Get ready, metamates — JPMorgan has become the first bank to join the metaverse.
JPMorgan Chase
JPM,
launched the virtual bank — complete with a roaming tiger and of course a photo of CEO Jamie Dimon — alongside a report detailing opportunities in the virtual worlds.
Already, they note, the average price of a parcel of virtual land has jumped to $12,000 in December from $6,000 last June. Some $54 billion is spent on virtual goods, 60 billion messages are sent daily on Roblox
RBLX,
and the market cap for non-fungible tokens is $41 billion.
JPMorgan says its role will be as financial intermediary.
“The success of building and scaling in the metaverse is dependent on having a robust and flexible financial ecosystem that will allow users to seamlessly connect between the physical and virtual worlds. Our approach to payments and financial infrastructure will allow that interoperability to grow,” said the report co-authored by Christine Moy, the global head of Liink, crypto and metaverse, and Adit Gadgil, head of e-commerce and technology, media and telecommunications.
As for the virtual JPMorgan, located in the environment called Decentraland, at the moment it’s just a place to see marketing materials. This particular author couldn’t even move his character up the stairs.
