Many believe that the metaverse is the future, and Vitalik Buterin is no exception. However, the Ethereum creator is skeptical that big tech companies will be able to build the one.
Buterin shared his thoughts on Twitter, replying to Dialectic co-founder Dean Eigenmann who said that he doesn’t “believe [the metaverse] will happen in the ways VCs are currently funding.”
Although Buterin thinks that the metaverse “is going to happen,” he criticized the vision that many corporations are coming up with now. He specifically pointed out Facebook, which rebranded itself as Meta last year and announced its plans to build its own metaverse.
The “metaverse” is going to happen but I don’t think any of the existing corporate attempts to intentionally create the metaverse are going anywhere. https://t.co/tVUfq4CWmP
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) July 30, 2022
“My critique is deeper than ‘Metaverse Wikipedia will beat Metaverse Encyclopedia Britannica,’” Buterin wrote. “It’s that we don’t really know the definition of ‘the metaverse’ yet, it’s far too early to know what people actually want. So anything Facebook creates now will misfire.”
My critique is deeper than “Metaverse Wikipedia will beat Metaverse Encyclopedia Britannica”. It’s that we don’t really know the definition of “the metaverse” yet, it’s far too early to know what people actually want. So anything Facebook creates now will misfire.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) July 31, 2022
This is in line with what some other experts have been saying for a while now. Earlier this year, game designer Warren Spector agreed that the metaverse might become our future. But he noted that it is pointless to make any predictions in this area, taking into account that we still can’t realize how this technology will look like in years to come.
The metaverse has been the buzzword for investors across the globe, allowing startups to raise millions of dollars. However, it still remains an unexplored field, where companies are now trying to take the first steps. Even Neal Stephenson, who created the term “metaverse”, struggles to explain what his upcoming Lamina1 project will exactly look like.