JP Morgan Chase is opening a lounge in Decentraland, as the first bank in the US has taken a look at making the most of what it terms as an “infinite amount of opportunity” in what is known as the metaverse, a virtual, multidimensional world of humans.
Located in Metajuku, a virtual version of Japan’s fashionable Harajuku district in the popular metaverse Decentraland, Onyx lounge is a virtual version of the bank’s physical Liberty City branch. On the first floor there is a tiger wandering around, and a picture of the bank’s CEO Jamie Dimon can be seen on the wall. An eye-catching staircase leads up to the second floor, where an avatar can sit in the audience and watch experts discuss the crypto market.
When you think about the economics of the metaverse or metanomics there are opportunities in almost every market area. We are not here to suggest the metaverse, as we know it today, will take over all human interactions, but rather, to explore the many exciting opportunities it presents for consumers and brands alike.
JP Morgan
According to the bank, the metaverse is an eventual revenue generator that could amount to $1 trillion in the near future. JPMorgan’s entry into virtual real estate coincides with the release of its white paper on opportunities within the metaverse.
Despite the increased cost of building and scaling infrastructure around the world, the effort remains the same. According to Christine Moy, the global head of Liink, Cryptos & the Metaverse at JPMorgan, the bank has written the paper to help clients cut through the noise and highlight the next things we would love to see built or scaled in commercial infrastructure, tech, privacy & identity, workforces, and social governance in the metaverse.
It is noted in the report that the average price of virtual land doubled between June and December last year, going from $6,000 to $12,000. It is also predicted that by the year 2027, the amount of advertising spent on in-game games will reach $18.4 billion per year.
In time, the virtual real estate market could start seeing services much like in the physical world, including credit, mortgages and rental agreements.
As a sign of its push into virtual worlds, the company formerly known as Facebook rebranded its platform as Meta as a sign that people are beginning to notice the phenomenon. JPMorgan noted that the price of tokens backing metaverses like Decentraland, the Sandbox, and Somnium Space rocketed following this announcement. Metaverse potential has also been tapped by other companies, such as Microsoft and Nike .
