EXPLAINER: What Is Metaverse? And What Nigerians Think About Owning Virtual Assets

Earlier this year, Samsung announced that it would be opening its first store in the metaverse. It described the store as an immersive world that would be modelled after its flagship store in New York City.

The store, which was named Samsung 837X, debuted on January 6th on ‘Decentraland’, an Ethereum-based virtual platform that allows users to purchase plots of land on the platform as Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on the blockchain.

In February, the African telecom company, MTN, announced that it had bought 144 plots of digital land in ‘Ubuntuland’, a metaverse developed by ‘Africanrare’, for an undisclosed sum.

MTN, which is the largest telecom company in Africa, became the first African company to enter into the metaverse with the purchase.

Ubuntuland is an online platform developed by Africanrare and Mann Made Media for African art, fashion, entertainment, sport, tech etc. It is the first South African metaverse containing digital land with African roots.

The above are a few examples of the heavy investments made into the metaverse. More individuals and companies are embracing the metaverse and making huge investments in the virtual space. But what exactly is the metaverse?

The metaverse can simply be described as a digital world that exists beyond the physical, where users can interact and experience things like they would in the real world. It includes a variety of experiences, environments, and assets that exist in the virtual space in which users can immerse themselves and interact with.

The types of technology that make up the metaverse can either be Virtual Reality (VR)- which are virtual worlds that exist continually whether you’re playing or not- or Augmented Reality (AR)- which combines parts of the digital world and the physical world.

The development of the metaverse inadvertently means the development of a digital economy, where users can buy and sell property, fashion items, gadgets, and many more. Ideally, the metaverse would allow users to move their virtual items across different platforms.

In essence, the metaverse is a combination of virtual reality and a second life online. This is why people are buying property, clothing, technology, and other things for online avatars or characters, the same way they would for themselves in the physical world.

A great example to bring this concept home would be the movie ‘Ready Player One’. In the movie, the metaverse is characterized by a virtual reality entertainment universe called ‘The Oasis’ which people use to escape reality.

The Oasis allows users to either play various games with their avatars or just exist, interact with other people’s avatars and purchase whatever they would like to have on the platform. A player’s avatar dying would be devastating because they would lose everything they had acquired over the years, such as money, prize earnings from games, or things that were purchased.

Based on the above explanation, a valid question should be would you consider investing in the metaverse?

THE WHISTLER spoke to a few Nigerians on whether they were open to investing in the metaverse in any capacity and some of them were receptive to the idea.

Gabriel Lot Linus, an Abuja-based banker, said he would be very interested in investing in the metaverse if it was within his financial capacity because he believes in the potential it possesses.

“The metaverse will eventually be everywhere digitally, so yes, I would be interested in investing in it. The world is digital today and looking at the success of crypto and NFTs which are also digital, the possibilities for the metaverse are literally endless,” he said.

Jane Onoja, a PR specialist based in Lagos, said she wouldn’t mind investing in the metaverse as well because the idea behind it is something she is interested in.
“I would consider investing in the metaverse because I think it’s something that a lot of people would be interested in eventually.

“They are essentially selling an alternate reality and it would give people somewhere to go if they feel the need to escape from their real lives to a world where they are in control of everything around them. I think it would be successful, so investing in it could be lucrative,” she said.

However, Rejoice Kaka, a healthcare practitioner residing in Abuja, said she has no interest in investing in the metaverse for now because she does not know what investing there will entail.

“In the short run, it’s a no from me. Majorly because I don’t understand what investing there entails and the benefits I stand to gain in actual percentages or figures.

“However, in the long run, maybe with a little more enlightenment I might, depending on how beneficial it seems to me,” she said.

The metaverse is still taking shape, however, with a number of factors such as powerful VR headsets, fast internet connection; particularly the soon-to-be deployed 5G network, and a gradually increasing receptive audience, it could prove to be worth investing in.