What exactly is the metaverse of the recent fire?
To be precise, the metaverse is not a new concept, it is more like a rebirth of a classical concept. In 1992, the famous American science fiction master Neil Stephenson described the metaverse in his novel "Avalanche": "Put on headphones and eyepieces, find a connected terminal, and you can enter a virtual space parallel to the real world simulated by a computer in a virtual doppelganger." ”
In March this year, Roblox, the first stock of the meta-universe concept, was officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the United States; in May, Facebook said it would transform into a meta-universe company within 5 years; in August, ByteDance spent a huge amount of money to acquire VR startup Pico... This year, the metacosm has undoubtedly become one of the hottest concepts in the field of science and technology.
So, what exactly is the metacosm? Why are the major digital technology giants entering the meta-universe? How should China's meta-universe industry be laid out and developed?
The metaverse is currently unrightified
To be precise, the metaverse is not a new concept, it is more like a rebirth of a classical concept, a conceptual embodiment under new technologies such as extended reality (XR), blockchain, cloud computing, digital twins, and more.
In 1992, the famous American science fiction master Neil Stephenson described the metaverse in his novel "Avalanche": "Put on headphones and eyepieces, find a connected terminal, and you can enter a virtual space parallel to the real world simulated by a computer in a virtual doppelganger." ”
Of course, the lack of a recognized definition of core concepts is a common phenomenon in cutting-edge technology. Although the metaverse has attracted much attention and expectations from all sides, there is also no universally accepted definition. Returning to the essence of the concept, it can be considered that the metacosm is based on the traditional cyberspace, accompanied by the improvement of the maturity of a variety of digital technologies, and the formation of a virtual world that is both mapped and independent of the real world. At the same time, the metacosm is not a simple virtual space, but includes the network, hardware terminals and users into a sustainable, wide-coverage virtual reality system, which has both digital replicas of the real world and virtual world creations.
At present, everything about the metaverse is still being debated, and the analysis from different perspectives will lead to extremely different conclusions, but the basic characteristics of the metaverse have been generally recognized by the industry.
Its basic features include: immersive experience, low latency and sense of reality so that users have an immersive sensory experience; virtualized twins, real-world users will have one or more ID identities in the digital world; open creation, users enter the digital world through the terminal, can use massive resources to carry out creative activities; strong social attributes, real social relationship chain will be transferred and reorganized in the digital world; stable system, with a safe, stable, orderly economic operation system.
▲2021 First year of "Former Universe"
Facebook officially announced its name to "Meta"
Overnight in U.S. stocks, shares of social giant Facebook rose 2.10 percent to close at $323.57.
This is the market performance of Facebook's official announcement that it has changed its name to "Meta".
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook has shifted to a virtual reality-based computing platform. "Hopefully, over the next decade, metaverses will reach 1 billion people, host hundreds of billions of dollars in digital commerce, and provide jobs for millions of creators and developers," he said. ”
▲ Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg does not want a "face", the metacosm can move
"It's time for us to adopt a new company name that encompasses everything we're doing to express who we are and our vision." At the Facebook Connect conference held on October 28, local time, CEO Zuckerberg announced that Facebook officially changed its name to Meta.
The new name, derived from the word Meatverse, meaning metaverse, is considered the next stage in the development of the Internet, a virtual reality online world powered by AR, VR, 3D and other technologies.
"We are at the beginning of the next chapter of the Internet, which is also the next chapter of our company." On October 28, local time, Zuckerberg wrote in the "Founder's Letter". In the letter, Zucker burke said that from now on, the company's business will put metacosmity first, not Facebook.
Xiao Za doesn't want to face it? The answer is certainly not that simple.
For Facebook's name change, it almost caused a wave of ridicule on the Internet.
Whether it's the "cottage" problem with the new LOGO, or the various ridicules about the new name.
However, there is little discussion about Zuckerberg's metaversary plan, perhaps just because of this project, which has been discussed too many times before.
Changing the name "Meta" was not a whim
Zuckerberg renamed Faceboo "Meta" in the "Metaverse."
Zuckerberg said the metacosm is the next frontier, and from now on, the company will put the metacosm first, rather than Facebook first.
Facebook is considered to be the most radical technology giant in the metaverse layout at home and abroad.
Back in 2014, Facebook bought virtual reality company Oculus for $2 billion, and now one-fifth of the company's workforce is invested in the AR/VR business.
Since 2017, Facebook has supplemented the content sector by acquiring a series of well-known VR game developers such as Beat Games, Sanzaru Games, Ready At Dawn, Downpour Interactive, BigBox, and film and television content production companies such as Blend Media. Paired with hardware, Facebook is developing its own operating system to eliminate reliance on Android.
The Infinite office is an important part of Facebook's metacosmity strategy.
In September 2020, Facebook announced the launch of Infinitite Office, a VR virtual office application that enables users to create virtual office spaces and increase productivity.
As the R&D arm of Facebook Metacosm, the Facebook Reality lab is growing in importance.
Facebook said in the third quarter of 2021 financial report that it will report performance in the next quarter in the form of two businesses, Family of Apps and Facebook Reality Lab, of which Family of Apps includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and other services, and Reality Lab includes AR/VR hardware, software and content.
The establishment of the metaverse is indispensable to the long-term huge capital investment. Facebook expects a total investment of $10 billion in Facebook Reality Labs in 2021 and will continue to grow in the coming years.
At the same time, Facebook is also actively promoting its virtual currency Diem and e-wallet Novi business.
The "metacosm" gives birth to a trillion-level ecological market
Zuckerberg said, "The metaverse will be a presence, and being truly with another person is the ultimate dream of social technology." That's why we focused on building it. ”
In Facebook's vision, the "metacosm" is a physical internet where people can experience it, not just look at it, and people can work together, work, learn, play, shop, create in the metaverse.
Metacosm is widely considered to be the next internet traffic portal, and several giant companies have entered the game.
Game creation platform Roblox was the first company to write the concept of a "metacosm" into a prospectus.
In March 2021, Roblox landed on the New York Stock Exchange as a direct listing. On the day of the listing, Roblox's stock price rose from $45 to $70, and its market value doubled to $45 billion, a 10-fold increase from its valuation a year ago. Roblox's successful listing completely exploded the concept of a "metacosm".
Payments giant Visa released an NFT white paper immediately after announcing the purchase and collection of NFT digital artwork CryptoPunks, in which it explained Visa's views on NFTs. Visa believes that the main application scenarios of NFT include collectibles, artwork and games, and these scenarios coincide with the experimental scenes of the metaverse.
In June, NVIDIA launched NVIDIA Omniverse, an open platform designed for virtual collaboration and accurate real-time simulation of physical attributes. According to NVIDIA's official website, BMW is promoting the use of the NVIDIA Omniverse platform internally, and NVIDIA Omniverse can increase bmw's production planning efficiency by 30%.
In addition, Microsoft, Google, Disney, Unity and other giants have also carried out the strategic layout of the metacosm.
▲Ma Huateng
The forward-looking layout of overseas giants has also aroused great concern in the domestic capital market. Domestically, Tencent has long observed the opportunities of the meta-universe and directly invested in Roblox in 2020 to obtain Roblox's agency rights in China. In July 2021, Roblox's China version of Roblox was officially opened on all platforms.
Another major Internet giant, Alibaba, launched the Alipay payment code skin NFT in June 2021. In recent months, Alibaba has made a series of strategic layouts for its NFT digital collection based on AntChain.
The stock price continues to rise and fall! Chaoqi Zhongqingbao: The meta-universe company is still in the initial stage of exploration
In the A-share market on the other side of the ocean, because of Facebook's name change, on October 29, the "meta-universe" concept stock energy broke out, and 20% of Zhongqingbao rose and stopped, in addition to Baotong Technology, Shengtian Network, Kaiying Network, Tom Cat, Perfect World and many other companies got a big rise.
▲ Li Ruijie, chairman of Zhongqingbao, whose ancestral home is Jieyang ▲ Li Ruijie, chairman of Zhongqingbao, whose ancestral home is Jieyang
Zhongqingbao issued an announcement of abnormal fluctuations. According to the announcement, the deviation of the closing price increase of the company's stock trading price for three consecutive trading days (October 28, 2021, October 29, 2021, November 1, 2021) has accumulated more than 30%, which is an abnormal fluctuation in stock trading according to the Special Provisions on ChiNext Trading on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and other relevant regulations.
Recently, the "Brewmaster" (tentative name) game mentioned in the public account of Shenzhen Zhongqingbao Interactive Network Co., Ltd. involves the concept of "meta-universe" and is forwarded by the media; Facebook changed its name Meta to detonate the A-share "meta-universe" concept stock, and the above factors caused abnormal fluctuations in the company's stock price. Metacosm is a huge concept and model, the company is still in the initial stage of exploration, the concept is relatively shallow, the corresponding products are still under development, and the time and region of the new game launch are also affected by many factors. There is great uncertainty about the progress of the project implementation, whether it can achieve the company's expected effect, and whether it can meet the needs of the future market. Even if the above conditions are met, the company still does not rule out the possibility that there is a large gap between the relevant products and the metacosm.
Capital scramble to lay out the "metacosm"
The industry refers to 2021 as the first year of the "metacosm".
But in fact, international capital began to invest in enterprises in the field of blockchain encryption as early as a few years ago.
Coinbase Ventures is currently one of the most active VC investors in the crypto space. It is reported that among the six major investment categories of Coinbase Ventures, protocol + Web3 infrastructure (29%) accounted for the largest proportion, followed by DeFi (24%) and CeFi (18%), platform + development tools (15%), NFT + meta-universe (9%) and others (5%). Coinbase Ventures also shared observations on regulation, multi-chain ecology, Web3 user experience, and NFT and chain games. Coinbase Ventures was founded by well-known cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to provide early-stage investments for cryptocurrency and blockchain startups, supporting the entire blockchain and cryptocurrency industry.
In China, hillhouse capital, sequoia capital, Zhen fund, wuyuan capital, jianfeng evergreen, morningside capital, star han capital and other first-line investment institutions have opened the layout of the meta-universe track, involving enterprises from virtual social platforms, virtual idols, to game companies, VR/AR projects, etc.
As the concept of metaversity continues to heat up, more and more capital is actively entering the market.
On October 29, venture capital firm CMCC Global announced that its latest crypto fund is targeting $300 million in assets, with some of the new funds going to be invested in areas such as DeFi and NFT. The fund has attracted traditional investors such as Hong Kong billionaire Li Zekai to bet on blockchain technology and its applications. Founded in 2016, CMCC Global is one of the earliest and largest investors in the blockchain platform Solana.
▲ Li Zekai
According to foreign media sources, Lightspeed Venture Partners is currently raising more than $5.5 billion for early and late investment. To date, Lightspeed Ventures has invested $300 million in crypto startups, of which nearly $193 million has been invested this year.
On October 26, local time in the United States, Roelof Botha, a partner at Sequoia Capital, said in an announcement that the company will increase its investment in crypto assets by reshaping the investment structure.
"While it's unclear whether the metaverse is coming, it will be a huge opportunity for the metaverse to continue to be massively scalable with trusted middleware technologies." We are looking to invest in infrastructure and native applications that can build all forms of metaversity, as well as market expansion. Investment firm Multicoin Capital said.
Source: Times Finance