? That's a great question. And I think anybody who suggests they have the answer to it at this point is just posturing. There are some jurisdictions that do have some case law on it.

For instance, the Netherlands has some case law on digital assets, but it is few and far between and yet to be determined. Maybe Andrews sees it differently, but I think that is a kind of a looming cloud that needs to be figured out. And like Crypto Maximus will tell you, well, there's no need for it because we've got the blockchain and that's the source of all truth and we can see how everything works. but that doesn't moderate or mitigate for theft or for fraud. Or for instance, we've seen it so many times, the market manipulation are for money laundering, which is an enormous issue within the space. There's massive amounts of money laundering within the crypto asset space

and with gaming assets as well. So all of these things have real world consequences. They're being actively sought out in police. And there's, you know, law enforcement are not going to stop at the gateway to the metaverse. and say, oh, we can't go in there. We've no jurisdiction. That's not how it's going to work.

So there are a lot of questions to be answered at this point. And I don't know if there are any really solid answers to it in large part because out of the constellation of participants within this space, it's light on lawyers. Some people might see that as a positive thing for now. But ultimately, we're going to need to see a lot more jurisprudence considerations in this space. And let's also touch on identity. Like so right now, um, you know, I have kind of my different selves, you know, there's my cryptojournalist self. There's my spiritual person yogi self. There's my like concert going dancing self. So in, in the metaverse, well, I just have multiple

identities and avatars depending on like what environment I'm in or will people always know it's me or how will that, how will that work itself out? Well, I think the, the, the, the, the best thing is that you're going to have the option. Like, so, so I think that, um, I remember when I first entered the NFT space kind of, you know, in a meaningful way in 2019, I decided to use my real name and my, a picture of myself. And that was very, very unusual. Like, no one used their, their real name or picture of themselves back then. Now it's slightly more common, but, um, but yeah, that's how I stood out. And I think that in the going going forward in the future, people will have the option, which I think is amazing. So if you want to be, you know, you want to kind of be totally anonymous, you can do that.

If you're a man, you want to pretend like you're a woman. If you're a woman, want to pretend like you're a man, like it's whatever you want to do. I think that having that freedom is is really, really satisfying to a lot of people and really will enable kind of new types of, you know, who knows behaviors and all sorts of weird dynamics that to pop up in the future that, that just really are not possible today. day in our normal kind of identification system. It's like how many Twitter accounts do you have? How many LinkedIn accounts? How many Facebook accounts do you have? You can create as money of them as you want to, but you probably only have one of them.

And I think that for most people, it's going to be the same. They'll have one avatar base through which a lot of their identity is managed and wallets that are connected to that avatar that make the metaverse more interactive further to create, to direct the time and the resources towards creating other avatars that can be useful is less likely and there'll be fewer people who do it. We'll have a lot of kind of eggs within the metaverse, I suppose, people who are like, they're poorly developed avatars that don't have a lot of assets or capacity to their name, to their handle. But I think for most people, it'll be one. And then if they want to make changes, you know, to the representation of themselves,

the way they express themselves, that's something they can change anytime. In the same way that if you want to change your profile photo on a social media account, you can change it any time. But this is a much more immersive and expressive way of presenting yourself. And I think that people will constantly evolve with that and they'll use new NFTs to kind of present themselves and represent themselves. That's probably the way that people will articulate that view of themselves. But then on the flip side, how do we prevent that from being abused in a way that can lead to some dark things, which already happen in our current web? But, you know, things like harassment or deep fakes or misinformation.

And I just wonder how, you know, that could worsen quite a bit if these happen in worlds that are already virtual, where already people are interacting through avatars. And I just wondered, like, are there particular ways to set those up where they can incentivize the normal type of behaviors we see in the real world where the vast majority of people are nice and just go about their business? And instead of, you know, enabling anonymity or pseudonymity to encourage bad behavior. To my mind, go ahead, Andre, sorry. Yeah, no, I think it's going to be pretty tough to be honest. I think that right now, right, there is not a one-size fit-it-all solution for that. But what we've seen is that people are creating, so for example, DeCentraland, the Central Land is a virtual world platform.

You can go in, you can attend events, socialize, build a house, whatever you want. And right now, it's really, it's governed by a Dow. And so if people, if I go in there and start building some structure and have hate speech, you know, written all over it, basically people can essentially vote to kick me out and to essentially block that content. So, so. But then what's to stop you from just creating a new identity and doing it all over again? Are buying up to dial?

Yeah. Yeah. So, again, this is very, very early. And there is not a one size fits all solution for this. But from my understanding, it'll block the content. It'll still be there, but no one can see it. And so, so that is one kind of solution. It's kind of, you're able to enforce the societal rules within that, within that structure

through people. and that's one way to do it in a way that's not highly centralized. But what it will look like going forward, I have no idea. I assume that it'll become more advanced over time just because that is the first iteration that I've seen that, okay, this is a working MVP. It's not like the end-all be-all. This actually works and we can continue with this until we figure out something better. Did you want to add something?

I think that we're likely to see a significant worsening of some of the worst parts of what we see on social media. certain parts of the metaverse because there is no centralized control in large parts. So you could also have a Dow that is very much in favor of that. So you will definitely see like Daoes that are created specifically for trolls. You know, I think the game Elite Dangerous

is an example of how groups within that game you had groups that were malevolent players that just went out to harm the people. And you also have groups that were kind of philanthropic in nature and just looking to help people. We'll see a lot of that. But ultimately, one of the real issues with this kind of digital libertarianism is that it provides

a space for the worst sort of behaviors and very, very few limits or restrictions on that, because philosophically, it doesn't believe on it, believe in it, unless it's actually restricting or degrading the value of your property. And I think that philosophically, that's something that's very difficult to regulate for us. So I'd suspect that we'll see, in some cases, awful and very difficult to stop behavior emerging, but the space is limitless. So it's very easy for communities to create environments that are much more coherent with their values and their morals and their ethics and hopefully be able to isolate those areas, which become kind of no-go areas, but they're very likely to emerge. And so speaking of kind of

of issues that come up when there isn't a centralized actor that you can go to to get help from. How do we handle things like identity theft in a decentralized world? I mean, if you have built your reputation with a certain avatar or you just have, you know, if I'm just Laura Shin and I'm in all these different metaverses or in the metaverse and I have all my reputation. And then somehow somebody gets control of however it is that I access my identity in this world, what can I do or what can a person, a victim like that do? Who can they turn to?

How do you imagine this will play out? And John, you might have an opinion because your wallet was just cleaned of, or one of your wallets was just cleaned out by a scammer, which I'm sorry to hear. You got to Reddit and Discord and you make everyone feel sorry for you, I suppose, and then tell them what your new identity is. But, yeah, there are no protections for that. In my case, we haven't figured out what happened yet.

I tend to practice pretty good security hygiene. I have devices that are dedicated to my crypto activities that don't do anything else, that don't touch anything sketchy. I have no idea how this happened and the wallet are cleaned out for NFTs and ETH just a couple of days ago. So I have no clue yet how it happened. I think the takeaway for me is that if this happening to me, somebody who's active daily in this space and has me for a long time, there's a part, you know, for a new user, it must be very intimidating. And of course, people will preach best practices like, you know, don't leave any assets in a hot wallet, use hard wallets, etc. But that's ridiculous, I think, as well. Like, honestly, the idea that you're going to, you're going to use a hard ledger for, just,

all of your crypto assets is a silly idea. And it's just totally undermines the usability of the whole concept. And it comes back to this idea of crypto versus NFTs. People who are NFT enthusiasts want to see people really immersed in this, engaged, active, always engaging with other people, with other assets and other things. And that means you need constant access to everything you own. where a lot of crypto maximus believe in taking your cryptocurrency, putting in a hard wallet,

burying it in a hole, and being ready for the day the government turn on you, and you have to get up and flee via rubber dingy to the closest island offshore. So the two very different philosophies. And the way I've tried to mitigate for that is having quite a number of wallets and then spreading assets across those wallets and keeping some at very different exchanges where I do bot trading and stuff. but it is, it's very unfortunate. I have no idea how it happened to me.

If anybody else has been experiencing metamask issues where their metamask wallet got cleaned out, I don't think it was the browser. I wasn't an Airbnb at the time when it happened. So I thought maybe it was a security issue to do with the Airbnb, but the machine doesn't seem to be compromised. The browser doesn't seem to be compromised. My seed phrase was not accessible.

I haven't figured it out. So if people have heard any stories with this, I would be very grateful if they, if they, if they, if they, if they, if they sent it my way, because I would just love to know what happened. You know, there's no chance when you get any of it back, but I would love to know how it happened. So it doesn't happen again.

But at the moment, it just makes me feel cautious about metamask in particular, I think. Hmm. But so like, you know, so this was you losing your assets. But if we were in a metaverse situation and you lost control of your avatar, then would you just, need to revert to traditional social media and say, hey, everybody, this is no longer my avatar, don't let it scam you, you know, if it approaches you with a business proposition. It's not actually me, like whatever, you know, I don't know how this would work, but what are

your thoughts on? Or is that even a thing? Can you lose your avatar or you're maybe not? It depends on the avatar, the nature of the avatar, you know, it depends on the platform. But if we assume the avatar is an NFT, for instance, moving forward, Well, then yes, it could happen. And if they got control of that wallet, they could access all of the assets connected to it. So you could make your public case.

But in all likelihood, you'd need to build your reputation from the bearing up again. I think there's two things. Look, it's a tax write off and you can benchmark the value on it. So that's one positive side of it maybe. But aside from that, your insurance propositions right now don't cover that. So I don't, there is no insurance proposition really which I can access that was going to cover that theft for me. So if somebody had broken into my home and it's stolen that money from my home, it would have been covered. If somebody had mugged me on the street and taken it, it would have been covered.

If it happened when I was on vacation, it would have been covered. But it is not covered if it happens within a digital environment. So it is this kind of gray space at the moment. And I think that is clearly a first step. Because if you have amassed significant asset value, at the very least, you want to be able to ensure. it in the way you'd insure anything else. We insure our property. If you've got expensive jewelry, you insured.

If you have a house, you insure it. And there's a ton of people now who have significant enough crypto assets that they could cash out and buy a home with it. You want to be able to insure that in some way, in the same way that your bank deposits are insured or anything else. So I think that's a really simple, straightforward first step that the industry needs to provide. And maybe it comes from defy, although I suspect it's much more likely to come from traditional institutionals rather than defy.

Yeah, and also to add on to that, I think that, again, we are extremely early. And so most people, like, didn't know about NFTs again, up until January. So I think that solutions will be created. Like right now, I agree with John that you're kind of, it's going to be difficult. If you're stuck as stolen, it's very, you know, low likely you'll get anything back. And also, you know, that value is probably just gone. And your avatar for it. And this example is also probably.

like on therefore your identity to, yes, you would have to turn to traditional social media to say, hey, everyone, like my NFT was taken and don't trust them, whatever. But yeah, people will create solutions for that. Like that is clearly a very big issue and people will figure out solutions. Yeah. As for the insurance question, I was just realizing since, you know, people probably would never sell their avatar, there wouldn't be a market price that you could easily point to, you know, the way that you can for even something like a profile pick, which is.

is not quite the same thing as an avatar. But anyway, all right, so we're coming up on time. Oh, did you just want to add? What you could do, you would have a bent, like so obviously your avatar is not a particularly liquid asset, but a lot of the assets associated with it would have a market price, or at least a purchase price. So if, for instance, your avatar is wearing certain clothes

or has certain accessories, you'll be able to establish the purchase value or maybe even a market value for some of those. For instance, if it's axes, you'll be able to show the value you purchase them out. So at least in that instance, you should be able to. But the first two calls I made was the first one was to my accountant.

The second one was the insurance company. The third one was to the police. So none of whom were particularly helpful. All right. So we're over time. But let's just do one last quick question. If you were to make projections for how things will play out with the Metaverse or whatever you want to call it,

in the next six months to a year, what would you expect to see? Six months is very close. I mean it's easy for you. I think play to earn is going to be a really significant part of this because the utility is so obvious, the opportunity is so obvious. So I think we'll see a lot more play to earn. If we set you out a little bit longer over 36 months, I think we'll begin to see some play to earn emerge in mixed reality environments

so the likes of what Pokemon Go did. And I think that's the sort of thing that gets really widespread adoption. And it's important to remember that a lot of these propositions don't have mobile apps yet. So they haven't gone mobile. So the real scale opportunity hasn't been touched on. So maybe that's in the next six months to a year, we'll begin to see mobile iteration of some of these propositions. That's maybe my prediction. Yeah, to build off that, I would say that Play-Durn is going to be something that is, I agree with John, absolutely massive.

And people are kind of associating Play-Dern or talking about Play-Dern as a almost global minimum wage. They think that over a long of time span, there'll be some sort of global minimum wage because of NFTs and because of plate earn, which is very exciting. I think that, you know, artists will continue to create amazing works that are fully digital. I think collectors are going to continue to collect everything from, you know, weird looking penguins to kind of baseball cards on the blockchain and they'll be able to nerd out with each other and socialize. And I think that virtual world platforms are like, they're basically experienced platforms will continue to get bigger and and more exciting and have more people on them and post more events.

And I think that basically there's just going to be more of everything. And it's going to be coming at a much faster pace than what we've seen in the past six months. All right. Well, we'll have to check back at that time and see how well your projections played out. Well, where can people learn more about each of you and Spermion and Letellie B&P Paribus? People can follow me on Twitter. My name is Andrew Steinwald. And if you want to learn more about Sifermion, it is Sifermion.

I.io. And I am John Egan on Twitter and you can see more of what we do atotilia.net. Perfect. Thank you both so much for coming on Unchained. Thank you, Laura. Thanks so much for joining us today. To learn more about Andrew and John, check out the show notes for this episode. Unchained is produced by me, Laura Shin, with help from Anthony Yun, Daniel Ness, and Mark Murdoch. Thanks for listening.