Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has said on Twitter that defining ‘Metaverse’ is not simple. He seemed a little bit confused about the concept while replying to a tweet from Bruno Maçães, a Portuguese author and politician, about the relationship between Metaverse and cryptocurrencies.
According to Buterin, the term is being used to illustrate things that feel meta but he cannot see any coherent relation between these two terms. Regardless of this confusion, many popular companies have joined this lineup to patent their filings. Walmart, Decentraland, Apple, and many other companies have already started investing in Metaverse.
In October 2021, Mark Zukerberg revitalized the concept of Metaverse by changing the name of his social media platform from Facebook to Meta. Such a bold bet on virtual reality forced everyone to think more about the Metaverse and its future of becoming a reality from science fiction.
Metaverse is a blended network of 3D virtual worlds that are accessed by using virtual reality headsets. The headsets immerse users by generating a real-like sensation which causes the users to think that they are physically present in that stimulating situation.
‘Metaverse’ Etymology
Neal Stephenson coined the term “Metaverse” in his science fiction novel Snow Crash in 1992. Later, Web3 and crypto helped it to attract more attention from the respective communities for its decentralized nature. However, the term itself doesn’t refer to any physical object, technology, or experience. Metaverse is an amalgamation of various technologies such as augmented reality, big data, and virtual reality.
Moreover, the technology is in process of innovation and it will take time to develop it into a fully functional Metaverse that can be accessed by virtual users freely. To make this happen, innovative display technologies are a fundamental requirement because without them the concept is incomplete. Integrated spatial audio and high-quality holograms are something that can make Metaverse realistic and desirable.
Vitalik Buterin says that Metaverse has been trying to replicate some real-life aspects of the virtual world and trying to merge both the polar opposite concepts. Ignoring the rising criticism and market crash, Meta has not accepted defeat. Meta has announced that soon it is going to launch a Metaverse academy in France which proves that the company has no plans to abandon its long-term futuristic approach.
Buterin’s Ethereum Plunging to the Depth
On the other hand, Ethereum’s price has fallen even further to a level that is a 15-month low. Following in the footsteps of Bitcoin, which inched closer to 30,000 dollars, the price dropped as low as 1,423 dollars early on Sunday morning. When Ethereum reached its all-time high price of 4,878 dollars only eight months ago, nobody expected the price to reach this level. According to the data provided by Glassnode, Ethereum’s price is currently 18 percent below what it has actually realized.
Since the beginning of 2022, Ethereum has been experiencing consistent losses, and as a direct consequence, investors’ interest in the flagship altcoins has begun to wane. The recent decline can be attributed to this factor in addition to growing exchange reserves and bearish technical signals.
