Citi Predicts Metaverse Could Be $13 Trillion Opportunity With 5 Billion Users – Metaverse Bitcoin News

Citi predicts that by 2030, the market value of the metaverse economy will reach $8 trillion to $13 trillion. Global bank estimates that there could be five billion users of the metaverse.

Citizen: The Metaverse Possibilities for $8 Trillion-$13 Trillion, Says Citi

Citi released a new Global Perspectives & Solutions (Citi GPS) report titled “Metaverse and Money: Decrypting the Future” Thursday. This global bank is the largest and has around 200 million customers. It also does business in over 160 countries.

This report, which is 184 pages long, focuses on various aspects of metaverse. These include the definition of a metaverse, its structure and digital assets (including non-fungible tokens NFTs) within the metaverse. Money and defi (decentralized financing) are also included.

Regarding the size of the metaverse economy, Citi described: “We believe the metaverse may be the next generation of the internet — combining the physical and digital world in a persistent and immersive manner — and not purely a virtual reality world.”

Noting that “A device-agnostic metaverse accessible via PCs, game consoles, and smartphones could result in a very large ecosystem,” Citi wrote:

According to estimates, the global addressable market in the metaverse economy would grow between $8 trillion and $12 trillion by 2030.

Citi also stated in the report that it believes there could be five billion metaverse users.

Report co-author Ronit Ghose, global head of Banking, Fintech & Digital Assets, Citi Global Insights, explained:

Expert contributors to the report indicate a range of users of up to 5 billion, depending on whether we take a broad definition (mobile phone user base) or just one billion based on a narrower definition (VR/AR device user base) — we adopt the former.

It also describes how users could access the metaverse. “Consumer hardware manufacturers will be portals to the metaverse and potential gatekeepers,” the authors wrote. “Similar to today, there will likely be a split between a U.S./international and a China/ firewall-based metaverse in addition to a spectrum based on technology and business model too, i.e., metaverse centralization versus decentralization.”

Moreover, the report details that “The metaverse of the future would encompass more digitally-native tokens but traditional forms of money would also be embedded,” adding:

The metaverse money could come in many forms: in-game tokens or stablecoins, digital currency central banks (CBDCs), and cryptocurrency.

“In addition, digital assets and NFTs, in the metaverse will enable sovereign ownership for the users/owners and are tradeable, composable, immutable, and mostly interoperable,” the Citi report notes.

The authors also explored what metaverse regulation would look like, predicting that “If the metaverse(s) is the new iteration of the internet, it will attract great scrutiny from global regulators and policymakers.”

They additionally warned, “All the challenges of the Web2 internet could be magnified in the metaverse, such as content moderation, free speech, and privacy,” elaborating:

Additionally, the blockchain-based metaverse will help to keep up with evolving laws in several jurisdictions regarding cryptocurrencies and decentralized financial (defi), as well.

Goldman Sachs, the global investment bank Goldman Sachs stated in January that there could be an $8 trillion market for metaverse. Morgan Stanley, another large investment bank predicted the same amount for the metaverse last November. Bank of America also stated that metaverse presents a tremendous opportunity for crypto ecosystem.

Are you in agreement with Citi on the concept of the metaverse Please comment below.

Kevin Helms

Kevin is a graduate of Austrian Economics. He discovered Bitcoin in 2011, and has been an advocate ever since. He is interested in Bitcoin security and open-source software, network effects, and the intersection of cryptography and economics.