Stephanie Douse 
Citi has predicted that the total market opportunity for metaverse could grow to between $8 trillion and $13 trillion by 2030, with the number of its users rising to 5 billion.
Citi has on Thursday launched a new paper titled “Metaverse and Money: Decrypting the Future” by Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions (Citi GPS). The world’s largest bank has more than 200 million customers and operates in more than 160 countries and territories.
The 184-page paper delves deeply into numerous areas of the metaverse. They cover what a metaverse is, its infrastructure, digital assets in the metaverse, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs), money and defi (decentralized finance), and regulatory developments in the metaverse.
“We believe the metaverse may be the next generation of the internet — merging the physical and digital world in a permanent and immersive manner — and not merely a virtual reality environment,” Citi said of the metaverse economy’s scale.
Citi said that “a device-agnostic metaverse accessible via PCs, game consoles, and smartphones may result in a very large ecosystem,” noting that device-agnostic metaverse accessible via PCs, game consoles, and smartphones might result in a very large ecosystem.”
“We estimate the total addressable market for the metaverse economy could grow to between $8 trillion and $13 trillion by 2030.”
Furthermore, Citi estimates that the overall number of metaverse users might be approximately five billion, according to the study.
Ronit Ghose, global head of Banking, Fintech, and Digital Assets at Citi Global Insights, detailed the report’s co-authoring:
“Expert contributors to the report indicate a range of users of up to 5 billion, depending on whether we take a broad definition (mobile phone user base) or just one billion based on a narrower definition (VR/AR device user base) — we adopt the former.”
In addition, the study describes how users would gain access to the metaverse. The authors wrote, “Consumer hardware manufacturers will be entrances to the metaverse and potential gatekeepers.” “Like today, there will most likely be a divide between a US/international and a China/firewall-based metaverse, as well as a spectrum based on technology and economic strategy, i.e. metaverse centralization against decentralization.”
Furthermore, the report states that “the metaverse of the future would encompass more digitally-native tokens, but traditional forms of money would also be embedded,” and that “the metaverse of the future would encompass more digitally-native tokens but traditional forms of money would also be embedded.”
“Money in the metaverse could exist in different forms, i.e., in-game tokens, stablecoins, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and cryptocurrencies.”
The authors also looked at how metaverse regulation may work, saying that “if the metaverse(s) is the next version of the internet, it will get a lot of attention from global regulators and policymakers.”
“All the issues of the Web2 internet, such as content moderation, free expression, and privacy, could be compounded in the metaverse,” they added, adding:
“In addition, a blockchain-based metaverse will brush up against still evolving laws around cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance (defi) in many jurisdictions around the world.”
Goldman Sachs, a multinational investment firm, estimated in January that the metaverse might be worth $8 trillion. Morgan Stanley, another prominent investment firm, anticipated the same magnitude for the metaverse in November of last year. Meanwhile, Bank of America believes the metaverse represents a significant opportunity for the whole crypto industry.