With you in the metaverse

The six concepts that make up PwC’s metaverse framework:

Economy

Cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other blockchain-based digital currencies, assets and exchanges will likely underpin value exchange across the metaverse. Further innovation will be needed as governments, companies and new, digital-only organisations work to build trusted digital monetary systems, offer new data monetisation propositions and conduct lending, payments, real estate investment and more in the metaverse. Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) — with voluntarily agreed-upon rules enforced by a computer program that runs on a blockchain — will likely play important roles.

Interoperability

A true metaverse requires seamless interoperability among users and platforms, based on web3 and still-to-be-determined standards. While this interoperability will offer new possibilities to reach and understand customers, it will also raise new challenges for gathering and protecting data, and for cybersecurity and privacy. It may also undermine business strategies built around keeping users and their data in a given platform. Competitive advantage may shift to those companies that offer (through hardware or software) trusted ways for users to enter the metaverse.

Governance

The metaverse will need rules of engagement for users, rules for how the metaverse itself can change over time and enforcement mechanisms, including for tax collection, data governance and regulatory compliance. Early movers may be able to help set these rules. Security will be paramount, as a new, decentralised digital world may offer malicious actors a new world of entry points for attack. Authenticity — and trust more broadly — should also be front and center, to reduce the disinformation that has often plagued the internet.

Identity

In the internet today, identity is often linked to platforms. It may be true, pseudonymous or anonymous. The metaverse, decentralised and interconnected, will need trusted digital identities — for people, assets and organisations — that port across platforms. Companies active in digital identity now may both help set the metaverse’s standards and be able to offer a necessary service. Digital identities may also be central to permitted data collection and data governance in a decentralised environment.

Experience

A shared, persistent and immersive 3D digital world will offer unique experiences, based on its own aesthetics — beliefs, ideals and tastes as expressed in individual choices. Some trends for user experience are already becoming clear, in games and VR / AR environments. Companies that create trusted metaverse experiences and protect privacy rights may win consumer loyalty, while those that stay on top of metaverse trends may be well placed to forecast consumer preferences and behaviour.

Persistence

A true metaverse should reflect in real time the changes made in it by different participants, entering and leaving it in different ways, in different places, at different times. When you take your metaverse headset off, the metaverse and other participants will continue their activities uninterrupted, with (for example) smart contracts enforcing agreements and trading assets. This persistence will likely require a new approach to digital assets and activities, including services and applications that are portable, dynamically configurable and extensible.