Will the Great Migration Port Us to the Metaverse?

Despite the hype, Facebook won’t get us there... [Gilder's Daily Prophecy] August 11, 2021 [UNSUBSCRIBE]( | [ARCHIVES]( Why is George Gilder so Worried? [George Gilder looks scared]( It’s not coronavirus… interest rates… even the economy… It’s a type of market anomaly so devastating that some analysts say it “virtually eliminates any chance for mere mortals to make money” trading the markets. [Click here for a brief message from George about it… And how exploiting it could lead to massive windfalls.]( [Warning] Do you enjoy receiving Gilder's Daily Prophecy? Please [Click Here Now]( so we know to continue sending you Gilder's Daily Prophecy for free! Will the Great Migration Port Us to the Metaverse? [Jeffrey Tucker]Dear Daily Prophecy Reader, In June of this year, just as politicians were talking about breaking up big tech, Mark Zuckerberg made a big announcement to his employees at Facebook. A major initiative in the future of the company will be to make a mighty contribution to building the metaverse. Right now, the experience of Facebook is focused on a two-dimensional platform. He wants to broaden that to help it replicate more features of the physical world. One with not just more 3D imagery, but a complete life experience. Sound creepy? It does in light of our experience of the last 18 months. People have never been more hungry to get away from digital everything and get back to real life. This accounts for why airports are so full, bars and restaurants are jam-packed despite CDC warnings, and why so many people are desperate to get back to classrooms and offices. Still, the concept does not need to sound dystopian. Understood correctly, a good metaverse architecture would drain control from states and large tech companies and into the hands of individuals. oNot with the purpose of displacing the physical world but rather providing a more humane integration between the physical and digital, one that behaves in ways that replicate the world we love. Zuckerberg seems to get this point. “The metaverse is a vision that spans many companies — the whole industry,” he [explained]( to The Verge. “You can think about it as the successor to the mobile internet. And it’s certainly not something that any one company is going to build, but I think a big part of our next chapter is going to hopefully be contributing to building that, in partnership with a lot of other companies and creators and developers.” To put it simply, he said, “The metaverse as an embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content — you are in it. And you feel present with other people as if you were in other places, having different experiences that you couldn’t necessarily do on a 2D app or webpage, like dancing, for example, or different types of fitness.” It sounds promising in the same way his previous plan to create a digital currency sounded great too. The question is whether Facebook is the one to do it, or will it be achieved through new institutions that are wedded to old-style systems of content delivery. The attempt to create a currency flopped. Not only because Congress hounded him viciously, but also because the world of cryptocurrency already exists. It will likely be the same with the Facebook metaverse. [No more banks. No more accountants. No more Wall Street?]( What Is This Thing, Anyway? There has been a great migration afoot in the world for at least 20 years, from a world of capital almost focused on the physical world to one centered in the scalable and decentralized digital cloud. The new home for capital eschews nation state control includes more malleability, and is less subject to the exigencies of national politics. Progress is this realm is always iterative, each genuinely valuable step a further reach in the direction of distributing control. The lockdowns of 2020-21 (and continuing) have reinforced the point of the migration. As states and technological trends deprecate physical capital, the metaverse has gained prominence. What began as a movement driven by efficiency, convenience, and the longing for progress dramatically accelerated based on desperate need. There needs to be some escape from what states are doing to the world. It’s never been as important for the sake of saving civilizations. George Gilder believes that the slow dawning of this next generation of technology will eventually displace the titans that now rule the digital world. In this so-called metaverse, the individual will be at the center, no longer pushed around by big shots that rig the system to work in their favor. To him, this is about far more than gaming; it’s about putting control and creativity back into the hands of users, and away from centralized portals. As with any neologism, the term is subject to misuse — a word tossed around to signal progress even when the substance is not really there. The term itself was coined by Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snowcrash in which the main protagonist discovers a digital world that is not flat, but three dimensions. These days, the term generally refers to a suite of technologies designed to provide fully immersive experiments, including but not limited to gaming and virtual realities. But it means even more than that: it is the ambitious attempt to replicate physical world experiences in the digital realm, like a painting on the wall that you do not just look at but can walk into and explore, manipulate, and genuinely own. At the center of the metaverse is the individual will, not a top-down imposition but a granting of power, choice, and control to users themselves. Gilder explains how the metaverse takes us far beyond what the dominant tech players have built: Under Google’s guidance, the Internet is not only full of unwanted ads but fraught with bots and malware. Instead of putting power in the hands of individuals, it has become a porous cloud where all the money and power rise to the top. On a deeper level, the world of Google — its interfaces, its images, its videos, its icons, its philosophy — is 2D. Google is not just a company but a system of the world. And the Internet is cracking under the weight of this ideology. Zuckerberg’s announcement was a way of signaling that his company is not similarly stuck in the past, but is working on next-generation technologies. A speech is one thing but the same as actually doing anything about it. Based on everything I know about the culture of the place – I’ve had several friends land there and leave as soon as they could – as well as its basic business model of extracting and then marketing user-provided data, I would say: I doubt it. Copy of Official Approval Enclosed (tech) [stamp]( July 2020, the U.S. Government approved a tech project that potentially disrupts a $2 trillion industry. One financial analyst has been gathering critical data – and he’s making his boldest prediction yet. Every shred of evidence that points to what lies ahead, including a copy of the official approval, [can be found here.]( To see how you can take advantage of this breakthrough tech, before Wall Street catches on, [Click Here.]( [Will this weird device be in your home soon?]( Blockchain Changed Everything A crucial building block to this future is moving away from centralized server control. This has been a weak link in digital systems from the beginning. It’s what made it so difficult to innovate monies and payment systems that were independent from state control. They were always vulnerable to hacking and abuse. The innovation of blockchain changed that. And the point is daily reinforced by the rise and rise of Bitcoin. The swings of the market this past last weekend made the point. While national stock markets were closed, crypto jumped out of their doldrums to once again (for the 1,000th time) humble those who keep pronouncing the whole thing as dead. Bitcoin jumped again to a solid $45,000 and pulled the entire crypto sector with it. The top crypto-focused stocks moved along with it. They are Marathon Patent Group (MARA), Riot Blockchain (RIOT), Hut 8 Mining (HUT), Hive Blockchain Technologies (HVBTF), and various exchanges such as Coinbase (COIN). Of course the real money is moving toward non-public companies thanks to the [relaxation]( of accredited investor standards that enables private capital more flexibility. Watching crypto move from strength to strength, with some inevitable variation in volatility along the way, while being accompanied with an unrelenting Greek chorus that puts it down constantly, has dramatically reduced my respect in the financial media. How many times must this crowd go through yet another round of “crypto is dead,” only to be proven wrong in the following months, before these discredited experts finally put a lid on it? The Medium is the Message The move toward the metaverse began in earnest with the gradual democratization of internet access, away from the exclusive access of scientific labs and academic institutions toward members of the public. The great limitation of the first 15 years of progress was its central structure. Everything is dependent on privately held companies in cooperation with legacy mediating institutions. There was no digital money that was reliable; there were only payment systems operating with old-style banks. There was no scalable access to contractual enforcement systems; there were only legacy courts and state-dominated dispute settlement systems. There were no genuine alternatives to dependency on states and those private companies of which states approve. This changed in 2009 with the White Paper from Satoshi Nakamoto. Very few people at the time understood the implications of a distributed system that re-created a physical world sense of ownership, but under a distributed model of ledgers that no one in particular owned. It opened up the possibility of trading these units that themselves could be valued by market participants in the same way that physical property could be owned, valued, and traded. Remember the valuation of the resulting tokens for 10 months in 2010: $0.00. That market is now valued at $1.84 trillion. There is something important to the vision of a metaverse future – not to further disembody us from the world, but rather to bring humane individualism to the digital experience. If its progress tracks that of blockchain technology generally, we shouldn’t be looking at legacy institutions to drive the progress. That Facebook will have much at all to do with building the next generation of immersive digital experiences is highly in doubt. Regards, [Jeffrey Tucker] Jeffrey Tucker The Biggest Transfer of Wealth in History? [The rich are about to get richer]( He’s the man who predicted the 2008 recession… Recognized as the #1 personal finance expert in the world… Author of Rich Dad Poor Dad with 41 million copies sold… Now, he’s coming to you to reveal EXACTLY what’s going on under the nose of every American… an urgent warning to every single American… The biggest transfer of wealth in U.S. history… It’s a disturbing new movement set-off by a group of 12 unelected officials… “secretly” siphoning money from the poor and middle class to the wealthy. Unfortunately, nobody will be able to stop this new movement… Not Democrats. Not Republicans. Not Congress… Not even the president. [Unfortunately, 99% of Americans don’t understand what’s going on…]( But today [Robert Kiyosaki will blow the lid off the entire operation]( and help you take 5-steps to protect & grow your wealth during the coming weeks. 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