Economist Song Qinghui: The popularity of metaverse concept stocks is slowly declining

It is impossible to judge the future profitability of some of the relevant listed companies and whether they will fail due to insufficient R&D funding on the road to success. Therefore, the current hype for the concept of the metaverse in the capital market is still the hype of its concept. All in all, the current metaverse is still far from maturity, and investors should be wary of the hype of the metaverse concept.

Famous economist Song Qinghui

Has the concept of the metaverse "gone out"? There are different opinions in the capital market. In fact, many things seem very lofty in other words, such as "juicing" aka "breaking the wall", such as "hungry" aka "weight management", and "selling goods online" aka "live streaming", all of which can be popular. For many people, the first contact with the metaverse is still thinking that it is a new field of aerospace and aviation, and only after careful reading does they realize that it is a virtual reality world. If you work hard to figure it out, in fact, the unknown network technology and virtual reality applications in the future can be called the "metaverse".

Like many distinctive concepts, the metaverse is not new, due to the novelty of the concept name, the first appearance of the metaverse in 2021 has attracted the attention of many institutions, and Facebook, the Internet giant, changed the company name to Meta on October 28, 2021, and its high-profile layout of the metaverse has made many companies ready to move. Previously, Tesla CEO Elon Musk supported Bitcoin, promoted his own and Tesla's popularity, and at the same time raised the price of Bitcoin, Zuckerberg's obsession with the metaverse or wanted to imitate this approach and take the lead in becoming the "master" of the metaverse concept.

The Metaverse market has great potential – in fact, this sentence can be applied to all related emerging fields, but the Metaverse market related to the gaming industry has definitely enough potential. For example, Genshin Impact, a domestic game with a strong ability to attract money and has a lot of influence in many countries and regions, will surely attract many players if it is deeply integrated with the metaverse, and RPG stand-alone games such as Peace Elite and Tomorrow After Tomorrow, as well as RPG stand-alone games such as The Legend of Sword and Fairy and Ancient Sword and Legend, will be more experienced by immersing themselves in virtual scenes through the metaverse.

In addition to being integrated into the game in the first person or first vision, the metaverse can also be applied to the experience scene outside of the game. For example, VR property viewing, which has been widely used by major real estate developers and real estate agents, has developed a VR tourism model in some scenic spots, so that visitors can "experience it on the spot" without being on site. In the future, in addition to more real sensations for the five senses, somatosensory technology will also be further enhanced, which can take visitors back to the scene of the year.

The metaverse can create a training environment that meets the scene for special professional workers, such as fire and rescue scenes, and can also provide a virtual training environment for competitive sports athletes to reduce injuries on the training ground, paperless office and other aspects of energy conservation and emission reduction, and can make a certain substantial contribution.

This also means that the construction of the metaverse system will take a long time. In this context, whether it is the U.S. stock market, which looks bullish and full of myths, or the A-share market, which is difficult to describe, the metaverse is still in its "infancy", and it is impossible to judge the future profitability of some relevant listed companies and whether they will collapse due to insufficient R&D funds on the road to success. Therefore, the current hype for the concept of the metaverse in the capital market is still the hype of its concept. All in all, the current metaverse is still far from maturity, so investors should be wary of the hype of the metaverse concept.

In the future, if the metaverse is fully mature, it will have a greater impact on some industries. For example, people nowadays can use their mobile phones while using their computers, and glance at the TV next to them from time to time, and these three products do not conflict with each other. However, if consumers are immersed in the world of the metaverse in the future, mobile phones, computers, TVs and other products will inevitably be isolated, and only various software in the metaverse system can be used. It is conceivable that if the metaverse technology is further popularized and becomes a part of people's lives, the demand for mobile phones, computers, TVs and other products is likely to shrink significantly, and the level of metaverse-related software and hardware production will increase rapidly.

However, no matter how strong the virtual technology is, it cannot replace the real needs of drinking water and eating, just like in the well-known anime "Sword Art Online", the player's eating and drinking in the system is only a game experience, and the human body itself is still hungry and needs to continuously input nutrient solutions from the outside world to maintain life. Therefore, no matter how developed virtual technology is, it cannot replace food, clothing, housing and transportation, even if otaku and otaku can visit the beautiful earth without leaving home through virtual reality, and will not be afraid of the problem of houses and cars in the virtual world, but they are actually lying flat in bed, or they still have to run around for life in the real world. The metaverse can only allow people to mentally free themselves from the existing spatial constraints and constraints, no matter how magical it is, and it is only an entertainment tool, not a necessity for most people.

Like many "short-lived" technology concept stocks, the current popularity of metaverse concept stocks is slowly declining, and there are even signs of gradually extinguishing the flame. Perhaps it will not be long before new technologies and new terms are rapidly produced, and capital will still chase them.

The author is the famous economist Song Qinghui, the author of "Accelerating the Country".

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