Autor: dot-traders

Citi’s ‘Metaverse and Money’ outlook suggests the virtual world ecosystem could grow to encompass 5 billion users.

Citi has released a new report that predicts the Metaverse could grow to reach a total addressable market (TAM) of up to $13 trillion in the next few years.

In its Global Perspectives & Solutions (GPS) report released on Thursday, the bank’s analysts say the spike in interest in the Metaverse has the potential to push the virtual world’s economy to more than ten trillion dollars in the next seven or so years.

A ‘device-agnostic’ Metaverse

As the next iteration of the internet, the Metaverse will combine both physical and digital world reality. The immersive experiences will not be purely Virtual Reality-targeted, but one that’s “device-agnostic.” Per the GPS report, this will allow access via various devices, including smartphones, PCs, and game consoles.

Such a Metaverse could expand quickly and count up to five billion users, the report noted.

“Based on our definition, we estimate the total addressable market for the Metaverse economy could grow to between $8 trillion and $13 trillion by 2030,” the bank said in the report.

A few issues to address 

The concept of the Metaverse is not entirely new, although ‘real’ interest in it only began to take root last year following the explosion of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) and other Big Tech companies’ entry into the ecosystem only served to jump the interest across the world.

In 2022, developments in the virtual world space are moving to a stage where a lot is coalescing into Web3. Use cases that continue to gather momentum are in areas such as art, media, and commerce among others.

But while Citi analysts see the Metaverse as “the new iteration of the internet,” they believe there are issues that might need addressing to aid further innovation and growth. 

This will likely be driven by greater attention towards the ecosystem from governments and other global regulators, and the bank believes players within the Metaverse space need to be ready to address issues around money laundering, property rights, and the use of digital assets and decentralised finance (DeFi).

The post Citi: Metaverse could grow into a $13 trillion economy appeared first on Coin Journal.

The firm says sanctions on Russia could see central banks look to ‘change their reserve mix.”

Bitcoin’s value could rise to at least $1.3 million in the event the cryptocurrency ended up as de facto global reserve asset, experts at US investment firm VanEck have said.

VanEck’s Eric Fine (Head of Active EM Debt) and Natalia Gurushina (Chief Economist, Emerging Markets Fixed Income Strategy,), said the prediction is pegged on an attempt at quantifying what would happen if there emerged “new gold or Bitcoin-backed currency regimes.”

Sanctions on Russia mean central banks will act

In a report published on 30 March, the VanEck executives postulate that the global reserve system may have changed dramatically due to the sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. 

Russia said last week that it would accept Bitcoin for its oil and gas.

“Central banks are likely to change their reserve mix to the detriment of dollars (and euros and yen) and the enhancement of something else, to one extent or another. US, Eurozone, and Japanese sanctions on the Central Bank of Russia essentially “disappeared” Russia’s dollar, euro, and yen reserves. As a result, some central banks—and private actors—will be diversifying their reserves.”

Bitcoin as a global reserve asset could reach $4.8 million

Using calculations based on the “global” price for Bitcoin and divided by the total BTC supply, the team was able to theorize where its value could be if it were a global reserve. 

The VanEck executives say they applied the same concept to gold- which has a common denominator as Bitcoin in having finite supply- to arrive at potential prices per ounce, the experts noted.

“The bottom-line is that the upside for gold and Bitcoin is potentially dramatic. Specifically, the framework estimates gold prices of around $31,000 per ounce and potential Bitcoin prices of around $1,300,000 per coin.”

According to the insights report, making adjustments to the calculations from the base M0 to the broader and more common M2, with “greater strains on financial and monetary systems generate even higher prices,” they explained.

VanEck says Bitcoin’s implied price based on the global M2 assessment suggests a value of $4.8 million per coin. For gold, that jumps to around $105k per ounce.

While the firm gives these predictions a big “IF”, it says the more likely scenario is around the Chinese Yuan becoming the new contender for a reserve currency.

Bitcoin was trading at around $45,000 with its value 4.8% down in the past 24 hours, according to tp data on CoinGecko. Gold, on the other hand, was 1% down at $1,934 per ounce on 1 April (8:40 am ET).

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