Animoca Brands, the NFT and Metaverse firm, hopes to pass a resolution at its annual general meeting (AGM) on December 23 that would replace its auditor, DFK Collins, with Hall Chadwick. This is according to the distributed agenda. 

Animoca has arguably been slow to file its recent audit reports, not completing its 2020 report until mid-2023. The report included comments from DFK Collins, which noted that for Animoca to “continue as a going concern” would be “dependent upon” it “raising new equity funds as and when required” as well as “support from the convertible note holders.” It would also need to “convert cryptocurrencies into fiat currencies as and when required.”

However, despite these comments, it is important to note that DFK Collins also said that its “opinion is not modified in respect” of these matters.

Read more: Animoca Brands has a web3 portfolio worth $1.5B because it said so

At the time of this audit being published, Yat Siu, Animoca Brands’ executive chairman, noted to the Australian Financial Review that the firm didn’t think these issues were “a going concern issue” and added that Animoca has “a reasonable cash position, a reasonable equity position.” 

Since the audit period covering through the end of 2020, Animoca Brands has continued to raise money, including:

• On May 13, 2021, the company announced that it had completed a capital raise of US$8,888,888.
• On May 28, 2021, the company entered into subscription agreements with “sophisticated and professional investors,” raising US$9.4 million.
• On July 1, 2021, it completed the second tranche in its May 13, 2021 raise, bringing in US$50 million.
• On October 20, 2021, Animoca raised US$80 million from “sophisticated and professional investors.”
• On January 18, 2022, the company announced it had completed a capital raise of US$358,888,888.

An attachment to the AGM agenda notes that Hall Chadwick believes it is “prepared to audit the financial statements for” 2021, 2022, and 2023. 

Siu previously told CoinDesk in September of this year that Animoca was “midway through the audit, which is a critical piece of the IPO puzzle” for the firm, also confirming at the time that DFK Collins was conducting that audit. 

Protos has reached out to Animoca Brands about this desire to change auditors. Animoca Brands was not able to comment on why it had decided to switch auditors, noting, “Unfortunately, due to disclosure requirements, we cannot comment on this prior to the general meeting on 23 December.” Additionally, when asked why DFK Collins was not able to complete the 2021 audit that was in progress, Animoca Brands communicated that “We have noted in the past (including in the Chairman’s Letter in the 2020 annual report that you cited) that the business of Animoca Brands poses complex challenges for financial reporting and auditing. We have completed substantial work towards the audit of the 2021 financials and plan to transition seamlessly to a new auditor with full cooperation between both audit firms.” Furthermore, when asked if this would delay any IPO plans, Animoca Brands noted that it expects “the change in auditors to support Animoca Brands’ plans to list on a public exchange.” Finally, it noted that definitive timelines for the outstanding audits will need to wait as “the shareholder meeting will provide the company with authorization to switch its auditor, at which point the new auditor can formally begin work on outstanding audits with a timeline created.”

Update 2024-12-04 18:20 UTC: To ensure clarity, we have added comments from Animoca Brands, expanded a quote from the 2020 report, and changed the headline.

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The metaverse was meant to herald a bright new future for humanity. With none other than Mark Zuckerberg at the helm, it was supposed to welcome five billion users and grow to $13 trillion, according to researchers at Citi.

Unfortunately, it appears that these analysts — and Metaverse cheerleaders — were getting a little ahead of themselves.

Zuckerberg’s metaverse division at Meta (formerly Facebook) lost $4.5 billion last quarter alone, adding to its lifetime, $46 billion-and-counting metaverse losses. His flagship metaverse game for adults, Horizon Worlds, is embarrassingly popular with children.

Similarly, the crypto metaverse industry — at least when measured using the prices of assets like land parcels, metaverse currencies, and in-world characters — has all the characteristics of a dazzlingly popped bubble.

Decimated digital land and asset prices

Consider The Sandbox, a metaverse once worth over $7 billion. As of August 8, its transaction volumes per DappRadar were down 99.9% from its 2022 highs of $117 million, to less than $8,000.

Zooming in on The Sandbox’s non-fungible token (NFT) sales doesn’t provide any redemption. Its NFTs traded $10.2 million on November 24, 2021 alone. On any average day this August, NFTs from those collections traded less than $10,000. That’s a decline of over 99.9%.

Then there’s, Decentraland, one of the oldest crypto metaverses. Its daily transactions have declined 99.9% from $2.5 million on November 29, 2021, to less than $5,000 on an average day this month.

Other metaverse lands have suffered similar humiliation. Axie Infinity trading volumes are down 99% from nearly $1 billion on September 30, 2021, to less than $2 million today. Metaverse transactions are down 99% from 672 on April 6, 2022, to less than five on average this month. League of Kingdoms transactions are something of an outlier, down a ‘mere’ 90% from their March 19, 2022, all-time highs.

By almost any measure, whether by unique active wallets, NFT floor price, land parcel resales, skin values, or in-game actions, crypto metaverses are less popular almost without exception than in 2021 and 2022.

Read more: The NFT market bubble has popped and we’ve got the charts to prove it

Metaverse currencies and governance tokens down 90%

Following the ICO model that began with MasterCoin and NextCoin in 2013, many crypto metaverses sold a proprietary token to serve as an in-game currency and governance token. Almost all of these metaverse tokens are, like user engagement statistics within digital worlds, down at least 90% from their highs.

A chart of various metaverse currencies from mid-November 2021 to today shows declines exceeding 90%. Decentraland’s MANA, Axie Infinity’s AXS and SLP, The Sandbox’s SAND, Yield Guild Games’ YGG, Vulcan Forged’s PYR, Metahero’s HERO, GensoKishi Metaverse’s MV, DeFi Land’s DFL, and NFT World’s WRLD have all declined over 90% since mid-November 2021.

Despite two years of decay, there are still believers in the metaverse — especially Bloomberg’s #3 ranked billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg. With 10X more wealth personally than the combined market capitalization of all CoinMarketCap-categorized metaverse tokens, Zuckerberg and his Reality Labs division at Meta are seemingly undeterred in their commitment to making Horizon Worlds a success.

As with any bubble-popped industry, there will be rare survivors. Even eBay and Amazon emerged from the dot-com bubble as victors. Generally speaking, the combined market capitalization of over 100 CoinMarketCap-categorized metaverse assets has declined from $50 billion on November 25, 2021, to $16 billion.

If this crypto sector is to stage a comeback, it will certainly be a long journey.

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The Welsh government reportedly sunk £45,000 ($57,000) into a ‘PS2-looking’ metaverse project that was branded as ‘absolutely wank’ and ‘a waste of taxpayers’ money’ by users.

On May 13, the Welsh government announced that “Wales has become the first UK nation to launch in the metaverse,” revealing a 3D virtual experience that would supposedly give visitors a taste of the attractions and landmarks the country has to offer.

When it was launched, the project, which was commissioned by ‘Visit Wales,’ was dubbed by authorities as “a trial being used to test reach to even wider audience bases.”

However, the plan was poorly received from the off and X users immediately picked up on the world’s poor-quality visuals, describing it as looking like a ‘PS2 game’ or ‘Roblox.’ 

One user said, “This honest to god looks like a challenge from The Apprentice where they have 30 mins to put together a digital experience” while another posted, “What’s the welsh for ‘this looks absolutely wank.’”

Another sarcastically alluded to the failures of previous metaverse projects, saying, “This is going to be fantastic for the two people who think the metaverse is a good idea! Even better for the one guy of those two who actually uses it! Great job!”

Some, predictably, took issue with the use of taxpayers’ money. “How much of our money was wasted on this?” one asked.

Read more: What it was like to have Quontic Bank’s metaverse pool party all to myself

According to a freedom of information request (FOI) from an investigative reporter at The Times, £16,000 ($20,000) was spent on ‘technical development, license fees, and hosting for the next six months,’ and £30,000 ($38,000) was allocated to promoting the metaverse as part of a ‘Visit Wales’ digital campaign. 

It remains to be seen if the investment proves worthwhile, or even popular. As Protos has discovered, some metaverse projects are almost completely empty.  

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Founders of rabbit r1, a supposed competitor to the smartphone, are also behind the launch of a failed NFT project that they’re reportedly hiding from the web. 

The $200 rabbit r1 was created by CEO Jesse Lyu and billed as the ‘future of human-machine interface.’ However, its sleek design and funky scrolling weren’t enough to woo techies and the device was roundly criticized on release. 

Now rabbit r1’s negative reception has brought attention to Lyu’s prior work on a failed NFT project called Gama. Lyu was CEO of Gama’s parent company, Cyber Manufacture Co., before it rebranded to rabbit Inc. in October 2023. 

Gama claimed to be a ‘premium’ space-themed 3D platformer that incorporated NFTs and was pitched in 2022 as the metaverse of the future. However, barely two years later, the Gama.io domain no longer works and the site can only be viewed via the Wayback Machine internet archive.

One post on X from AI advocate Andy Parackal claims that the Gama team has been deleting every YouTube video involving rabbit’s CEO. Fortunately, Parackal says he recorded one of Lyu’s interviews before it was wiped. 

He said, “We got the entire video; these guys are total grifters. I’ve been saying from day one that these guys are sketchy… They are trying to delete everything involved with Gama NFTs.” 

Indeed the Gama YouTube channel does contain videos relating to the Gama project, but nothing including Lyu. 

Aaron Li, who claims to have built the technical systems behind Gama, told Parackal he wasn’t told to delete anything and that Parackal “may be overreacting.”

Li told Protos that Lyu’s team look to have developed an AI engine for Gama before using it for rabbit and that, “Naturally, GAMA was put on hold when the priority shifted.”

He added, “I believe removing videos promoting GAMA is the right thing to do… It sends a message on what the team wants to do and reduces the risk of scams in the name of Rabbit or GAMA.”

Li also said that he believes there was no deliberate attempt to hide, deceive, or scam, and that throughout his interactions with Jesse and his team, they appeared to be acting in good faith.

Rabbit Inc. CEO’s NFT history adds to growing complaints 

The rabbit r1 relies on AI to perform various tasks its creators hoped would eliminate the need to scroll back and forth between multiple apps. But it’s been met with growing criticism.

Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee said in a review that the rabbit r1’s AI “hallucinates” and “confidently answers questions wrong.” He calls its battery life “brutally bad,” describes its scroll function as “super slow,” and complains about its restrictive touch screen. 

Read more: What it was like to have Quontic Bank’s metaverse pool party all to myself

The Verge also reported that rabbit r1’s operating system isn’t as unique from apps as rabbit Inc. makes out. Indeed, someone is reportedly running rabbit’s launcher as an Android app on a Google Pixel 6A. 

In response, rabbit told The Verge, “rabbit r1 is not an Android app… rabbit OS and LAM run on the cloud with very bespoke AOSP and lower level firmware modifications, therefore a local bootleg APK without the proper OS and Cloud endpoints won’t be able to access our service. rabbit OS is customized for r1 and we do not support third-party clients.”

A full response can be found on its X account. 

Protos has emailed rabbit Inc. for more information about Jesse Lyu’s NFT project and the reported deletion of videos and will update this piece if we hear back. 

Update May 3, 10:02 UTC: Added a response from Aaron Li discussing rabbit’s journey from the  Gama NFT project. 

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New York-based Quontic Bank proudly proclaims on its website that you can “Join Quontic In The Metaverse,” and calls its foray into virtual worlds “the first of its kind.” 

Unfortunately, during my visits to this Decentraland-based bank diorama, I was the only person there — unless you count the teller or poolside DJ. 

Accessing the poolside DJ requires you to first activate the ATM, something I found more difficult than anticipated due to failures in object collision detection.

Being the only person at a metaverse bank’s pool party with a DJ playing music was something I had never experienced before, and something I doubt I will experience again any time soon.

Speaking to the teller allows you to have a short conversation about some of the products that Quontic offers, including a checking account that offers rewards in bitcoin.

This appears to be referencing the ‘Bitcoin Rewards Checking’ product that allowed customers to earn Bitcoin from spending using a debit card. 

However, despite the teller suggesting to me that I check out this account, it’s no longer something Quontic offers. Visiting the page linked in the original press release for this product will inform you that “Registration has been disabled.” 

Aaron Wollner, the chief marketing officer for Quontic noted that, “unfortunately, due to a variety of external factors we made the difficult decision to discontinue our Bitcoin Rewards Checking program.” It isn’t clear what those external factors are. 

Looking around the metaverse bank outpost, you can see a few posters that serve as hyperlinks to various pages on Quontic’s non-metaverse website. 

Read more: Banks that bought up crypto banks struggle in 2024

Among these posters is one that advertises ‘Lite Documentation Loans’ for ‘Non-Traditional Borrowers.’ Quontic was the first community development financial institution (CDFI) that could make loans using alternative documentation, including for verification of income.

One report from Maine Wire has alleged that this type of loan has been used by illegal cannabis grow operations, with the paper allegedly identifying 69 such operations that received mortgages from Quontic. 

The bank has had other issues recently, with the Office of the Comptroller of Currency filing a cease and desist order in October 2022, five months after the blog post announcing the metaverse outpost. The order alleges “unsafe or unsound practices” and “violations of law, rule or regulation.” 

While Quontic has been focused on coming into compliance, it seems to have left its outpost in the metaverse languishing and promoting advertising products that no longer exist.

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Julian Assange, who is wanted by the United States on 18 espionage charges, is to appear in the ‘metaverse’ alongside former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as part of a virtual protest against the WikiLeaks founder’s extradition to the US. 

Assange will appear at the web3 political rally on August 26 in an effort to raise awareness of and help prevent his extradition. Also giving speeches at the event will be his wife Stella Assange, Corbyn, and WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson. 

According to a press release shared by event host Wistaverse, “speakers at the rally will appear either as characters inside the event or with filmed contributions shown on screens inside the arena.” 

The arena will be “designed to look like the Royal Courts of Justice in London where Assange is set to face his final appeal in the UK court system.” Organizers of the protest hope to build up support for a real-life protest at the Royal Courts of Justice once a court date is announced.

According to a member of the Don’t Extradite Assange campaign, the metaverse rally “is a valuable opportunity to unite people across the world who believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press to show their support for Julian and set a signal that will be an important precedent for human rights everywhere.”

While Wistaverse — which claims to be “the first metaverse dedicated to protests” — is hosting the event, the rally itself will be held within The Sandbox, a virtual platform that allows players to create and explore their own worlds while utilizing blockchain technology.

Wistaverse previously organized a web3 protest in support of abortion rights during the Roe v. Wade trial in partnership with Amnesty International.

Assange has also dabbled with web3 technology before, raising roughly $50 million through the sale of NFTs to help with his WikiLeaks case. In addition, an ‘Assange DAO’ and $JUSTICE token were created as part of the fundraiser. 

Assange is currently in a UK prison as he prepares to make a second court appeal over his US extradition. In 2019, the US indicted him on 18 charges after he leaked confidential military data, including footage of US airstrikes, records from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and US diplomatic cables.

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YouTuber Jarvis Johnson encountered less than 1,000 English-speaking users in Mark Zuckerberg’s $36 billion metaverse. The vast majority were under the age of 18. Children rampantly circumvent Zuckerberg’s poorly-enforced age limits and overwhelm gameplay.

Jarvis spent a full week living in Meta’s Horizon Worlds, the most popular metaverse. ‘Most popular’ in this case is certainly less than superlative, with Meta estimating fewer than 200,000 monthly users. Unfortunately, Jarvis’ investigation found that Horizon Worlds has closer to 900 daily users.

Other metaverses are even more sparsely populated. Plots of virtual land in NFT-based worlds have declined 98% or worse, and alternate metaverses barely exist beyond a marketing buzzword.

For adults wanting to interact with others in their age bracket and escape the hundreds of children running rampant throughout Horizon Worlds, enterprising players have engineered elaborate tests of adulthood to grant entry to members-only spaces. One adults-only lounge requires extending one’s avatar arm longer than a child would be able to fluidly extend Meta’s gyroscopic controller.

• In October 2022, Horizon Worlds claimed to have 200,000 monthly users, which was already discounted from its earlier claim of 300,000 monthly users. 
• Zuck had set a goal of 500,000 monthly active users by the end of 2022. That obviously never happened.
• As of today, daily active users (DAUs) might have fallen below 1,000.

Horizon Worlds made Jarvis Johnson nauseous

Protos has previously covered the cratering of ‘metaverse’ properties in general, including significant drops in DAUs and the value of their native tokens.

According to Jarvis, using Google to query ‘Horizon Worlds’ returns embarrassing results like “Is Horizon Worlds still available?” and “What do you do in Horizon Worlds?”

While exploring Horizon Worlds, Johnson found most spaces devoid of humans. He described mini-games in the metaverse as “janky” and moving around felt stiff when he used default settings. The vast majority of games involved bouncing balls, all of which grew tired after a couple days of gameplay.

Even after tweaking settings endlessly, he admitted that Meta’s virtual reality (VR) headset made him feel nauseated. The YouTuber ingested copious amounts of anti-seasickness medication to make it through his full week commitment.

In summary, Johnson gave Horizon Worlds a week of his life and reported his comical findings. That amount of time is certainly longer than most of Meta’s users after a confusing signup process, rampant age limit circumvention, seasickness, and lackluster gameplay.

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The Hong Kong Cultural Center is, for all intents and purposes, very real and very planted in the physical world. When I attended The Metaverse Symphony on May 5 – in person! – there were no virtual reality (VR) headsets for the audience to put on at the entrance, no augmented reality (AR) app for smart phones to download, and no online version of the symphony.

Perhaps you’re already familiar with one of the many versions of ‘the metaverse.’ There might not be an agreed-upon definition, but it generally suggests a virtual reality where users interact in a computer-generated world. Cryptocurrency advocates say the metaverse encompasses more, through NFTs, VR, and Minecraft-like games, while Mark Zuckerburg’s Meta (short for metaverse) focuses on creating VR workspaces and games.

The Metaverse Symphony was none of the above.

The event took place in a physical auditorium two-thirds full. The evening began with an entirely unrelated (though quite beautiful) piece about war, entitled Through the Fog. Then, conductor Gerard Solanga appeared on stage to explain what The Metaverse Symphony was and how it would work: a digital artist, Henry Chu, would sit on the sidelines and make visual effects on a large screen behind the orchestra to match with the music. How… meta?

The Metaverse Symphony was briefly and unintentionally meta

Needless to say, the first movement, entitled The Digital Age, left plenty to be desired. Think visualizations reminiscent of Starfox 64, but without the fun gameplay or dialogue. The boxes and lines moving and breaking apart didn’t seem to fundamentally relate to the supposed metaphor at hand: phones vibrating and people frantically switching apps on their phones.

Movement two was entitled Fibre Optics. Here, something truly meta did occur: a cell phone in the audience played a song on full blast and its owner didn’t know how to stop the noise for a good 45 seconds. That said, Fibre Optics had much better music than The Digital Age, providing a strong backdrop for a more relatable visual: walls of lines in black and white that continuously break apart, smashing together in a rainbow of color as the piece reached a crescendo.

Movement three of the Metaverse Symphony was named The Internet of Things, which, to be frank, is a title that only conjured memories of failed cryptocurrency IOTA (named after the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet). The movement centered around sounds outside the scope of traditional music (anyone remember Stomp!?), including car horns, newspapers ruffling, and staplers. It was at this moment I realized that I was much more enthralled by the musicians playing than the large screen filled with lines and boxes.

The final movement, The Metaverse, featured kinetic art highly reminiscent of the WinAmp or iTunes visualizers from years past: colored oils dropped in water and moved around. When I snuck a peek at the audience, I counted 15 people deeply asleep — including my fiancée.

All in all, it’s hard to go wrong with a night spent listening to a symphony orchestra performing newly crafted pieces – I’m just slightly disappointed that the ‘metaverse’ aspect didn’t live up to expectations.

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Interpol, the world’s largest international police organization, has established a presence in the metaverse in anticipation of exponentially growing crime.

On Thursday, the group unveiled virtual reality training for law enforcement personnel working inside the metaverse at its 90th Interpol General Assembly session in New Delhi, India. Interpol directly employs over 1,000 workers who operate a secure communications channel for cross-border coordination of millions of law enforcement officers working in 195 countries.

For now, Interpol’s metaverse property is a simple reproduction of its General Secretariat headquarters in France. Assembly delegates in New Delhi had the chance to explore the virtual grounds with VR headsets, while registered users can also have a look.

Interpol’s Secure Cloud provides storage for its metaverse to ensure neutrality. Users can interact with one another with their avatars and participate in virtual training on topics like forensic investigations.

Interpol expresses concern about criminals within the metaverse

Interpol’s Global Crime Trend report listed money laundering, ransomware, phishing, and online scams as serious threats ⏤ according to the opinion of 60% of respondents. It says crimes are increasingly moving online, including avatar-based social settings.

With the growth in metaverse usage, Interpol expects online crime to increase proportionately. It is currently collaborating with the World Economic Forum (WEF), Microsoft, and Facebook parent company Meta on an initiative to define and govern metaverse communities.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) launched its own metaverse initiative at its 2022 annual meeting in Davos. It will recommend frameworks for governing metaverse interactions. It will also propose methods for growing the social and economic value of virtual worlds.

Read more: Metaverse tokens down two thirds as users get bored and leave

Previously, the WEF expressed concern about social engineering attacks, extremism, and misinformation spreading through metaverse social settings. Interpol added its concerns about potential crimes against children, financial crimes, cyberattacks, sexual assault, and harassment.

Interpol announced a new Expert Group to ensure the security of metaverse properties. It expressed interest in studying virtual reality and understanding its opportunities and risks from a law enforcement perspective. Interpol will use the lessons its officers learn to improve its ability to enforce law within the metaverse.

Metaverse has uses beyond gaming

Interpol highlighted a Gartner report saying that 25% of the world’s population could use virtual worlds daily for work, studying, shopping, and socializing by 2026. Further, Gartner estimated that 25% of e-commerce retailers would create at least a proof-of-concept in a metaverse by 2027.

In addition, Gartner also projected impressive growth in metaverse applications for virtual workspaces and entertainment events like sports games and concerts. Citi analysts predicted metaverse users could exceed 5 billion by 2030 and become a $13 trillion industry.

However, much needs to improve by 2026 to achieve those numbers — Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has already spent over $15 billion building its metaverse, despite consistently underwhelming public reception.

For more informed news, follow us on Twitter and Google News or listen to our investigative podcast Innovated: Blockchain City.

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Metaverse tokens burst onto the world stage on a tidal wave of enormous promises and mind-boggling figures. Experts trumpeted Total Addressable Market (TAM) figures like five billion users and $13 trillion dollars and the world’s largest publicly-traded social network, Facebook, changed its name to Meta and guided over $15 billion in metaverse expenditures. It has since actually spent that sum.

Speculators enjoyed big returns on rapidly appreciating plots of land in Decentraland, The Sandbox, Earth2, or NFT Worlds and metaverse builders marketed each of their virtual worlds as the next big thing.

Of course, as is the case with so many hyped crypto sectors, away from the fanfare and bright lights, metaverse adoption has achieved barely a fraction of its marketers’ promises.

Active usage rates are dropping rapidly and the value of most virtual land has plummeted, with average trading volumes for parcels down 98%. Some properties have created flurries of activity with branded events, incentivized gameplay, or sponsored performances, however, these promotions cannot make up for the fatal weakness of the metaverse: dismal user engagement.

Active users and value drop throughout 2022

Speculation drove most of 2021’s surge in virtual land prices. Investors were snapping up plots and then not doing anything with them and many ended up holding a property that no one even wanted to visit.

The small number of active users didn’t help matters. Users simply don’t stick around with very little to do outside of events organized by developers.

According to DappRadar, Decentraland earns an average of 654 unique wallet actions per day. Using different math, Decentraland estimates Daily Active Users (DAUs) to be around 8,000. The project also says it sold a notable number of in-world items like wearables and emotes. Decentraland acknowledges that DAUs have dropped since 2021 but says the number of core users is still healthy.

For perspective, Decentraland’s token, MANA, is valued at $1.1 billion, or $137,000 per DAU.

The Sandbox’s proprietary token, SAND, has dropped 87% since the start of the year. Investors have introduced brands like Atari and The Walking Dead to the metaverse, and it earned some traffic from its Alpha Season events. However, users barely even bothered outside Alpha Season. On average, the Sandbox earns a dismal 605 unique wallet actions per day. Even after increasing this DAU using the same math as Decentraland above, SAND is still valued above $100,000 per DAU.

The bubble in metaverse tokens burst in 2022. Virtual land trading volumes have declined 98%. Metaverse tokens have lost two-thirds of their value this year.

Even Facebook can’t save metaverse tokens

Since Facebook rebranded to Meta, it’s spent $15 billion building its metaverse, Horizon Worlds.

However, The Wall Street Journal has interviewed a number of Meta employees who have branded their own project unusable. It estimates that metaverse registrations are 300,000 people shy of the company’s 2022 goal. It also estimates that a majority of worlds built by creators are never visited by anyone other than their creator. Just 10% earn visits from more than 50 people.

In the middle of September 2022, metaverse vice president Vishal Shah expressed frustration with Horizon Worlds’ current state. He sent a memo telling employees that they need to use the rest of the year to “ensure that we fix our quality gaps and performance issues before we open up Horizon to more users. … The simple truth is, if we don’t love it, how can we expect our users to love it?”

Read more: Meta whistleblower warns Zuck’s metaverse could harm mental health

Conclusion

Meta could have learned from its failed efforts with its multi-billion dollar Diem (formerly Libra) stablecoin project: Launching a successful digital asset ecosystem isn’t as easy as it looks. It gets perilous if employees can’t even enjoy it enough to use it themselves.

Across the world, metaverse projects are retreating from overhyped promises. Speculators realize that their undeveloped plots cannot hold value forever. Virtual events might get brief attention, but not even a big name like Meta can prop up a house of cards.

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