Mark Cuban, owner of NBA team the Dallas Mavericks and tech-investor/dabbler/billionaire mouthpiece has mocked the metaverse, noting that the highly talked-about virtual space can be anything anyone wants it to be.
Speaking to Altcoin Daily Cuban said, “People that focus on [virtual reality] VR want it to be the metaverse. Others want Web3 to be the metaverse. There is no rhyme or reason to it yet.”
“It’s going to be hard to standardise this and make it interoperable. At least for the forseeable future.”
Cuban believes that the metaverse, if fully realised, has to be backed by a solid community. And whichever platforms is able to build and maintain the strongest communities behind them will be one type of metaverse, while leaving the door open for “whichever platform creates the largest community” will be another type of metaverse.
Real Estate in the Metaverse
However, while putting a little shade on the idea of the metaverse and the efforts so far, most of his ire was directed at the highly lucrative and increasingly popular virtual real-estate sales that the metaverse has enjoyed of late.
“The worst thing is that people are buying real estate in these places. That’s the dumbest sh*t ever,” before adding, “It is not even as good as an URL or an ENS because there are unlimited volumes that you can create.”
His central topic was that if these structures are to have value, they’d first have to be supported by a community and its activities. These places will have value depending on access or how the community values them.
But right now he feels that that level and passion of community is yet to turn up and so metaverse efforts so far (and money and time spent) have been for naught.
Big business
Despite Cuban’s criticism, the real estate business in the metaverse has been fruitful and is projected to continue growing in the short term at least. A metaverse analytics report from Metametric Solutions predict that real estate sales in the metaverse are expected to reach $1 billion this year.
Another metaverse report by Technavio in July predicts that these sales will grow by $5 billion in 2026, and will be fueled by not only the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies but the implementation of virtual reality solutions as well.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
