Metaverse Market Could Grow to $13T by 2030: Citi

Metaverse will become the next iteration of the internet.

Banking giant Citi is quite bullish on Metaverse. In its research titled ‘Metaverse and Money,’ it has predicted that Metaverse could grow to anywhere between $8 trillion and $13 trillion by 2030.

But it will require significant improvement in the hardware infrastructure and computation efficiency by over 1,000x today’s levels. 

Investment will be needed in areas such as compute, storage, network infrastructure, consumer hardware, and game development platforms.

Metaverse provides an immersive experience. It would combine the physical and digital world in an immersive manner. Gaming, commerce, art, media, advertising, smart manufacturing, health care, virtual communities, social collaboration, including for enterprise and education.

“We estimate, in the report, the target addressable market (TAM) for the Metaverse economy to be in the range of $10 trillion-plus,” says Ronit Ghose, Global Head of Banking, FinTech & Digital Assets, Citi Global Insights, and co-author of the report. “Expert contributors to the report indicate a range of users of up to 5 billion, depending on whether we take a broad definition (mobile phone user base) or just one billion based on a narrower definition (VR/AR device user base) — we adopt the former”.

Currently, the most popular way to experience the Metaverse is by playing a video game on a virtual reality (VR) headset, Citi said, but it is possible that the “Metaverse is moving towards becoming the next generation of the internet or Web 3.”

The report mentions that Metaverse is not new. However, interest in the metaverse really began to skyrocket after the arrival of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and big technology companies announcing their interest in the space. In addition, digital assets and NFTs, in the Metaverse will enable sovereign ownership for the users/owners and are tradeable, composable, immutable, and mostly interoperable. 

Money in the Metaverse may also take different forms, i.e., in-game tokens stablecoins, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), and cryptocurrencies.

If the Metaverse is indeed the new iteration of the internet, it will most likely attract greater scrutiny from global regulators, policymakers, and governments. Regulation will also be needed for its repercussions on society and the health of individuals. A few months ago, a woman was allegedly raped in just 60 seconds of joining Metaverse. So, such issues must be considered while formulating laws for this space.

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