Grayscale Investments成立于2013年，是全球最大的数字货币资产管理公司。GrayscaleResearch于11月份发布重磅报告《The Metaverse – Web3.0 Virtual Cloud Economies》。

The Meta Takeaway

The Metaverse is a digital universe that moves beyond the internet we know today. This vision for the future state of the web has the potential to transform our social interactions, business dealings, and the internet economy at large. The Metaverse is still taking shape, but Web 3.0 open virtual world crypto networks are offering a glimpse of what the future of the internet may hold. The market opportunity for bringing the Metaverse to life may be worth over $1 trillion in annual revenue and may compete with Web2.0 companies worth $15 trillion in market value today. This potential has attracted companies like Facebook to pivot towards the Metaverse, which mayserve as a catalyst for other Web 2.0 tech giants and investors to follow.

划重点

元宇宙是一个数字世界，它超越了我们今天所知的互联网。这种对未来网络状态的愿景有可能改变我们的社会、商业和整个互联网经济。元宇宙仍在形成中，但Web3.0开放虚拟世界加密网络正在为互联网的未来提供惊鸿一瞥。实现元宇宙所带来的市场机会可能超过1万亿美元年收入，并与今天市值约15万亿美元的Web2.0公司竞争。这一潜力吸引了Facebook等公司转向元宇宙，成为其他技术巨头和投资者效仿的催化剂。

The Meta Thesis

The internet has always been about connecting people.Over the past three decades, internet technology has evolved, and the way we all interact with the web has evolved with it. Much has changed, but three key eras of online-based communities could be thought of as:

• Web 1.0 – Netscape connected us online

• Web 2.0 – Facebook connected us into online communities

• Web 3.0 – Decentraland connected us into a community-owned virtual world

理论

互联网一直都是关于人的连接。在过去的三十年中，互联网技术不断发展，我们与网络的互动方式也随之改变。虽然已经发生很大变化，但在线社区的三个关键时代可以被认为是：

• Web 1.0 – 网景公司将我们连上网络

• Web 2.0 – Facebook将我们连接到在线社区

• Web 3.0 – Decentraland将我们连接到一个属于社区的虚拟世界

译者注：Decentraland是一个由用户拥有的虚拟世界，最近林俊杰在那炒房花了78万人民币。

As we moved across these eras, our interactions and the mediums we used to create them expanded. We experienced first hand how organizational architectures connecting us transformed, how computing infrastructure we relied on matured, and how control over the web ebbed and flowed between the community and big tech companies.

当我们跨越这些时代时，我们的互动方式和用来创造它们的媒介不断扩大。我们亲身体验了连接我们的组织架构是如何转变的，我们所依赖的计算基础设施是如何成熟的，对网络的控制是如何在社区和大型科技公司之间起伏流动的。

The Web 2.0 mobile internet changed how, where, when,and why we used the internet. In turn, this changed the products, services, and companies we used, which changed our business models, culture, and politics ? the Web 3.0 Metaverse has the potential to do the same.

Web2.0移动互联网改变了我们使用互联网的方式、地点、时间和原因。相应的，改变了我们使用的产品、服务和公司，进而改变了我们的商业模式、文化和政治——Web 3.0 元宇宙也有可能做到这一点。

The Meta Market Opportunity

A greater and greater portion of our attention is going towards digital activities, especially for younger generations. Today,1/3rd of our lives (8 hours/day) is already spent watching TV, playing games,or on social media.

市场机会

如今，我们把越来越多的注意力集中在数字活动上，尤其是年轻一代，我们生活中三分之一的时间（每天约8小时）花在看电视、玩游戏或社交媒体上。

As we spend more of our time in these digital world experiences,we also spend more of our money within these digital realms to build our social status within these online communities.

随着我们将更多的时间花在这些数字世界的体验上，我们也将花更多的钱，以建立在数字社区中的社会地位。

Our social lives and gaming are converging and creating a large, fast-growing virtual goods consumer economy. It is estimated that revenue from virtual gaming worlds could grow from $180 billion in 2020 to $400 billion in 2025.

我们的社交生活和游戏正在融合，并创造了一个大型、快速增长的虚拟商品消费经济。据估计，虚拟游戏世界的收入会从2020年的约1800亿美元增长到2025年的约4000亿美元。

The continued shift of game developer monetization is a key dynamic within this growth trend. Players are increasingly moving away from paying to play premium games towards free games, which developers monetize by selling players in-game items to enhance game play or social status within these virtual worlds.

游戏开发商货币化的持续转变是这一增长趋势中的关键动力。玩家越来越多地从付费玩高级游戏转向免费游戏，开发者通过向玩家出售游戏中的物品来提高游戏性或在这些虚拟世界中的社会地位。

This shift is accelerating further with the transitionfrom Web 2.0 closed corporate metaverses to Web 3.0 open crypto metaverse networks, which are:

• Web 2.0 Closed Corporate Metaverse: centrally owned and controlled by big tech, or;

• Web 3.0 Open Crypto Metaverse: democratically owned and controlled by global users.

• Web 2.0封闭式企业：由大型科技公司集中拥有和控制；
• Web 3.0开放加密元宇宙：由全球用户民主拥有和控制。

Many gamers today spend their money and hours of their time building digital wealth within Web 2.0 closed corporate metaverse worlds.The problem is, most game developers don’t let players monetize their investment and efforts. Developers prohibit players from trading items with other players and keep these worlds closed so players cannot transfer their in-game wealth to the real economy.

如今，许多游戏玩家花费金钱和时间在Web2.0封闭的企业元宇宙世界中创造数字财富。问题是，大多数游戏开发商不让玩家将他们的投资和努力货币化。开发者禁止玩家与其他玩家交易物品，并将这些渠道关闭，这样玩家就无法将游戏中的财富转移到实体经济中。

Web 3.0 open crypto metaverse networks solve this problem by eliminating the capital controls imposed on these virtual worlds by Web 2.0 platforms. This new paradigm allows users to own their digital assets as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), trade them with others in the game, and carry them to other digital experiences, creating an entirely new free-market internet-native economy that can be monetized in the physical world. This evolution of the “creator economy” is known as “Play to Earn”.

Web3.0开放加密元宇宙网络通过消除Web2.0平台对这些虚拟世界施加的资本控制来解决这一问题。这一新范式允许用户将其数字资产作为NFT拥有，在游戏中与他人进行交易，并将其带到其他数字体验中，创造一个全新的自由市场互联网原生经济，可以在实体世界中实现货币化。这种“创作者经济”的演变被称为“边玩边赚”。

In the metaverse, users dictate these types of seamless, real-world adjacent interactions across digital communities.Conversely, the closed nature of Web 2.0 corporate Metaverse platforms may put users at a disadvantage compared to Web 3.0 open crypto Metaverse networks.

在元宇宙中，用户可以在数字社区中支配这种无缝衔接的、真实的交互过程。与Web3.0元宇宙的开放相比，Web2.0平台的封闭性可能会让用户处于被支配的地位。

Established Web 2.0 corporations will need to disrupt their business models by opening up their ecosystems and removing their competitive moats. We don’t yet know the path Facebook will take with their Metaverse ambitions, but they—like other Web 2.0 companies—will need to make this challenging shift in the face of pressure to meet quarterly results for shareholders.

成熟的Web2.0公司需要通过开放生态系统和消除竞争护城河来打乱商业模式。我们还不知道Facebook将如何实现其元宇宙的雄心壮志，但他们和其他Web2.0公司一样，需要在股东面临季度业绩压力的情况下实现这一具有挑战性的转变。

Gaming is just one of the most immediately addressable segments where value is already starting to naturally shift to Web 3.0, but the Metaverse opportunity extends far beyond gaming. The Metaverse is estimated to be a trillion-dollar revenue opportunity across advertising, social commerce,digital events, hardware, and developer/creator monetization.

The total market cap of the leading Web 3.0 Metaverse crypto networks sits at $27.5 billion. This pales in comparison to the $900 billion market cap of Facebook, the $2 trillion market cap of the gamingsector, and the $14.8 trillion market cap of Web 2.0 companies that could shift to the Metaverse or risk disruption.

目前，领先的Web3.0元宇宙加密网络的总市值约为275亿美元。这与Facebook约9000亿美元的市值，游戏行业约2万亿美元的市值，以及可能转向元宇宙或风险干扰的Web2.0公司14.8万亿美元的市值相比相形见绌。

The Meta Web 3.0 Economy

Web 3.0 crypto Metaverses are emerging market virtual world economies with a continually developing complex mix of digital goods,services, and assets that generates real-world value for users.

Early Web 3.0 metaverse worlds have been typically built on top of blockchain computing platforms (layer one) with a host of parties contributing to the development of the games and in-games items that can be freely traded on the blockchain.

早期的Web 3.0元宇宙通常构建在区块链计算平台（第一层）之上，有许多参与开发游戏和可在区块链上自由交易的游戏内项目的各方。

Users purchasing these items are starting to build a new e-commerce experience. Examples of some more popular business activities within Decentraland and other virtual world economies today are:

• Art Galleries, such as Sotheby’s, have launched allowing owners to showcase and sell their digital NFT art at auction.

• Business Offices: crypto businesses like Binance and others have established digital headquarters in the Metaverse where employees can meet and collaborate.

• Games & Casinos here players can win MANA.

• Advertising: digital billboards have been built by property owners to advertise to game players for a fee.

• Sponsored Content, such as the recently announced Atari arcade which will feature games that can be played within Decentraland.

• Music Venues where DJs and musicians play music and hold concerts.

购买这些商品的用户开始建立新的电子商务体验。如今，Decentraland和其他虚拟世界经济体中一些更受欢迎的商业活动示例如下：

• 像苏富比一样的艺术画廊已经启动，允许所有者在拍卖会上展示和出售其数字NFT艺术品。
• 商务办公室：Binance等加密企业在元宇宙建立了数字总部，员工可以在这里会面和协作。
• 玩家可以赢得加密货币的游戏和赌场。
• 广告：业主建造了数字广告牌，向游戏玩家收费进行广告宣传。
• 赞助内容：如最近发布的Atari arcade，是在Decentraland内玩的特色游戏。
• DJ和音乐家举行音乐会的音乐场所。

These Web 3.0 Metaverse worlds are part of a larger interconnected crypto cloud economy. These decentralized protocols interoperate with and provide the technical infrastructure to support Metaverse virtual economies.

• Payment Networks: Web 3.0 metaverse economies can use their own digital currency, like MANA, or the currency of the layer onebase crypto cloud economy platform they’re built on, such as Ethereum (ETH) or Solana (SOL).

• Decentralized Finance: Decentralized exchanges allow users to trade in game items while lending platforms allow users to take outloans on their virtual land.

• NFT Sovereign Goods: Players can purchase NFTs from other creators and bring them into other virtual worlds to be put on display or sold.

• Decentralized Governance: Legal frameworks take back control of the digital economies from centralized corporations and allow aglobal network of Web 3.0 metaverse users to decide the rules of their collectively owned virtual space.

• Decentralized Cloud: File storage solutions such as Filecoin give Web 3.0 metaverse worlds a decentralized infrastructure solution to store data while services like Livepeer give virtual worlds decentralized video transcoding infrastructure.

• Self-Sovereign Identity: Internet-native social reputation coin (“creator coins”) data from other platforms may be transferred into the Metaverse and used for identity or credit scoring.

这些Web3.0元宇宙世界是更大的互联加密云经济的一部分。这些去中心化协议与元宇宙虚拟经济进行互操作，并提供支持元宇宙虚拟经济的技术基础设施。

• 支付网络：Web 3.0元宇宙经济体可以使用他们自己的数字货币，如MANA（Decentraland的原生代币，用户可以用它购买NFT，包括土地或收藏品），或他们构建的第一层基础加密云经济平台的货币，如以太坊（ETH）或Solana（SOL）。
• 去中心化金融：去中心化的交易所允许用户交易游戏内项目，而贷款平台允许用户在其虚拟土地上贷款。
• NFT主权商品：玩家可以从其他创造者处购买NFT，并将其带入其他虚拟世界进行展示或出售。
• 去中心化治理：法律框架从集中化的公司手中收回对数字经济的控制权，并允许全球网络的Web 3.0元宇宙用户决定其集体拥有的虚拟空间的规则。
• 去中心化云：Filecoin等文件存储解决方案为Web 3.0 元宇宙提供了一个去中心化的基础设施解决方案来存储数据，而Livepeer等服务则为虚拟世界提供了去中心化的视频转码基础设施。
• 自我主权身份：来自其他平台的互联网原生社会声誉硬币（“创造者硬币”）数据可以传输到元宇宙，并用于身份或信用评分。

The Meta Web 3.0 Metrics

The combination of these innovations has created a new online experience that’s already attracting users. Web 3.0 Metaverse virtual world users have seen rapid growth over recent years. Today, Web 3.0 Metaverse virtual worlds have nearly 50,000 all-time users (active wallets as proxy), up 10x since the beginning of 2020.

Web3.0矩阵

这些创新的结合创造了一种新的在线体验，已经吸引到很多用户。Web3.0元宇宙虚拟世界用户近年来增长迅速。如今，Web3.0元宇宙虚拟世界拥有近50000名用户（以加密钱包来计算），比2020年初增加了约10倍。

Compared to other Web 3.0 and Web 2.0 segments,Metaverse virtual world users are still in their early innings, but if current growth rates remain on their current trajectory, this emerging segment has the potential to become mainstream in the coming years.

与其他Web 3.0和Web 2.0细分市场相比，元宇宙虚拟世界用户仍处于起步阶段，但如果保持当前的增长率，这一新兴市场有可能在未来几年成为主流。

Web 3.0 Metaverse virtual worlds are creating real-world value for the developers, third-party creators, and users building these emerging market internet-native crypto cloud economies. All-time value spent on Web 3.0 Metaverse item sales such as virtual land, goods, and services has topped $200 million.

By removing the Web 2.0 centralized companies that have historically controlled these online spaces, Web 3.0 Metaverse virtual worlds have benefited from rapid innovation and productivity gains.

通过替代历史上控制网络空间的Web 2.0中心化公司，Web 3.0元宇宙虚拟世界已经从快速创新和生产率提升中获益。