What is the Metaverse and How to Trade it

The metaverse is a set of interconnected and experiential worlds spanning the digital and physical realms, an emerging multisensory iteration of the web. It is the frontier of the next stage of the internet’s evolution with technology giants and leaders like Bill Gates often speaking of its rising popularity, and the transformative effect it will have on our lives.

Unsurprisingly the metaverse’s increasing popularity and potential has driven investment interest amongst traders. Moreover, since the technologies that underpin the metaverse are still emerging and developing, there is a wide variety of exciting investment opportunities for traders and investors to explore.

Grayscale Investments projects that the industry is a $1 trillion revenue opportunity across everything from eCommerce and gaming to real-estate and entertainment. This has already caught the attention of major companies like Microsoft, Adobe and Qualcomm, who are investing more to explore the metaverse and remain competitive in the years to come.

Metaverse made a big impact in 2021. The buzz created by this futuristic virtual world was driven by the adoption amongst the big tech companies.

In October 2021, for example, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, reflecting its interest in the metaverse as a virtual world where interactions between humans are made possible through digital avatars. These avatars are controlled through virtual reality (VR) headsets like Oculus. Incidentally, Meta’s Oculus Quest 2 headset sales crossed those of Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console sales in 2021, showing the interest amongst consumers to engage with this new technology.

Other tech giants such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft are also following in the footsteps of Meta by developing their own VR headsets. This is a huge milestone for the metaverse, given that as more tech companies adopt this technology, the chances of the metaverse as a pervasive technology will increase.

Chip giant Nvidia has also dipped its toes into metaverse technology through its chipsets, which are already deployed in a variety of centralised computers and servers. Hailed as one of the best semiconductor stocks for the long term, Nvidia stands to gain from metaverse applications. While its pending buyout of ARM Holdings is still unclear, if it materialises, Nvidia will be able to construct an end-to-end ecosystem to boost computing power in applications that support the metaverse.

There are many ways to trade the metaverse; purchasing related stocks, trading cryptocurrencies, or trading ETFs. These assets can all be accessed through a trusted broker like Plus500. Using Plus500’s platform, traders can gain exposure to the wide range of metaverse-related instruments mentioned above. The variety of access points available through Plus500 can also bring a myriad of benefits, including the ability to build a diversified portfolio to cater to individual goals and needs.

Plus500 is a global multi-asset fintech company…