Which Will You Bet On: DeFi Versus Metaverse

A metaverse is a user-created virtual world that uses blockchain technology to enable the creation of digital assets. Proponents of the metaverse believe that it has the potential to become a new, decentralized internet where users can own their data and create their own virtual realities. The metaverse is still in its early stages of development, but there are already a number of applications and platforms that are being built on top of the metaverse blockchain. The metaverse blockchain is a decentralized platform that enables secure, transparent transactions between users. By using blockchain technology, the metaverse blockchain provides a secure and tamper-proof ledger of all transactions.

This article contributed to Entrepreneur argues that DeFi has greater opportunity to grow than the metaverse, despite the recent DeFi failures and precipitous drop in value of cryptocurrencies. The author identifies these drawbacks but argues growth will come for both DeFi and metaverse, but that because DeFi can delivers value to existing regulated entities and financial giants (see Project Guardian as an example), it is more likely to grow rapidly versus the consumer oriented metaverse.  I would add to that argument that the DeFi infrastructure already has several different implementations, albeit mostly incompatible implementations. It would be just as simple however to argue that the lack of metaverse regulatory oversight might enable it to grow faster than DeFi. Regardless which you expect to grow faster, neither can be successful until critical issues in the shared blockchain infrastructure that we have documented here, here, here, as well as here, are resolved:

“In that sense, DeFi is starting to find ways to fulfill Bitcoin’s original promise to empower the little guy to make money through decentralized protocols. It is also following through by letting him spend that money at places that matter.

As DeFi continues to open access to and expand on traditional investment vehicles, cross-chain launchpads such as Synapse Network, which jumpstarts businesses with customizable offerings ranging from anti-bot solutions to tokenomic models, will help them scale. In turn, the rate at which DeFi as an industry matures and changes everything we know about finance will accelerate.

That’s not to say the Metaverse won’t rise again or that blockchain won’t play a significant role. With major players like Meta and Microsoft actively bringing their visions to fruition, it’s almost inevitable that smaller innovators will reenter the game. The Metaverse as a use case of blockchain and NFTs is much younger than the more traditional financial applications. In the Bitcoin family, as in most families, the older child paves the way for the other siblings.”

Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group