Navigating the Metaverse

Chapter 2What Is the Metaverse Economy?

The metaverse offers a different experience than any technology or platform we've seen. It has similarities with social media and online gaming in that the metaverse is highly dependent on user engagement. But the metaverse is unique in that people have new levels of immersion, control, and ownership within applications and digital communities. Companies that lean into the strengths of these economies will build more influence and revenue-generating opportunities.

We want to inspire brands to jump into the metaverse, build new digital products, and design rich experiences. A crucial part of these endeavors is understanding the fundamentals of the metaverse economy: how currency, tokenomics, community-based commerce, DeFi, and other factors create promising markets. It's a truly open, real economy set in digital ecosystems. As such, it may be helpful to review the four keys to production – land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship – found in real-world economics as they also apply to the metaverse economy.

• Entrepreneurship: This is the activity of visionaries and innovators – individuals and groups of people or businesses – who want to produce something that spurs economic activity. In the metaverse, this includes the players or “citizens” that create value for the metaverse economy by manufacturing and (re)selling digital goods and/or providing services to others. For instance, they might produce a new type of NFT, such as a virtual ...