The year is 2030, and you now do much of your work and play in the metaverse. What is the metaverse? Well, it’s expected to be one of the next big trends in technology, but the concept actually originated in science fiction. 

The metaverse is the concept of a digital universe parallel to our physical universe, a future iteration of the internet. It’s made up of persistent, shared, 3D virtual spaces linked into a perceived virtual universe.

The concept of a fully realistic digital existence goes at least as far back as 1982’s sci-fi classic Tron, and I’m sure it probably goes back a lot further. 

But the term “metaverse” itself comes from Snow Crash, a 1992 sci-fi novel by Neal Stephenson where the story is set in a world much like the one I’ve just described. 

In that year, the internet was just starting to become a force, with only a few million users worldwide connecting, mostly through glacially slow telephone dialup. Many people had never even heard of the technology yet, but investors and innovators were able to create fortunes as the global network ramped up to its current level of close to 5 billion human users.

And now the metaverse is much closer to reality than science fiction. 

Computer chips are getting smaller and smaller, while becoming more efficient and affordable. Meanwhile, computer and internet networks are also becoming faster and more efficient.

At this point it’s only a matter of time until we’re interacting with our co-workers in a virtual office, or playing fully immersive video games that take place in a virtual world. 

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed millions upon millions of people into work-from-home scenarios, and for many of us, this is a permanent switch. And before we know it, we’ll be working in virtual workspaces next.

The metaverse economic transformation will be more than just our workspaces -- social media and entertainment will be disrupted too, and things we haven’t even imagined yet will emerge.

Naturally, there will be plenty of investment opportunities surrounding the metaverse… 

Market data company Statista forecasts that the augmented- and virtual-reality market will swell to nearly $300 billion in 2024, a near tenfold increase over this year — but AR and VR are just a subset of the metaverse phenomenon. 

It certainly takes plenty of legwork to get this technology off the ground and into the market… 

Companies like Apple (AAPL) and Facebook (FB) are already heavily invested into the metaverse space. As well as computer chip manufacturers like Nvidia (NVDA). 

Even glass manufacturers will play a part in the metaverse ecosystem. Advanced glass lenses will be needed for the headsets used to access the metaverse. 

So be on the lookout for more Metaverse updates, we’ll be covering them extensively.

To a bright future, 

Ray Blanco
Chief Technology Expert, Technology Profits Daily
AskRay@StPaulResearch.com