JPMorgan Chase has set up shop in the Metajuku mall. The bank’s lounge has a spiral staircase, a live tiger, and an illuminated portrait of CEO Jamie Dimon.
This shop is in Decentraland—one of the world’s most popular metaverse platforms.
The bank’s metaverse launch coincided with the release of a paper by Onyx, JPMorgan’s blockchain arm launched in 2020, which explores the opportunities offered by the metaverse.
The bank estimates that the metaverse will become a $1 trillion market opportunity in yearly revenues, given that its virtual worlds will “infiltrate every sector in some way in the coming years,” says the report.
JPMorgan is the first bank to set up a metaverse office.
Recently, companies have been quite quick to set up their outlet in Metaverse. Walmart, Nike, Disney, and Warner Music Group have all joined the rush. Warner Music, the entertainment behemoth that’s home to a star-studded artist roster including Dua Lipa and Red-Hot Chili Peppers, is currently building a concert-focused theme park on the metaverse platform the Sandbox
Different industries’ companies are also heading towards this platform. Smaller firms from the architecture, real estate, and even tax and accounting sectors are also joining the queue. The U.S.-based Prager Metis accounting firm, for instance, opened its three-story metaverse headquarters in Decentraland last month. The company has been “constantly fielding inquiries from…clients trying to understand the metaverse from a financial and tax compliance perspective,” says Jerry Eitel, partner at Prager Metis. “Every tax and accounting issue [applicable to businesses] in real life is also applicable to the metaverse,” he says.
Real estate has also boomed in the metaverse economies. Virtual land sales have been driven by the growth of the “ownership economy” in Web3, a new iteration of the internet that enthusiasts advocate as decentralized, equitable, and user-controlled. Virtual real estate is a “growing market,” says JPMorgan, and brands have contributed by “buying up space so they can create virtual stores and other experiences.” The average price for a parcel of virtual land doubled in just six months last year, surging from $6,000 in June to $12,000 by December across the four main metaverse platforms, says the report.
Last June, developer Everyrealm (formerly known as Republic Realm) bought a piece of Decentraland land for $913,000. The virtual real estate market will eventually “start seeing services like…credit, mortgages, and rental agreements,” says JPMorgan.
JPMorgan has been undertaking efforts to build out its blockchain and crypto expertise and infrastructure. In an interview, Onyx’s global head, Christine Moy, said that its unit is now focused on “providing infrastructure” like blockchain and payments tech to clients, which include game publishers.
However, the stocks have underperformed in 2022, with the Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF (METV) down 15.3% year to date, compared with tech-heavy Nasdaq, which is down 13.5%.
