Money in the Metaverse: Digital Assets, Online Identities, Spatial Computing, reviewed

We review the latest book by David Birch and Victoria Richardson. See more about the book here.

Money in the Metaverse: Digital Assets, Online Identities, Spatial Computing, reviewed

It has been an interesting journey to follow David Birch across his last few books and various lectures, across many topics and countries. We have enjoyed his insights and analysis of where financial trends are going and what to look out for. This book continues this journey with a granular and deep dive into the nuts and bolts of what digital assets could or will come to offer us in the near and further down the road future.

This book arrives at a timely moment because it can be difficult sometimes to navigate between the over exuberant digital enthusiasts who tell us that this time is now. If this is the case, despite plenty of hype, why does it seem like no one wearing AR or VR headsets in daily life. Sure they might be doing so somewhere, but when did you last see someone in daily life doing so. Similar with second life, and other heavily touted metaverses, why do they then seem to be overhyped and under populated.

This book is a great, and critical analysis of what is possible, and what could be possible. The challenge perhaps though is to work out what the rate of adoption is actually going to be. How soon will it actually become common place. For sure covid and lockdown times nudged certain things deeper into the digital space. Some things did accelerate and are now much more widely used. Yet, at the same time, now that lockdown already rapidly recedes into near ancient history, not everything that was predicted to become common place actually came to pass.

We enjoyed this book and it is thoughtful, but it seems like we are still a little in the dark about how soon is now? When will some of these trends and technologies be used by all of us, or at least most of us imminently. As always, getting these timelines correct is perhaps trying to nail jelly to the wall. A good read, though maybe it is impossible to accurately know when all of these trends will be taken as normal and widely used by all.

More about the book

Money in the Metaverse: Digital Assets, Online Identities, Spatial Computing and Why Virtual Worlds Mean Real Business will be published in late April 2024.

The Metaverse – built from virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality – is arriving via wearable headsets that have cameras, microphones, speakers, sensors and communications built in. These spatial computing technologies create new social and economic connections, and while some of these connections are virtual, the business implications are very real.

The authors set out the potential for financial services in metaverses and the ‘always-on’ immersive future internet, beginning with a look at the key technologies needed to make these metaverses useful for businesses. They then go on to explore the emerging realities in which new markets will function and the digital assets that will be exchanged in transactions between online identities.

The book develops a comprehensive and practical model of the Metaverse and the nature of those new transactions in a business environment. It has a clear view of virtual worlds and it provides both a simple taxonomy for digital assets and a tried-and-tested model of digital identity that will provide a better understanding of the opportunities that exist in the many metaverses where we will work, rest and play in the near future.

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