Making Money with Metaverses in the Crypto World

“Virtual world” can loosely define the term ‘Metaverse’, but it really depends on who you ask, and in which environment. In 1992, the author Neal Stephenson created the term for the novel “Snow Crash,” to describe an immersive virtual world shared by everyone. In 2011, the novel “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline detailed another virtual world like that, and online multiplayer games like Habbo Hotel (2000) or Second Life (2003) have aimed to create something quite similar. In 2020, Decentraland and The Sandbox added crypto to the mix.

If we focus on the crypto space, a Metaverse (there are several) is a digital universe partly built with Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), where people, through avatars, can interact, work, play, and even invest. It enables true ownership of virtual assets through Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), secure transactions with cryptocurrencies, and decentralized governance. Think of it as a mix of social media, gaming, and virtual economies—including items and lands with real value.

And they’re mostly decentralized, of course.

Metaverses, whether centralized or decentralized, share several common characteristics. They are synchronous and live, meaning they exist in real-time and provide a continuous experience that doesn’t pause or reset. They are also persistent, remaining active even when users log off. Additionally, metaverses are designed to be accessible both individually and collectively, allowing users to interact with the environment and each other through digital avatars. These avatars serve as personal representations in the virtual world, enabling social interactions, participation in events, and economic activities, if available.

Decentralized metaverses offer several advantages over their centralized counterparts. Unlike centralized platforms that are controlled by a single entity, which is the only one capable of monetizing the experience, decentralized metaverses leverage DLT to distribute ownership and governance among participants.