Vitalik Buterin Says Facebook’s Metaverse Attempt Will Misfire

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes that corporate attempts to build the metaverse will fail.

Buterin said this while responding to the views of Dean Eigenmann, who pointed out that “while the ideas on the metaverse concept make sense, he doesn’t think it’ll happen through Venture Capitalist funding.”

“I’d rather hang out in World of Warcraft than half of this “metaverse” crap,” Eigenmann added.

In response, Vitalik tweeted, “The “metaverse” is going to happen, but I don’t think any of the existing corporate attempts to intentionally create the metaverse are going anywhere.”

Buterin Says Facebook’s Metaverse Will Misfire

Presently, Facebook’s parent company Meta leads corporate interest in creating the metaverse after rebranding its whole business around the concept.

But Vitalik doesn’t think the move will be a success for the company. He mentioned the company stating, “Anything Facebook creates now will misfire.”

Buterin, one of the most popular figures in the crypto community, has also become one of the most vocal and has recently been passing commentary on various issues ranging from Plan B’s S2F model to the boom of NFTs.

However, this is one of few times Buterin would be discussing the metaverse, with some in the community also agreeing with his views.

The metaverse has mostly been about the concept and building of Augmented and Virtual Reality technology on the blockchain. But, the actual idea of metaverse remains vague.

While crypto projects like The Sandbox and Decentraland have found relative success in the space, major corporations have also adopted the metaverse approach as part of their strategy to grow.

Fashion brands like Adidas and beer makers like Budweiser have released NFTs and hosted events in the virtual space.

However, Facebook has more than doubled its metaverse efforts to remain at the forefront of the space.

Recently, the firm revealed that its metaverse unit, Reality Labs, lost $2.8 billion in the second quarter of 2022. 

While that might prove Buterin’s point, Mark Zuckerberg isn’t bothered and remains focused on long-term gains.

According to him,

Developing these [metaverse] platforms could unlock hundreds of billions if not trillions in revenue over time.

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