The opportunities and risks of Metaverse for small businesses

The Metaverse has been become one of the biggest buzzwords in the blockchain and crypto, as it promises to provide a more immersive, interactive and collaborative experience than what the internet has accomplished to date. 

This promise of a new world has huge enterprises like Meta (formally known as Facebook) investing huge sums in the budding space. When most hear the name Metaverse, their mind wanders to a few things: an avenue for global conglomerates to showcase their technology-forward bent, an esoteric product for a selected few to display nonfungible tokens (NFTs) or a new front in gaming development. However, a deep dive into Metaverse reveals a whole new world, a world full of new opportunities and risks for both consumers and businesses.

Although the current Metaverse ecosystem might be populated with giant corporations, eventually, for wider adoption, small businesses will have to make a transition. Looking at historical patterns in the adoption of new technology like the internet, mobile payments and more, it is apparent that small businesses play a monumental role in getting the masses onboarded.

One of the critical insights from Facebook’s Connect 2021 was that the advent of Metaverse is imminent, but the timeline for widespread adoption is spread out at least over a decade. A study done by Pew Research found that around 54% of top technology innovators, developers and businesses. Meanwhile, policy leaders believe that by 2040, the Metaverse will be a functioning aspect of daily life for a half-billion or more people globally.

The urgency for transitioning to Metaverse may not be immediate, but businesses should be considering the technology at least in the periphery. By strategically using resources now, an enterprise will be able to improve the experience for customers of the future.

To understand what opportunities and risks Metaverse brings to a business, it is imperative to understand the infrastructure of Metaverse. Jon Radoff, CEO of 3D gaming company Beamable, categorized in seven layers:

1. Infrastructure: This layer is the semiconductors, material science, cloud computing and telecommunications networks that enable the construction of the layers over it.
2. Human interface: The human interface layer refers to the hardware that will be used to access the metaverse. This includes everything from mobile devices to VR headsets.
3. Decentralization: Build everything on a permissionless, distributed and democratized structure.
4. Spatial computing: This layer refers to the software that brings objects into 3D and allows the hardware interface to interact with them.
5. Creator economy: Make it easier for creators to make Metaverse projects and monetize them.
6. Discovery: Ways to discover the experience.
7. Experience: Users can engage with games, social experiences, live music and so on.

In all probability, most small businesses will be involved in bringing Metaverse experiences to their customers. Talking to Cointelegraph about the disruptive potential of Metaverse, Naveen Singh, co-founder and CEO of decentralized data management network Inery, said:

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“It is no longer a question that the Metaverse would be a major disruption for the digital economy. The real focus now is for which industries the Metaverse would be the most significant. As a gateway for a new digital economy, the Metaverse opens new possibilities for several domains.”

“The industries that are most likely to undergo transformation and feel the immediate impact of the Metaverse are gaming, fashion, entertainment, media and retail. At the same time, for the Metaverse to unleash its full potential one of the most defining properties would be interoperability across its fabric,” he said.

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