A lucrative emerging space

The metaverse could transform our way of life and how we socialise and conduct business. According to Bloomberg, the metaverse will be an $800 billion market by 2024. Meanwhile, Citibank’s research department estimates that the metaverse will prop up an economy worth between $8 trillion and $13 trillion by 2030. Meta (formerly Facebook) has committed $10 billion in 2022 alone to build its metaverse. The metaverse’s future looks promising, with massive investments from significant institutions.

Worldline and Bitcoin Suisse as the first payment vanguards to seize the moment

Worldline, a global leader in payment services, is one of the first payment companies to enter the metaverse together with Bitcoin Suisse, the Swiss crypto-finance and technology pioneer and market leader. In Crypto Valley, one of the most popular locations in Decentraland, the two companies created a dedicated virtual showroom to involve and engage the network of Worldline merchants.

The showroom includes a range of innovative features, such as:

• Merchant of the month: a showcase of the Worldline merchant of the month.

• Event stage: a virtual stage for events and conferences to present new products or features to the Decentraland community.

• Charity projects: Worldline features social organisations where Decentraland users can engage with and support charitable causes. The current charity organisation is the Swiss Pro Senectute beider Basel.

According to Worldline, the metaverse offers a new experience for merchants and their customers. The solution was developed in partnership with Bitcoin Suisse and aimed to facilitate the merchants’ immersion in a new and exciting space and to streamline its customer’s shopping experience.

Leveraging the metaverse to revolutionise commerce

The metaverse offers an opportunity for merchants to change how they conduct their businesses. Major brands have ventured into selling digital, physical and phygital items, and first movers are reaping the benefits.

Major apparel brands are investing heavily in the metaverse, providing a unique phygital experience and new ways of interacting with customers. With its “Into the Metaverse” collection, Adidas achieved over $22millions in sales in a matter of hours. RFFKT and Nike made $3.1millions in 6 minutes through a phygital sneaker sale. Gucci has sold digital bags, whose value exceeds their physical counterpart by more than $1000. The success of these initiatives confirms the metaverse’s product/market fit. Enabled through world-class payment technology such as Worldline, more merchants and brands are bound to enter this exciting new market.

Worldline launched the first phygital (digital x physical) collection with guidance from Metyis 

To showcase the potential of selling virtual and phygital goods in the metaverse Metyis has been selected as the execution partner in launching a phygital collection for Worldline and Bitcoin Suisse. As a first step, we created a virtual hoodie applying the Worldline design. All hoodies are linked with a unique virtual and physical twin, enabled by CollectID’s technology. Users of Decentraland could then buy the virtual Worldline hoodie using Worldline’s payment solution and express their style both in the metaverse and the physical world. Using Worldline’s technology, users can decide whether they want to own cryptocurrencies when making their first purchases in the metaverse or not.

Based on our experience working with multiple clients in the metaverse field it is key to put the customers and their priorities first. As such it is crucial to critically examine, whether metaverse is the right technology or platform to solve their problems. Long-term metaverse ambition should be broken down into smaller and actionable parts, which can be tested and iterated with customers in an agile manner. A typical quick win for merchants to enter the metaverse space is to phygitise their existing products or services. This is what we, together with Worldline and Bitcoin Suisse, demonstrate with the phygital hoodie collection in Decentraland.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

Massive institutional investments are connected with a growing ecosystem of users, brands, merchants and enablers such as Worldline or Bitcoin Suisse. This system establishes the foundation for a vibrant metaverse economy. The technology is still in its early days; however, Adidas and RTFTK have shown that first-mover advantages are up for grabs if companies are bold enough to make the first step.