Facebook and Microsoft metaverse development announcements have triggered interest in cryptocurrencies and Play2Earn games.
Facebook and Microsoft spur interest in Crypto Metaverses. Facebook’s announcement, now Meta, has triggered interest in all things metaverse. Decentraland, a blockchain-based virtual space, has seen the price of its native MANA token grow by more than 400% following the launch of Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse. It seems that investors have begun to take an interest in this new concept known as the metaverse, based on a virtual space with a new way for people to connect and interact with the Internet.
Facebook made the Metaverse announcement on October 28. The following day, MANA registered a price increase from $0.87 to $1.4, a rise of 80%. By November 1, MANA reached its all-time high above $4.95, increasing by more than 400%. Along with MANA, other tokens, such as the Axie Infinity game token, AXS, also experienced an increase after the announcement. In this case, by October 29, the token reached its all-time high above $164, with a percentage growth of 30%. Subsequently, AXS climbed above $140.
The metaverse in the “crypto-world.”
Although Meta caused a stir with their metaverse announcement, this is not and will not be unique to the company. The metaverse concept defines a new way of interacting with the Internet. Many companies have been developing their metaverses, as in Decentraland. They aim to create a virtual world where users can buy their own spaces (LAND), which they can customize.
Facebook aims for participants in its metaverse to connect through virtual reality devices. In the case of Decentraland, users can connect to it through a computer.
NFT Oasis, another cryptocurrency project developing its metaverse, allows interaction through virtual reality. An example was a Jazz event, where they auctioned several NFT tokens through virtual rooms in NFT Oasis. Users could connect and trade collectible tokens, all within a virtual chat room.
Play2Earn games in the metaverse
The metaverse is not just about connecting and interacting with other people. According to Facebook, iconic games, such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, will be adapted to live the virtual reality experience within Meta. Within the metaverse of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, play-to-earn (P2E) games can play an important role. A case in point is Axie Infinity, which, in this bull run in the market after Facebook’s announcement, experienced a surge in one of its platform tokens.
Microsoft is also in the metaverse development
From 2022, Microsoft Teams will function as a collaborative metaverse, where elementary meetings with avatars will be possible, up to ecosystems with alternate realities for customers and people who decide to use it. Microsoft announced its new Virtual and Augmented Reality project for its Microsoft Teams area, called Mesh. It seeks to confront Meta, Facebook’s metaverse announced less than a week ago. From 2022 it will begin to integrate the new aspects of the platform.
The Redmond company will integrate Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Mesh in Microsoft Teams in 2022, a metaverse that will be available for smartphones and laptops, which will be able to access a “mixed reality” to make online meetings “more personal.”
According to Microsoft, its Teams tool will be more “engaging and fun” with metaverse included (described as the new Internet but with blockchain technology), which will be inhabited by “digital twins” of people, places, and things.
“Think of the metaverse as a new version, or a new vision, of the Internet, one in which people come together to communicate, collaborate and share with a personal virtual presence on any device. Organizations can also create immersive spaces, metaverses, within Teams.“
Big tech looks to enter a new battle for the metaverse throne
Microsoft explained that the first step for Mesh users is to join a formal meeting but with a personalized avatar. Subsequently, users can bring their avatars to mingle, collaborate on projects, and experiment with chance encounters that drive innovation.
“Welcome to Mesh for Teams. As a company that focuses on productivity and knowledge workers, it’s something that customers are asking us for. It combines with the mixed reality vision that we’ve been working on for 12 years. It’s all coming together.” Alex Kipman
Mesh will enable customers to create metaverses, collaborative virtual worlds, and places to connect the physical world to the virtual world through digital twins of people, places, and things. In addition, Teams will showcase a new approach to remote and hybrid work to an audience of 250 million users. It will enable users to create and use self-expressive avatars and experience immersive spaces.
Alex Kipman explains it as follows:
“Now, we’re moving from a set of workloads that are very relevant to front-line workers to workloads for knowledge workers. People like you and me sit in front of a desk. What do we do? we collaborate. what are we doing right now? We collaborate. What are we doing right now? We collaborate. So, Microsoft happens to have this amazing, phenomenal collaboration tool called Microsoft Teams, and we thought, ‘Huh? That’s where people are collaborating today.”
For now, general interest in the metaverse remains unknown. Although MANA still maintains the rise it experienced, everything seems to be motivated by simple speculative interest due to the recent boom and public exposure that metaverses have had.