Tony Hawk is entering the metaverse with a new virtual skatepark, and a new analysis finds the metaverse could become a $750 billion market opportunity by 2030. Tom Graham, CEO of Metaphysic, gives expert insight on the latest headlines to come out of the virtual world.

Opening Bell

Metaverse: Tony Hawk Enters The Chat, Opportunities In The Metaverse

so to give us some more insight asia on these stories and the metaverse as a whole is tom Graham as ceo of metaphysics. Tom thanks so much for joining on this monday morning. What do you think of Tony Hawk entering the metaverse. Thanks for having me guys. I think it's cool. I remember when the first Tony Hawk games came out and they were such a smash hit and now you can have like kind of similar nostalgic fun gaming environments inside sandbox. I think that's gonna be great. Yeah. How does this ad do you think to the credibility of a lot of this futuristic tack that has, I would argue yet to reach critical mass when it comes to mainstream adoption at this point, how many celebrities can we see get into the metaverse in N. F. T. S before we start to see a true, a true on boarding. I think of just like the general public. I think that celebrities really exist at the intersection between kind of audiences and the content that they create and so many more young audiences are looking to content that exists in web three paradigms or in something like sandbox kind of metaverse platforms. And so I think essentially all brands and all celebrities will move into the metaverse as to when adoption comes, it's incumbent on the brands, the platforms and the celebrities to create content experiences which are really truly interesting and fun for audiences, especially younger audiences who are much more used to a high quality digital experience are much more discerning. But I think Tony Hawk and his game is particularly interesting because sandbox while being relatively low fi on the graphic side. Um it can intersect with that kind of nostalgic. Um do some skating and then people for the last 20 years of all ages really have been exposed to those Tony Hawk game experiences. So I think leveraging nostalgia is a good way in order to overcome some of the deficiencies in the game experience or the graphic experience. We've seen nostalgia be extremely successful for these past five years or so. Even pre pandemic, especially when it comes to some of these reboots. I'm thinking the office coming to a new lego game as well. So it certainly does have a positive track record there. But let's do switch gears because frost and Sullivan actually estimating that the metaverse could unlock $750 billion dollars By 2030. Are you on board with that? Do you think that that's an accurate prediction? Ultimately what we do with metaphysics is we create hyper real synthetic media and metaverse experiences. So I believe personally that Everything that we do in person will be kind of a digital extension of that in the metaverse. So that number 750 billion. I absolutely believe that is true because I think by that time 2030 you will have individual consumers inserting themselves in a hyper real way into movies into TV shows kind of into parallel content which sits alongside traditional content. Many more sporting events will be extended into the digital world and what we see as N. F. T. S. And gaming today will continue to grow and expand. So I believe it's very likely that those large numbers will be hit. So interesting. Especially as I think when we imagine the metaverse it's all about the avatars and work from home and kind of how we meet but you don't necessarily think of that parallel content with movies, tv live events and sports. Um Also the market research company says interoperability is the defining property of the metaverse. What exactly do you think they mean by that? So this is interesting. I think that we're probably in metaverse one point oh or web three point oh whatever those two concepts mean. Um Where today in the metaverse you see the desire to bring one asset one property, one N. F. T. Something that you buy and invest in and have a connection to To take it from one platform, 1 game To another platform or a different game where those games are controlled by different companies. So traditionally that's very difficult because it's difficult to connect the incentives than the economies between different companies or platforms. But Blockchain gives you the advantage of being able to do that. And then open experiences and open web three allow kind of smaller developers to participate on top of the rails provided by Blockchain to offer and invest in building their own content opportunities for users such that they can kind of benefit from moving assets around and everybody gets a little bit of a slice of a pipe. Tom. Another quick question that I have for you is how can brands and influencers have been really successful on social media getting into the metaverse, make the most of this potentially very lucrative opportunity. I think that there is in the future many opportunities for people who control and speak to large audiences to enter the metaverse today. I think the people who do it best they create really interesting content and experiences for users. Sometimes you C. N. F. T. S from celebrities which are relatively one dimensional or cartoonish and it's not clear what the user gets out of that long term. So people who really invest in their community and trying to offer the people who buy the N. F. T. S something more from the experience than just owning you know a little slice of a Blockchain or one out of 100 N. F. T. S. I think that's the core concept. All right Tom graham ceo of metaphysics Tom thanks so much for joining us on this metaverse monday. Yeah lots of good insight there