{"id":24501,"date":"2024-01-30T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-30T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.11onze.cat\/?p=24501"},"modified":"2025-02-14T13:15:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T12:15:38","slug":"finance-already-metaverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.11onze.cat\/en\/magazine\/finance-already-metaverse\/","title":{"rendered":"Finance is already in the metaverse"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ever since Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of Facebook to Meta, the idea of the metaverse has continued to grow. But the seed already existed. Technology gurus have been working for years to build the metaverse, a limitless digital universe where they claim we will do most of the vital transactions. Faced with the business opportunity, financial institutions have already begun to conquer this new virgin world.<\/b><\/h3>\n

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Everything related to the metaverse sounds like science fiction, because it is, in fact, born of the science fiction that programmers, hackers, and technology tycoons love so much. The first time we read the word <\/span>\u201cmetaverse\u201d \u2014a universe outside the universe\u2014 was in the cult novel Snow Crush<\/b> (2010) by Neal Stephenson, who has publicly dismissed the way his idea is being used.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this apocalyptic dystopia, the author imagines an internet world that is a single infinite highway, owned by a company called Global Multimedia Protocol Group. In this virtual state, <\/span>users raise buildings in the shape and size they want, they transact without restraint<\/b> and they themselves are embodied in impossible avatars. The only limit is the imagination.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The birth of a new world<\/b><\/h3>\n

Today, social networks and platforms are still incipient experiments that lead us irremediably towards this metaverse. But what does it really need to be? According to the experts, it needs to have four characteristics. The first is <\/span>persistence<\/b>, i.e. the new parallel universe must be like life itself, never ending and never restarting. Second, <\/span>a massive scale of socialisation<\/b>. Thirdly, an immersive technology that engineers are still not quite able to fine-tune and which they seem to want to introduce with virtual reality glasses. And finally, a <\/span>real digital economy<\/b> to sustain it.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is in this sense that <\/span>Mark Zuckerberg<\/b>, after the very serious violations of the right to privacy that have taken him to court, <\/span>aspires to lead and direct this new metaverse<\/b>. In fact, for months now, rumours \u2014the \u2018New York Times\u2019, without going any further, has <\/span>echoed<\/span><\/a> them\u2014 claim that Zuckerberg has already held talks with <\/span>the big names in the American administration<\/b> to make himself pardoned and <\/span>to make them understand the geopolitical importance of the project<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

We need to understand the context in which <\/span>the idea of the metaverse is growing, because at least three battles are being fought at the same time<\/b>. The first is undoubtedly the hegemony of the United States in a possible global crisis, as 11Onze\u2019s Chairman, James S\u00e8ne, <\/span>explains<\/span><\/a>. The second is the climate crisis: on a planet increasingly depleted of natural resources, the infinite possibilities of a metaverse are a fertile field for business. And the third is<\/span> the struggle between the classic governmental structure of banking <\/b>and the decentralised but equally predatory alternative proposed by the world of cryptocurrencies.<\/span><\/p>\n

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