Author | Ben
Edit | Shi Yaqiong
The heat of the metaverse lasted almost all year.
Some people have begun to hoard land in the metaverse; some people are studying how to manipulate spatial touch in different depths of field; some people can make tens of millions of dollars by auctioning a stack of NFTs; some people try to use artificial intelligence to drive virtual individuals to iteratively upgrade in the theory of evolution, and the metaverse is full of entrepreneurial variety.
At the end of the year, on December 14, Horizons Ventures, owned by Li Ka-shing, led a $9 million Series A round of financing for Wonder Dynamics, which is regarded as the first investment in the meta-universe space before the age of 93, Wonder Dynamics, a California-based AI media technology company.
Wonder Dynamics
Wonder Dynamics has a luxurious board lineup, including Hollywood tycoon Spielberg, "Reunion" director Joe Russell, and AI technology giants from Berkeley and MIT, and has received $11.5 million in financing since its establishment 8 months ago, including Samsung Venture Capital, Epic Games and so on.
But from its official website, it can be seen that the product and technology are still in the Forth soon stage, and this style of PPT entrepreneurship can't help but remind people of the Magic Leap of VR/AR a few years ago.
According to the latest news, the once popular fried chicken Magic Leap in the AR field is almost empty, and the company's only chief designer is struggling to support, and the B-end new products that have jumped the ticket countless times and the lower limit is Hololens2 are probably more difficult to cash. Three months ago, in October 2021, Magic Leap also announced on its official website that it had completed a new round of financing of $500 million, with a post-investment valuation of about $2 billion; in 2019, its valuation had reached $6.7 billion; back in October 2014, after completing a $542 million round of financing, its valuation was also $2 billion.
Magic Leap
From another point of view, one of the co-creators of Wonder Dynamics is Tye Sheridan, the star of "Ready Player One", "Runaway Player", "Avalanche" has appeared frequently as annotations in various articles about the metaverse since the beginning of this year, which also shows that the metaverse is really difficult to express in words.
In addition, there are many unexpected connections in the metaverse.
The biggest hot event in the metaverse in a year is undoubtedly Facebook's All in metacosmum, which was renamed Meta. Li Ka-shing's Victoria Harbour Investments, which invested $450 million in Facebook in 2008, or 3 percent of its shares, was worth $1 trillion last year, an investment worth nearly 70 times at $30 billion.
Meta's metacosmology is called Horizons Worlds, and Lee's Victoria Harbour investment is called Horizons Ventures.
Meta has set a 5-year plan for the All in meta-universe, if the successful transformation, then the nearly hundred-year-old Superman will also be a big winner, I believe he will bet more meta-universe companies in the future, after all, he once missed Tencent's Web 2.0 dividend is also a huge lesson anyway.
The value of the metacosm lies in the fact that it is synchronized with Web 3.0 and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and whether it is a concept or a technology, it is inherently world-changing.
Metaversities may really be coming
Jobs once said: Companies that really want to do a good software experience will do hardware.
For the technology giants, as of now, only Apple itself has verified this, and it can be said that even if this sentence is correct, it does not have universal significance. In fact, if you can stand at the height of Apple's three trillion market value, software and hardware will be highly unified, and Apple will inevitably enter the meta-universe in the future, and Cook has expressed the ultimate fantasy about AR more than once.
Now, about the early days of the metaverse, who started the software, hardware, content, and ecology first, this cliché of similar chickens or eggs first, is close to having an answer.
Os will still be the commanding heights of the metaverse.
It can be said that iOS and Android are the foundation of Web 2.0 and will remain valid for the next decade, while parallel Web 3.0 will not be built on backward operating systems.
Recently, foreign media quoted two people familiar with the matter as saying that Facebook's parent company META has stopped developing its XROS operating system before November 2021. The XROS project, which began in 2017 as one of the core projects of Facebook Reality Labs, had more than 300 project teams by the end of last year, and the reason for its termination is unclear.
According to people familiar with the matter, Mark Lucovsky, the soul of the XROS project, previously announced his departure and joined Google as a senior director of AR engineering and operating systems at Google, leading the AR operating system team.
On Apple's side, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman revealed in the latest issue of Power On, Apple will release a VR terminal this year and support some AR functions, codenamed n301. At the same time, he said, the device will be equipped with the rOS operating system, which is code-named Oak.
It is also noted that the rOS operating system is expected to be officially unveiled at WWDC in June 2022.
WWDC2022
Yes, the OS dispute in the metaverse may still come from Apple and Google, of course, it cannot be ruled out that there will be super-new players entering, and subverting the traditional pattern will bring more innovation opportunities. However, if you consider the problem that OS for Web3 needs to be backwards compatible, it will be very difficult to develop.
And, it is foreseeable that the OS of the metacosm will likely be native 3D operating systems.
If the Z axis is introduced directly into the operating system, the spatial properties of XR can be truly activated, and therefore, perhaps 2022 is the real first year of the metaverse.
In addition, as the hegemon of Web 1.0 and the previous OS industry, although Microsoft missed Web 2.0, it does not want to miss Web 3.0 again.
Microsoft has clarified its development logic for building future CPS (Cyber Physical Space) or digital twins: at the very bottom, Microsoft Mesh and Azure are used as a platform for computing simulation to support a variety of services; in the middle layer, Microsoft uses Microsoft Dynamic 365, Microsoft Mesh, and AltspaceVR to build an ecosystem; the top form is Microsoft's HoloLens2, VR and other intelligent terminal devices.
The former chip giant will not be absent, Intel senior vice president Raja Koduri pointed out: Metacosmity may be the next major computing platform after the World Wide Web and mobile Internet, but the current computer, storage and network infrastructure is simply not enough to achieve the real metacosmity, but requires 1,000 times or more of the current server cluster computing performance.
To this end, in the software field, Intel has developed Continual Compute technology, which is considered to be an important infrastructure in the metaverse, solving the problem that low-performance devices cannot effectively run high-performance applications, so that any device can run games and applications at the AAA or even metasymmetric level.
It can be seen that the traditional giants are trying to find the breaking point of the meta-universe on the basis of the layout of the full-stack development capabilities.
For domestic enterprises, in the core areas such as OS, CPU, and GPU, although they have been catching up, the gap has not narrowed.
Looking at the field of the universal universe, opportunities are more likely to appear in specific scenarios.
From the perspective of the market space of XR devices, the lower limit can refer to the game console, while the upper limit is the mobile phone.
A number of entrepreneurs in the field of XR hardware invariably told 36Kr that price is the main threshold for XR equipment to further expand market share, and the difference in per capita GDP between China and the United States is also a gap that cannot be benchmarked in the short term.
The basis of this view itself is absolutely no problem, the price of Oculus Quest 2 in North America is only equivalent to about 1/20 of the local average monthly salary, while in China, the price of about 2,000 yuan is equivalent to about 1/3 of the average monthly salary in large cities, not to mention that Oculus Quest 2 is not sold in China, and the chinese market has insufficient experience and higher prices.
But this view can easily find the paradox.
Apple's mobile phone, which has always maintained a price in the range of 5,000-10,000, can penetrate into all age groups in China's first-tier to eighteen-tier cities, unchanged for ten years.
AirPods with a price of more than 1,000 yuan can achieve more than 20 billion US dollars in revenue per year with a single product.
Therefore, it can also be inferred that the price is not an obstacle for XR hardware to enter the mainstream market, and even the price-performance ratio is not, and innovation + brand can cross the barrier.
Zhang Daoning, founder of the domestic spatial positioning technology research and development company NOVEL VR, told 36Kr that the future XR will have a considerable variety of interaction methods, which may be connected to the huge system in the form of accessories, which will also derive a huge peripheral equipment market.
It is conceivable that the native 3D combined with the Z axis eye-controllable depth of field will provide an open expansion space for XR devices, and the future 3D content creation and application development will inevitably derive a new pattern, which is also the embodiment of immersion and diversification in the vision of the meta-universe.
A senior investor who has long been concerned about the field of artificial intelligence told 36Kr that PGC and UGC are indispensable for building metaverse content, but the reason why the metacosm is called metaverse, the transition from cost-oriented to quality-oriented massive content will definitely depend on the capabilities of AIGC.
SenseTime has just been listed in Hong Kong, and the word "meta-universe" appears 44 times in its prospectus, as a giant in the first echelon of AI, SenseTime's attitude is crucial, and it also shows that AI will be the core element of the virtual world.
On the one hand, AI needs to find valuable scenarios to land; on the other hand, the metaverse has multiple levels, both need to be rebuilt, but also need to create, urgently need more efficient productivity tools, ai and various productivity tools Integration will become the source power of the metaverse.
AI+AR、AI+VR、AI+PLG...... The metaverse based on this can change the various fields of education, fashion, social networking, health, industry, agriculture, sports, art, etc. from the depth of the direction.
It is difficult for large Chinese and American manufacturers to benchmark
In order to rationally look at the gaps that exist at different levels between China and the United States, we must first start with the meta-universe layout of the big factory.
The layout of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Intel has been covered in the previous article, and the giants certainly do not miss any valuable outlet.
The American manufacturer Roblox
Roblox's volume may be more than an order of magnitude different from other big factories, but when it comes to the metaverse, it is a big factory.
Roblox Metaverse
In March 2021, Roblox, the first stock of Meta-Universe, was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with a market capitalization of $77 billion, covering Blizzard, Take Two, EA and other listed companies in the game field. Roblox is a UGC sandbox game, mainly for teenagers.
Looking at the game level alone, Minecraft is a sandbox game that is more popular with deep players, many Minecraft players have amazing creative ability, which has also made it a success, with hundreds of millions of monthly active users worldwide, and finally Microsoft acquired Mojang, the developer behind Minecraft, for $2.5 billion.
Although Roblox has many similarities with Minecraft, the innovative creator trading program has made Roblox completely different and even ushered in a new era.
According to Roblox's third-quarter earnings report released in November 2021, revenue increased 102% year-over-year to $509.3 million; net loss was $74 million; and cash flow increased 7% year-on-year to $170.6 million.
ITS CEO David Baszucki said on the conference call that in the third quarter, people of all ages around the world spent more than 11 billion hours on Roblox; the developer community generated more than $130 million in revenue in the quarter and is expected to exceed $500 million for the full year.
META
For Facebook, the metaverse may be a lifesaver, but all in metacosm is by no means a decision to pat your head on the head.
In 2014, it re-injected Oculus, and in 2017, it established Facebook Reality Labs, and continued to lay out the XR field, creating a microkernel-based operating system, designing from the bottom to provide the performance and efficiency required by the XR system; it is also studying the large-scale capacity of optical systems, and completely changing the near-eye display system of XR through the display technology of liquid crystal polarization holograms (LCPHs).
The VR terminal, which has been released for a year, has finally ushered in a highlight moment.
Oculus Quest
At the end of the year, the Oculus Quest 2 headset and the Oculus App "slaughtered" the Christmas season in North America and around the world in 2021.
On December 25, the Oculus App beat social apps like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube topped the free download list for the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in the United States.
According to the US technology media Road to VR, in the VR terminal equipment connected to Steam, the proportion of Oculus Quest 2 continues to rise, accounting for 39.62% of the share at the end of 2021.
Nvidia
Nvidia is trying to extend the dividends on the blockchain for a decade into the metaverse.
On November 9, NVIDIA GTC 2021 carried out intensive product releases, including the "three-core" strategy of upgrading the product route to GPU + CPU + DPU, and at the same time, positioning its upgraded Omniverse development platform as the metacosm of engineers.
Omniverse avatar
Compared with META's metaverse for office, social and entertainment, NVIDIA's Omniverse platform is more inclined to the industrial-grade metaverse, using digital twins to build virtual worlds that are equal to the real world and recreate industrial processes. In the future, Omniverse will disrupt existing application scenarios in architecture, engineering, manufacturing, supercomputing and other industries.
In addition, at GTC 2021, Huang Jenxun's avatar once again came into focus, integrating the industry's largest pre-trained NLP model Megatron 530B, the cartoon Xiaohuang imitated Huang Jenxun's own voice, image and posture, and could fluently communicate with people in multiple languages. Super light chasing special effects, from the details to even the translucent body such as the eyes, the reflection generated when the light changes can be accurately captured.
According to NVIDIA's announcement, Omniverse has now been adopted by more than 700 companies and more than 70,000 individual creators, and Omniverse has also been upgraded from a beta version to a universal version to a software ecosystem that can reach 40 million 3D designers, and the new software market space can reach $40 billion per year based on the License fee of $1,000 per 3D designer per year.
Domestic large factory
Of course, the domestic manufacturers will not let go of any opportunity to lay out the meta-universe, and if this game is lost, they may not see the future in ten years. As a result, everyone began to register trademarks on the meta-universe invariably, such as Tencent's "King Meta-Universe", "QQ Meta-Universe", Ali's "Ali Meta-Universe", "Taobao Meta-Universe", "DingTalk Meta-Universe", NetEase's "NetEase Meta-Universe", "Thunder Fire Meta-Universe", "Fuxi Meta-Universe", Mihayou's "Mi Universe", iQiyi's "Adventure Meta-Universe", Perfect World's "Perfect Meta-Universe", etc., with a huge amount of content and a large number, and will not be repeated.
In addition, it is obvious that in the strategy of domestic large manufacturers in the layout of the meta-universe, investment is the main theme, cooperation is secondary, and self-research is rarely mentioned.
ByteDance
At the end of August 2021, ByteDance acquired VR terminal manufacturer Pico for nearly 9 times the premium of US$1.5 billion (about 9.7 billion yuan), and finally won the bid with Tencent.
Pico NEO3
Byte has said that it will support Pico as a long-term investment in the XR field and gradually deepen its long-term investment in the metaverse field. In terms of funding, $1 billion has been raised for meta-universe platform-level development.
Byte has also previously invested 100 million yuan to support the code mentioned above; and earlier invested in AR diffractive optics and semiconductor micro-nano processing technology manufacturer Guangzhou Semiconductor.
Tencent
As early as 2012, Tencent acquired 48.4% of epic Games' issued shares for $330 million, and according to its recent valuation of $45 billion, Tencent's 40% stake value has exceeded $20 billion.
Epic Games Unreal Engine
In 2019, Tencent cooperated with Roblox to establish a subsidiary, Tencent held 49% of the shares, launched the Chinese version of Robles, and Tencent also participated in Roblox's G round of financing in 2020.
From the perspective of the timeline, Ma Huateng proposed that the true Internet came first, and Roblox's definition of the metaverse came later. Earlier, in November 2017, Tencent also announced a 10% stake in Snap, and Snap's acquisition of AR technology company WaveOptics in 2021 was seen as an important pawn in the next-generation social platform layout metaverse.
Ali
Ali's meta-universe is supported by the XR Laboratory of Dharma Academy, and is led by Tan Ping, who is the chief scientist of computer vision of Ali Artificial Intelligence Lab, who previously created the explosive Tmall Genie.
Tan Ping pointed out that the various Internet applications we are familiar with today, including social, e-commerce, education, games, and payments, will have new ways of presenting themselves in the metaverse.
Ali further divides the metacosm into four layers:
L1 (Holographic Construction): Build a map/person/object model in the virtual world and display it on the terminal hardware, such as vr viewing applications that are now available on the market;
L2 (holographic simulation): the people/things in the virtual world simulate the dynamics of the real world, so that the virtual infinitely approximates the real world, such as the VR games that are now available on the market, digital twin applications, etc.;
L3 (virtual-real fusion): the information of the virtual world is superimposed to the real world display, the essence of the technology is to build a high-precision three-dimensional map of the entire world, and accurately realize positioning, virtual information superposition, etc. on this map;
L4 (Virtual-Real Linkage): The behavior of the virtual world generates feedback in the real world, transforming the real world by changing the virtual world.
Adopting a strategy of parallel development, currently:
At the L1 level, cooperate with Tmall to build a holographic store;
At the L2 level, working with startups virtual people;
At the L3 level, the AR art exhibition was established in cooperation with the Pine Art Museum;
At the L4 level, an apple picking robot was made.
Baidu
On December 26, 2021, Baidu announced that it has reached an agreement with Nvidia to cooperate to build an AI meta-universe. In addition, at the Baidu AI Developer Conference, Raymond Teh, global vice president and president of NVIDIA Asia Pacific, was invited to attend and deliver a keynote speech.
Baidu Xilang
The Baidu Create 2021 (Baidu AI Developer Conference) was held in "Xi'an", which is also the first large-scale conference held in the metaverse in China. The shape of "Xi Lang" is a Mobius ring planet, and the urban design incorporates a large number of Chinese elements, including Chinese landscapes, Chinese culture, and Chinese history, all of which are integrated into urban construction and interactive experiences.
Baidu applied for the meta-universe trademark in November to december 27 officially released "Xi'an" as Baidu's meta-universe, the efficiency is not high, but it is inevitable that it will not be fast. A week in advance, Hiram launched an internal test, but after the official release of the product, bad reviews dominated the mainstream, and were even evaluated as an online game from a decade ago.
Innovative enterprises work from the bottom to continuously narrow the gap with the world
In August 2021, Redshirt and Hillhouse jointly invested in a domestic startup, Motphys, in the angel round, which caused quite a stir in the investment community and the newly emerging metaverse circle. After all, these two head VCs have never shot at the angel wheel at the same time before. It is reported that as the only two physical engine companies in China, Motphys' angel wheel took only one week from start to shutdown.
Investors who have participated in the project told 36Kr that the threshold of the physical engine is very high, it is more difficult to break away from the existing technical structure and find another way, and the benchmarking between Chinese and American companies highlights the scarcity of the project.
Unlike the hotter game engine, the physics engine is undoubtedly an unpopular field, and in the past two decades, only three companies in the world have focused on this, and the three major physics engine companies: PhysX, Havok, and Bullet, are currently acquired by american chip giants.
Havok physics engine
Among them, the most used PhysX, developed by AGEIA, was acquired by NVIDIA in 2008, and the Top2 game engine Unreal Engine and Unity Core both use PhysX as a physics engine; Havok was founded in 1998 and headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and was acquired by Intel in September 2007; Bullet is a fully open source physics engine and the core of AMD's open physics program.
To be precise, Motphys positioned the action physics engine, and in the physical engine segment, another domestic startup started earlier, the code was invested by Byte, and more well known to the outside world is its game social platform restart world benchmark Roblox.
Xing Shanhu, the founder of Code Qiankun, told 36Kr: The restart of the world physics engine project was originally planned to complete the development within 3 years, but the domestic technical reserves were almost zero, the team started from the bottom, during which it was overturned several times, and it took nearly 5 years to finally solve the multi-dimensional problem of mapping the physical space to the physics engine.
Many segments, such as the physics engine, have not previously been noticed by capital, but have become essential infrastructure in the metacosm, and these startups are trying to shorten the distance between China and the United States, China and the world in the expanding metacosm.
Although the outlet of the meta-universe has lasted for nearly a year, although in various articles and the subconscious of most people, the meta-universe startups standing at the outlet should count money to be soft, but the fact is that most of the domestic startups in the field of the meta-meta-universe are still struggling, and the last VR virtual fire winter has not passed.
This can be seen from the investment and financing charts in the field of 2016-2021 XR:
2012-2022 Domestic XR Financing Quantity and Amount (from IT Orange)
The head of the investment department of a listed company told 36Kr that although the company has put forward hard indicators for the investment in the meta-universe, the familiar and unfamiliar market has been combed twice in the past six months, and there are no less than a hundred startups that have been talked about, but the more companies that have been talked about, the more serious they feel that the market has not come out of the vicious circle of VR investment fever 5-6 years ago.
From the perspective of startups, the current meta-universe, compared to the former VR, sharing economy, P2P and other pigs can fly up the era, it is difficult to say the same day, PPT entrepreneurship no longer exists, the meta-universe as the main track of investors are even more professional than a large number of entrepreneurs.
Speaking of metaverses, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently said: Metacosm is to add the physical world to the calculation and the calculation to the physical world.
Microsoft, with a market value of 2.5 trillion yuan, has won the largest order in the field of XR hardware, or the top three cloud computing labels and game console labels, the CEO's summary of the metaverse is simple and penetrating, and the AR and VR derived from the interaction between the physical world and computing are the doors of the metaverse.
However, in the short term, it is difficult to see systematic opportunities in the metaverse and surrounding fields, even if Oculus Quest 2 sells to tens of millions of units, it does not mean that META has achieved success in the metaverse, for startups that hope to show their fists in the metaverse, the metaverse's territory still lacks some core elements, and the current stage of consolidating the technical base is a problem to be solved.
From the perspective of industry, the metacosm has gradually landed in the scene, so the industrial chain has gradually begun to take shape. The upstream and downstream needs of the meta-universe industry chain will continue to change dynamically, and in the process of change, the needs and businesses of innovative enterprises will also be rapidly iterated.
In the short term, B-end products and applications with the advantage of close to the industrial chain, it is easier to form a breakthrough in a single point, the application of AR in vertical fields such as industry and security has been recognized by the market, and the scenario-based application of VR in enterprise-side training and collaborative office has also become an effective way for VR hardware to break through. The B-side industry Knowhow is a significant threshold, and opening up the B-side may also become a plus for entering the C-side in the future. In terms of content, it may face greater uncertainty, but related fields such as edge computing and streaming media data will gradually promote the landing of the metaverse data base.
In the medium term, the industrial chain of mainstream hardware of large factories is becoming more and more perfect, small and medium-sized startups can find a large number of innovation opportunities in the outbreak of interactive content, and cutting-edge technologies in other fields will be greatly integrated into the process of penetration of the metacosmum into the vertical field; the content is bound to usher in an outbreak, digital twins, 3D content productivity tools, engine technology, social software, audio-visual software, e-commerce software and other fields will be quickly shuffled, and the decentralized metacosm will gradually fall into the ground in what form.
Describing a long-term metaversic vision is not easy at this stage, otherwise several familiar movies and novels will not be frequently cited. For example, the research of Mojo AR and several brain-computer interface companies is waiting to see, but what MagicLeap does is indeed easy to make people have bad associations. Long-term visions on hardware, such as MR contact lenses, would be a huge system project if they were to be realized in about a decade. At the same time, the macroscopic impact of the metacosm on industry, agriculture, transportation, energy, and other industries will gradually expand, from the efficiency of the B-end industry to the C-end more entertainment time transmission, and distributed office will also reduce the demand for travel, superimposed on the development of related fields such as automatic driving, the future is full of variables, and the improvement of the metacosm for the generalized efficiency of the whole society will become increasingly obvious.
Specific to the following areas, China has even caught up with the progress of the world's leading enterprises, including but not limited to: future display technology (Micro LED, quantum dots, laser display); optical waveguide (array, diffraction, body holographic); solid-state lithium battery; spatial positioning; electron beam exposure and nanoimprinting; distributed cloud computing; graphics engine; physics engine; light field technology; CAD collaboration and so on.
Look forward to more innovative enterprises that master core technologies to accumulate strength and wait for the opportunity to explode in the meta-universe.
In the field of the universal universe, opportunities, challenges, or traps
For metaverses, there are all kinds of optimistic market expectations, bloomberg industry research reports predict that metacosmities will reach $800 billion in 2024; PwC expects meta-universes to reach $1.5 trillion by 2030.
More optimistic Morgan Stanley analysts say the metaverse may represent an $8 trillion opportunity, but how to get people interested in using it will be a challenge.
Augmented reality AR and artificial intelligence AI experts say that the metacosm can amplify the polarization of society.
In the summer of 2021, Stanford University opened a metaverse course, and the 263 students who signed up wore VR headsets, held handles to take classes in VR scenes, interacted, and finally built a metaverse of their own, and the 263 students who chose the course spent more than 200,000 minutes together in the metaverse. Since the 2020 pandemic, Stanford has been mailing Facebook's Oculus Quest devices to all students who take virtual human classes.
Stanford's Virtual Man Course
The education metaverse will inevitably change the education system from the foundation, but on the one hand, technically, the near-eye vision system may not be suitable for adolescents whose visual system has not yet developed; on the other hand, from the cost point of view, the hardware equipment and ecosystem that can experience the metaverse are still far from the basic education system of the GSP.
NFTs have their own money-making attributes in the metaverse, and its attractiveness lies in the fact that the profit margin is super high, after all, the cost of manufacturing a digital leather bag is much lower than that of the real thing; and it is efficient, and the traditional design, proofing, and production process is shortened to only design and release.
For luxury brands, the meta-universe has opened up a new continent, so it actively deploys meta-universe platforms, such as Balenciaga, a subsidiary of Kering Group, and Epic Games' meta-universe game Fortnite, to launch virtual character skin clothing and accessories that cost less than $10. Balenciaga has also created a dedicated virtual fashion business unit to explore opportunities in the metaverse fashion world.
However, according to the experience of the real economy, the business model with excessively high profit margins cannot be copied on a large scale, and has been verified from many angles such as laws, regulations, markets, and human nature. A business that cuts leeks cannot be grown and will not last long.
Looking back at the metaverse of 2021, it may be a premature baby.
The founder of a startup in the AR field once told 36Kr: Over the years, the company has experienced highs and lows in the industry, and the concept of waves and meta-universes has long been able to look down, but whenever I think of the end of the XR field, it still feels like a fog.
In the countless articles of the media and self-media in the past year; in one press conference after another, closed-door meetings, annual meetings; in the tome of metaverse series and lectures, talking about the endgame of the metaverse, it usually evolves into "Ready Player One", "Out of Control Player", "Avalanche", which is a multiple-choice question, and may occasionally join the Matrix, but it is difficult to find a concrete answer.
Facebook's bet on the metaverse, renamed META, has raised public awareness of the metaverse on a global scale and created a large-scale hot topic, but even Zuckerberg can only make a vague definition of the metacosm.
Zuckerberg said at a recent conference that the best way to understand the metaverse is to experience it for yourself, but it's still a bit difficult for now because it doesn't fully exist yet.
Some views differ on whether the metacosm represents a technology from real to virtual space or just a concept, while others directly negate the existence of the metacosm and even bearish on a large number of underlying technologies that underpin the metacosm.
Musk, who is open to cutting-edge technology, using first principles to revolutionize the aerospace and automotive industries, and hopes to bring humans to Mars, has also recently spoken out about the metacosm: I don't know if I will believe in the metacosm, although I am often talked about it. I don't believe people would abandon the physical world and replace it with a virtual one, especially if they still have a screen in their face.
Musk further elaborated: You know, when I grew up, I always said "don't get too close to the TV, it's not good for vision", and now the TV is directly in front of the eyes, well... Is this good for you? Even more bluntly: it's ridiculous to stick a screen to your face for a long time, who would tie a screen to their face all day.
In business, Musk did not oppose the metaverse, but only expressed disdain for VR terminals, perhaps against META, or may be selfish about his Neuralink brain-computer interface company.
Neuralink brain-computer interface
Just like Roblox's definition of the metaverse, from the perspective of commercialization, there is nothing wrong with it. But to be universally applicable, it may not be.
Metaverse is such a topic, at the beginning there will be too many things that you feel should be expressed, but when the real words come to your mouth, you feel that you can't talk about it.
The asymmetry of information will inevitably increase the risk of early projects.
Cutting-edge technology projects, even in super difficult fields such as quantum computing and controlled nuclear fusion, practitioners and scientists can analyze all aspects of the project in a simple and simple way. But in the metaverse, there are many enigmatic projects, and every word and word in BP can be understood, but it is confusing to put together.
An investor has said that when a startup's BP is full of difficult concepts and unclear terminology, the founders of the project are either bad or stupid.
The fundamental contradiction is the mutual recognition of value itself in the process of digital assets reshaping the original value system.
In the movies that the metaverse pays tribute to, the identity of the protagonist can be reversed in the metaverse, but in reality, the so-called real estate and artwork in the metacosm have deterred leeks. This should be inconsistent with the values that the public can positively accept, and excessive speculation and commercial orientation may stifle more valuable innovations in the cradle.
According to market research agency Chainalysis, the size of the NFT market in 2021 has reached at least 26.9 billion US dollars, about 170 billion yuan, and it is believed that such data will skyrocket exponentially in recent years.
NFT
On December 21, British telecommunications company Vodafone successfully auctioned the world's first text message in the form of an NFT for 107,000 euros, or about 769,000 yuan.
In December 2021, Nike announced the acquisition of digital fashion platform RTKAF and opened a new business of meta-universe collectible shoes, which is also another new move by Nike after announcing its entry into meta-universe shoes in November. Previously, Nike has laid out the metaverse several times, and even as early as December 2019, Nike applied for a patent for CryptoKicks, binding its physical shoes to NFT shoes to verify ownership, and this patent also includes the technology to combine the two sneaker designs into a new sneaker.
Meta-universe platform Ezek and Jay Chou's name of the tide brand PHANTACi limited sale of NFT project Phanta Bear, the upper limit of 10,000, the unit price of 0.26 ether (about 6200 yuan), the sales channel opened, a large number of users almost let the server down, 5 minutes to sell 3000, 40 minutes completely sold out.
On January 18, 2022, Jay Chou's 43rd birthday, the average price of Phanta Bear NFT has shrunk by nearly half, and the trading volume is only 1/10 of the high.
Any innovation is beyond reproach, time, the laws of the market will be a big wave, and every innocent tulip bulb may not see the sun.
epilogue
Li Ka-shing attended the graduation ceremony of Shantou University when he retired at the age of 90.
In his speech, he exhorted young people: "Wandering in the dead end of the mediocre trap, wasting resources in vain and doing half the work." It is necessary to explore different methods to find valuable quantitative variations. ”
This is a common encouragement for entrepreneurs who devote themselves to the metaverse and regard it as a career.