How Africans Can Make Money from The Metaverse Trend
Imagine a situation where instead of going to a physical office, you sit in your room and attend a meeting with the ability to do what you can do as though you are in the physical office. Imagine not attending physical, social events like concerts and birthday parties, but you attend them virtually.
Imagine having the ability to buy a land virtually, and the land appreciates in value, even more than physical land. Imagine having businesses in a virtual world; everything you want to buy can be bought.
These are the new possibilities that the metaverse will help to accomplish. The Covid-19 brought remote working and communication, but you don’t feel like you are in the office.
What the metaverse will do is to help you to attend your work meetings from your homes as though you are physically there. In a nutshell, the metaverse will upgrade your remote work by making the connection and communication be as though you are at the office.
I believe the next question you want to ask is, what is the metaverse?
The metaverse is simply a virtual world that makes it possible for everything that can be done in the physical world to be done there. In order words, the metaverse is the internet of boundless possibilities.
The metaverse will replicate everything done in the real world in 3D content, thereby making communication and commerce possible.
However, you need to understand the technologies that will make this innovation succeed? The three components of the metaverse are explained below;
The Key technologies Supporting metaverse
· Non-Fungible Token (NFT)
The non-fungible token is a blockchain and crypto innovation that makes digital assets unique. This means an NFT cannot exist more than one at a time.
What NFT helps to achieve is that it grants undebated ownership to its holder. In metaverse, everything exists in the form of NFT, so the items can be traded because of their rarity.
This means land on metaverse is an NFT. One plot of land is not the same as another plot of land in the metaverse worlds.
· Crypto
Crypto is another blockchain innovation that will be an important building block of the metaverse. This is because the metaverse will have its economy.
Cryptocurrencies will be the currencies to be used for transactions on the metaverse.
When you buy land in Nigeria, what currency do you use? I guess it is the naira. In the same vein buying land on SandBox will require the $SAND token. When buying lands on Decentraland, the currency needed is the MANA.
Therefore, cryptocurrencies will be the currency of the metaverse, most especially for blockchain metaverse projects.
· 3D Contents
The metaverse is like the internet in 3D format. The metaverse will be composed of contents, characters and digital spaces in 3D shapes.
For example, during Mark Zuckerberg’s presentation about changing the name of Facebook Meta, he demonstrated virtual houses, characters etc., in 3D format. His metaverse representation was an averter.
This is like an internet upgrade from 2D to 3D with enhanced features and functionalities.
· Virtual Reality
Virtual reality technology makes the experience of the metaverse enjoyable. VR technologies such as the headsets are worn to help replace your environment with the one on the metaverse.
This is a very important technology in realising the goal of the metaverse. With VR technologies, you can express your feelings, such as smiling, body language, waving etc., in the metaverse.
The immersive experience of the metaverse is realised with VR reality technologies.
Therefore, the combinations of these four technologies make up a metaverse.
This is a signal that most of the physical world activities will be done on the metaverse in the future. But, how do you maximise this trend? How do you make money from the metaverse trend if you are an African?
3 Ways to make money from metaverse?
Here are the three money-making opportunities that the metaverse presents;
· Metaverse Crypto Innovations
Blockchain and cryptocurrency are very vital components of the metaverse. One of the key features of blockchain is decentralisation. This means blockchain-powered metaverse projects will be decentralised.
Just as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana allow people to make money by holding their coins, metaverse crypto projects work the same way.
In simple terms, if you want to make money from the metaverse, look for crypto projects in the metaverse space and invest in them.
According to Grayscale, the metaverse industry has a potential of $1TN market capitalisation. Whereas, as at the time of writing this piece, the current market cap is $60BN.
When you hold a metaverse crypto token is like being a shareholder of the company. As the company and industry grow, the price of your token will grow at the same time.
Examples of some metaverse crypto projects include; Decentraland, Sandbox, Axie Infinity, Metahero etc.
· Metaverse Real Estate
As explained above, the metaverse lands are NFT and, as such, has value. Recently a land was sold on Decentraland for $2.45million.
According to Binance Academy, the price for the land is higher than some luxury apartments in New York. The opportunity presented is that you can become a metaverse real estate entrepreneur.
You can buy a plot of land on Decentraland or SandBox, develop it and sell it. You may decide to develop a new business model with a different revenue model around the land you own on the metaverse worlds.
For instance, you can make money by leasing your land and using it as a shop. It is possible to build an NFT shop on your land; people will come in to buy your wares.
· Creating and Trading NFTs
NFT are items on the metaverse that have unique features. It becomes very valuable because of the rarity of the items and cannot be stolen or replicated by another person. You can make money by simply buying a piece of NFT at a lower price and selling it at a higher price.
There are in-game items that are NFT, such as Axie creatures; you can breed them and sell them on the NFT marketplace. You can buy a piece of wear as NFT and sell it in an NFT marketplace for a profit.
I personally believe that the business opportunities of the metaverse are endless. As the industry and technology develop, more innovative ways to make money will also evolve.
But for now, you need to follow up on the trends of the metaverse. You can do that by exploring the various opportunities in this space.
Wrapping Up
The world is indeed changing; even the internet is changing. The next version of the internet will be the metaverse.
Almost everything you do in the physical world will be possible there in the metaverse. However, don’t sit on the fence, be concerned, be involved and go for knowledge.
When you see the trend before it becomes trendy, it becomes too late to enjoy the benefits.
Join the Trenndify community here to learn more about making money from the metaverse.
