The idea of the metaverse is getting more buzz than ever, It's not totally a new concept to the world if you are a fan of sci-fi movies you should probably be quite familiar with the idea of the metaverse from movies like “Ready Player One” or “Snow Crash”, well if you are not, the word “metaverse” was coined out almost three decades ago by Neal Stephenson the author of the science fiction novel “Snow Crash” where he described metaverse as a "graphic representations—the user interfaces—of myriad different pieces of software that have been engineered by major corporations."

Basically, the Metaverse is a virtual world where humans appear as avatars they own. Just imagine metaverse as the internet but instead of just scrolling through your screen, you could enter it. I am not saying that the metaverse will eliminate the internet, it is just an iteration of the existing internet.

Metaverse sits at the intersection of web 3.0, the blockchain, and virtual/augmented reality. The metaverse gets its decentralized feature from web3. This means by participating in the metaverse you get to own parts of it. You can buy virtual spaces/art and no corporation can just take it away from you, you have free will in the metaverse. Also, the metaverse is not owned by a single corporation, it is a connection of all virtual worlds. You could be in decentraland for Burna boy’s concert, move to mesh for a meeting with some colleagues then tomorrow go over to cryptovoxels for a date night at an NFT art gallery. The metaverse would be built on blockchain’s infrastructure which enables them to tap into the wider crypto economy, making virtual items exchangeable for real economic value beyond the confines of the metaverse.

Benefits of the metaverse Education In the metaverse, learning won't feel as boring as it is now. Let's say you are a med student or a doctor, with apps like osso vr you can perform surgeries at a high level and get assessed, or if you are studying astronomy you could draw everything in the universe beyond Earth's atmosphere closer to you. You could study the world's smallest insects closely, or even take your students on an excursion to Mount Everest.

Commerce The metaverse removes many of the physical constraints we see today in businesses. So you are an entrepreneur about to launch a massive product, the metaverse makes it possible for everyone around the world to be present irrespective of location. You could set up marketplaces with just your imagination. You could have better conversations with customers rather than trying to understand what was asked in the comment section on Instagram.

Work During the pandemic, employees were asked to work from home, it's post-covid, and many companies have gone hybrid, giving the employees the option of working in an office or from home. The metaverse makes it possible to work from home and participate in activities like team presentations as though you were physically present. This means less time stuck in traffic and you could work with the comfort of your favorite sweatpants.

Entertainment Imagine you could attend a concert of your favorite music artist with your best somewhere across the world from bed, you could feel present at comedy clubs from the comfort of your apartment. All these are possible in the metaverse.

Investing in the metaverse Like I said earlier, participating also means owning parts of the metaverse so let's talk about that and how you can make money from the metaverse

Metaverse Tokens A lot of metaverse platforms like decentraland own cryptocurrencies which would be the native currency on the platform and buying these cryptocurrencies will be a huge investing move. A list of metaverse tokens could be found here. $MANA and $SAND are the only ones right now with a metaverse, others are mostly in-game currencies with plans to migrate to the metaverse space. If you can't decide on the metaverse token to buy there is a token called metaverse index which is like the compilation of top metaverse tokens

Real estate There are metaverse platforms that let you purchase virtual lands, and in these lands, you can build out anything, a home, a skate park, or your very own pyramid. Some of this platforms are SandBox and Next earth.

Wearables and NFT's In the metaverse, avatars would use wearable and some pieces of the item to represent themselves. These items could be NFT and exclusive to those avatars. A common marketplace is Decentraland marketplace most of the items here are limited edition items you could buy them to sell them for a higher price in the future.

Stocks Another way to invest in this new virtual iteration of the internet is by buying shares from companies passionate about building the metaverse. Some of these companies are Epic corp(creators of Fortnite) who just raise 1 billion dollars to support their vision for the metaverse, Meta(previously known as Facebook), and Microsoft(Creators of "mech").

Could the metaverse be a problem? Throughout history, humans have constantly developed more mediums to distract us from reality, we have gone from text to pictures to videos now the metaverse, an internet you don't scroll through but you are in it. In my opinion, The metaverse would disconnect humans from reality. Well, this has both positive and negative effects. You could be someone with a severe walking disability, in the metaverse, not only can you walk, you can fly, you can teleport. This could be detrimental as humans may want to be trapped in the metaverse to escape reality. Also, in the metaverse avatars are not a vivid representation of our human form, you could be talking to a cybercriminal and wouldn't even know.

I would love to hear your reasons why you think the metaverse would be a problem.