As if today's news cycle was depressing enough. After bionic eye failures and mass surveillance, comes Metaverse Banking, another depressing move into dystopia. After all, the first thing you want to do in your virtual world is go to the bank.
Backed by massive American banking firm JPMorgan, the first Metaverse Bank is now active. But what's the point? And will it make the process of going to a bank more tolerable than going to one in person? (Who even goes to banks anymore?)
JPMorgan opens Metaverse Bank
Announced in a research paper regarding Metaverse economics, JPMorgan officially opened the first Metaverse Bank. Set inside the Decentraland Metaverse, the bank’s “Onyx Lounge” location offers banking services with massively outdated 3D graphics.
The Metaverse banking locale is adorned with a low-quality 3D model of a tiger and an NFT image of CEO Jamie Dimon. To someone out there, it’s very cool. If you move away from the NFT, it becomes a normal image of the bank’s CEO.
The Onyx Lounge is not just a little virtual bank, but also a little gift shop. In the longue, users can purchase virtual land and NFTs with cryptocurrency. They can also stand around and look at the PS2 tiger for a bit.
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A Major Role in The Metaverse
In the bank’s announcement paper, JPMorgan revealed that its planning to "play a major role in the metaverse”. The banking agency explained that it plans to help deal with issues that the crypto space has, mainly fraud. Essentially, the bank wishes to behind a centralised service in a decentralised environment.
The bank’s Metaverse push is inspired by the explosion of Metaverse real estate sales. With some fake properties selling for more than real house prices, the bank wants to get a slice of that profitable pie.
“This democratic ownership economy coupled with the possibility of interoperability, could unlock immense economic opportunities, whereby digital goods and services are no longer captive to a singular gaming platform or brand,” The bank writes.
Of course, Metaverse popularity is low, and the idea of digital services transcending single games into all games isn't going to happen. After all, game developers notoriously hate NFTs, and they've already discussed the issues of making single assets work across hundreds of Metaverses. It isn't going to happen.