Metaverse Alchemy | interview with the first metacostem analyst: which industries will benefit first

2021 is known as the meta-cosmic year. Not only the collective layout of various Internet manufacturers, the capital market is also actively looking for investment opportunities in the "meta-universe".

So, what "magic" of the metaverse makes it the focus? What investment opportunities will the development of the metacosmity bring?

Recently, the surging news reporter interviewed Ma Tianyi, chief analyst of Minsheng Securities Communications and Meta-Universe. He is also known as China's first chief analyst of meta-universes.

"If I had to explain the metacosm in one sentence, I think it would be a tool to improve the productivity of people's lives and businesses." Ma Tianyi said that the metacosm has actually existed in our lives for decades, and it is not a concept that came out of thin air. In the past, our yearning for immersion, social networks, and digital assets was the connotation of the metaverse.

Ma Tianyi pointed out that the current meta-universe has become the focus of attention of all parties, for many reasons: First, domestic and foreign Internet companies have ushered in a relative growth bottleneck after the development to a certain stage. The second is that the new generation of young people who have been exposed to the Internet since birth have a different yearning and preference for the Internet in their lives than the previous generation of people who have slowly contacted the Internet. Third, the metacosm has brought profound changes to the development cycle of enterprises.

Ma Tianyi said that although it seems that "everything can metaverse" at present, in general, the metacosm is still closely related to the real industry and industry. Specifically, it is mainly reflected in the content side, terminal side, platform side, and infrastructure side. At this stage, although the content that is "visible" and "touchable" is more concentrated on the content side and the platform side, the next step, the metacosm will bring special changes to people's lives and office habits.

"In fact, starting to study the metaverse is closely related to my personal experience. On the one hand, the math major made my cognitive logic of the world stronger. On the other hand, it was the communications industry that I had studied earlier that allowed me to better understand the concept of the metacosm. Ma Tianyi said.

However, Ma Tianyi said that compared with traditional industries, the study of the metacosm needs practitioners to maintain their curiosity about exploring the world, while accepting a lot of new knowledge, even new ideas. For example, in the barter stage, we can exchange two sheep for a cow, but it is not acceptable for a cow to exchange for a piece of paper. But after the advent of paper money, exchanging paper for cattle became the norm.

For the future metaverse research industry, Ma Tianyi made three judgments: First, although he is the first chief analyst of the metaverse, it is certainly not the last, and there will be many analysts in the traditional industry in the future who will turn to the metacosm. Second, in the future, many companies, including securities companies, will have virtual characters as endorsements. Third, in the future, more and more virtual identity registrations will appear to replace real names and identities.

In terms of investment, Ma Tianyi suggested that investors can "dig gold" from the terminal side and the infrastructure side at this stage, the opportunity is relatively more certain, and the possibility of short-term performance of content-side companies is low. At the same time, in the past one or two years, some cloud service infrastructure companies, valuations have reached a relatively high point, is currently in the valuation digestion stage.

In terms of strategy, Ma Tianyi believes that at this stage, Meta-Universe Investment can pay more attention to US stocks and A-shares, and remain relatively cautious about Hong Kong stocks. Among them, it is optimistic about three major investment directions: one is the company that interprets the visual touch on the terminal side, the second is the company with social attributes on the platform side, and the third is the lidar that can perfectly integrate with the development of new energy vehicles.

The following is the transcript of the surging news reporter's interview with Ma Tianyi (slightly edited):

The Paper: In your opinion, what exactly is the metacosm?

Ma Tianyi: If I want to explain in one sentence what the metacosm is, I think it is a tool to improve the productivity of people's lives, offices and enterprises.

In fact, the metacosm has been in our lives for decades, and it is not a concept that came out of thin air. In the past, our yearning for immersion, social networks, and digital assets was also the connotation of the metaverse.

It can be said that in the past 10 years and the next 10 years, it does not matter if we do not use blockchain, Bitcoin, etc. in our lives. But for the metaverse, we must accompany it later in life, even for generations to come.

The Paper: What are the "magic powers" of the metaverse that make it the focus of attention of all parties?

Ma Tianyi: The metacosm has become the focus of attention of all parties at present, for many reasons.

First of all, domestic and foreign Internet companies have ushered in a relative growth bottleneck after they have reached a certain stage of development. As far as historical experience is concerned, after every anti-monopoly, there will be a round of technological revolution and innovation. Taking China as an example, in the PC Internet era, "BAT" is a very well-developed company, but after entering the mobile Internet era, Baidu has fallen behind, and ByteDance has become a new darling.

Therefore, in the next Internet era, whether there will be giant companies left behind is a problem that the current "big factories" must think about.

Second, people born in the 80s or 90s are gradually embracing the Internet after they grow up. Today's young people and children have been living in the Internet age since birth. Therefore, in life, the yearning for the Internet is different for a new generation of young people, and their preferences will also change to a certain extent, such as the love for virtual idols.

Third, the corporate side has also undergone profound changes. For example, the informatization of previous car companies was more on the production and manufacturing side, and now it is a comprehensive innovation on the research and development side.

Specifically, it is equivalent to the past enterprises to make hardware equipment, and then send samples to customers, this cycle is very long. However, at present, in the early stage of research and development, enterprises can strengthen pre-communication through the metacosm, which greatly shortens the process of innovative sample delivery of technology enterprises.

It can be said that with the metacosm, the time for technology companies to produce profits is expected to be much earlier than the previous time period.

The Paper: At present, it seems that "everything can meta-universe". Which real-world industries or industries do you think the metacosm is closely related to?

Ma Tianyi: In real life, there are actually many problems that need to be solved in the Internet.

For example, before we went to see movies, we usually went to the offline cinema to watch first, and then watched through TV or the Internet. Now, although the same is going to offline cinemas, more and more audiences choose to have an "immersive" way of watching movies, such as choosing IMAX, 3D and so on.

This phenomenon shows that at present, people's sensitivity to price is declining in life, and the pursuit of experience is greatly improved.

At the same time, at the shopping level, the development of online shopping has been in full swing in recent years, and the scale of e-commerce has increased geometrically. But recently, in the comparison between the "buyer show" and the "seller show", the popularity of offline purchase has risen again.

In addition, everyone's circle of friends has also undergone certain changes. I often say that the circle of friends is the "place where people belong in the depths of their souls", but as people's relationships continue to change, the content available is also decreasing.

It can be seen that although the Internet has brought us great convenience, it has also brought great problems. And these problems can be solved by the metaverse.

For example, in the future, 3D theaters with a more immersive sense of immersion can "fly into the homes of ordinary people"? After watching a football or basketball game, can you "sit next to each other" in the virtual space?

At the same time, although the circle of friends we send now is text, pictures or short videos, can we use long videos to record life in the future?

In addition, some of the ideas in people's minds in the past were more fleeting, and whether the future could be placed in the metaverse, realized with the help of the "dream maker", and then let more people see it like the circle of friends, and then be recognized.

That is, the process of people creating content and expressing their true thoughts will be completely changed in the future by the metaverse.

The Paper: What are your predictions for the next metaverse?

Ma Tianyi: For the development of the current meta-universe, there are currently four main aspects of content, namely the content side, the terminal side, the platform side, and the infrastructure side.

Specifically, the content side, i.e. games and virtual people, etc. In the future, it is not impossible for companies to ask virtual idols to endorse them. At the same time, the content side is also the largest part of the content created by real enterprises and individuals.

On the terminal side, VR/AR is currently evolving as a "bridge" linking reality and the online virtual world. For example, in the past, VR wanted to achieve good results, it needed to link a high-performance computer, but now it is relatively separate.

On the platform side, companies such as Facebook and Nvidia continue to accelerate the application of metaverses, and Facebook even changed its well-known name to Meta related to metaverses.

I often make this analogy: Facebook, a 50-year-old, suddenly changed his name one day, which shows his determination to develop the meta-universe cause.

The infrastructure side, that is, the development of infrastructure such as servers, switches, and optical modules related to transmission and power supply, will also usher in improvements, providing sufficient "logistical support" for the development of the meta-universe.

At this stage, we can "see" and "touch" the content, more on the content side and the platform side. Such as the change of game production and related company marketing strategies, as well as more involvement of large Internet platforms at home and abroad in the metaverse. Among them, on the platform side, you can see Facebook's comprehensive layout of the meta-universe ecology, such as terminal devices and operating systems.

It can be said that the next step of the meta-universe will bring special changes to people's lives and office habits.

The Paper: What made you focus on and start focusing on the metacosm industry?

Ma Tianyi: Starting to study the metaverse is closely related to my personal experience.

First of all, my undergraduate and master's degree majors are both mathematics departments, so the logic of looking at the problem is more logical, and it also makes me realize that our current understanding of the world is insufficient. For example, in the Matrix film, the protagonist puts on the brain-computer interface and quickly learns martial arts, in fact, most of the things we do now are to learn more knowledge in less time.

Secondly, it is to see that the current transfer of assets is developing from "physical to physical" to "physical to virtual", such as the development of the digital yuan. At present, our online transfer is just a bookkeeping system, and in the future, everyone will have a digital currency with a RMB number.

Third, it was my personal change in my perception of the world. In the past, I was more interested in using technology to improve efficiency and change the concept of human beings, but now I want to explore the origin of life and the future of human beings.

As a result, the change in my perception of the world gradually led me to deepen my study of the metacosm. In fact, when the concept of metaverse was not very "fire", I had already begun to study the concept of "Internet of Things metacosm".

The Paper: As the industry's first meta-universe industry chief analyst, you are also responsible for "traditional" research industries such as communications. Is the industry research work of the metacosm very different from other industry research? What are the "commonalities" and "differences"?

Ma Tianyi: At present, one of the important problems solved by many traditional industries, especially the technology industry, is to better connect more people together. For example, in the past, meeting required horseback riding, but later developed into cars and airplanes, etc., and now it is possible to carry out remote video. You can see scenes such as "clairvoyance" and "downwind ears" seen in journey to the West, and most of them have now been realized.

The industry I studied before was communications, and I still think that communication is a particularly great industry because it builds the bottom layer of everything. In my opinion, to complete an effective connection is the communications industry. In this regard, there are similarities with the concept of "everything connected" in the metacosm, so communication practitioners can better understand the metacosm concept.

However, compared with traditional industries, the study of the metacosm requires practitioners to maintain curiosity about the world, which is very important. Because metacosmological research involves a lot of new knowledge, and even the acceptance of new ideas.

For example, in the barter stage, we can exchange two sheep for a cow, but it is not acceptable for a cow to exchange for a piece of paper. But after the advent of paper money, exchanging paper for cattle became the norm. Similarly, the current virtual currency and even virtual assets bring about a reduction in transaction costs, reduce transaction friction, and thus improve the operational efficiency of the world, is also developing. And to know this is something that needs to be understood.

In the research industry, I boldly make three judgments about the metacosm: First, although I am the first chief analyst of the metaverse, I am certainly not the last, and there will be many analysts in the traditional industry in the future who will turn to the metacosm. Second, in the future, many companies, including securities companies, will have virtual characters as endorsements. Third, in the future, more and more virtual identity registrations will appear to replace real names and identities.

The Paper: In your opinion, what is the investment logic of the "meta-universe"?

Ma Tianyi: Overall, the investment opportunities of the meta-universe still need to be excavated from four aspects: content side, terminal side, platform side and infrastructure side.

Specifically, at present, the content side of the company, more is the traditional Internet development model, cultivate user activity, etc., so the possibility of short-term performance is relatively low. The opportunities on the terminal side and the infrastructure side are relatively certain.

On the terminal side, you can see many VR/AR manufacturing companies, compared with the previous manufacturing business of mobile phones, on-board displays, etc., the manufacturing technology difficulty of meta-universe terminals has been reduced, so the future terminal supporting equipment products will do better, and the next step should be performance.

On the infrastructure side, with the widespread application of metaverses, the month-on-month and year-on-year increase in traffic infrastructure is more obvious, so the opportunity is also relatively large.

However, investors need to note that in the past one or two years, due to the impact of the epidemic, the valuation of many cloud service and traffic companies has reached a historical high, so the valuation of these companies is currently in the digestion stage.

The Paper: At present, there are not a few companies in the market with the label of "meta-universe". What do you think are the core companies in the metacosm?

Ma Tianyi: At the company level, the ultimate beneficiary company for the development of the meta-universe must be the biology and brain science company. In the short term, though, end-side companies are expected to benefit, especially traditional VR/AR companies that solve visual-tactile problems.

On the platform side, companies with social attributes are optimistic. The underlying logic and communication of the metaverse are the same, and it is necessary to immerse the audience for a long time to better establish economic consumption reminders, so a good social network is needed. At this stage, there are not many companies that can do a good job of social networking.

In addition, lidar is the best application scenario for the combination of metacosmity and new energy vehicles. The core of the metacosm is better imaging and interaction, and the evolution of new energy vehicles from electric and intelligent to unmanned driving, the application prospects of lidar are very impressive.

At the market level, it is recommended that investors pay attention to the US stocks and A-shares of meta-universe industrial chain companies, and Hong Kong stocks need to be more cautious.