Me and my shadow are gonna look quite dapper in this new age on the way. And by “on the way” I mean pretty much already here.
I’ve sent you many a dispatch detailing one of the most significant trends in technology and society: The rise of the metaverse—a new take on what the internet will look like, how it will function, and how we will function inside of it.
Yes—inside of it.
While we’re not there yet technologically, the metaverse is going to be an all-encompassing, three-dimensional internet existing all around us. We’ll access it using virtual reality and augmented reality glasses and/or contact lenses.
Whatever you’ve read from naysayers scoffing at that idea, know this: They. Are. Wrong.
I say that with unshakable confidence because I am directly involved with the metaverse daily—talking to teams building the metaverse, hearing about the venture capital money they’re attracting into the metaverse, participating in an early version of the metaverse, and learning about the real-world companies that are not-so-quietly invading the metaverse already at this early stage.
Which is really where we jump into the meat of this dispatch.
Just recently, one of the metaverses I regularly rave about—a project known as Portals—announced a new partnership with global clothing giant Tommy Hilfiger to dress avatars in the metaverse.
Translation: Tommy Hilfiger is going to sell digital clothes under a line called Parallel Tommy Hilfiger…an apparel line for a parallel universe.
These digital clothes are tied to avatars of yourself that you can build through a company called Ready Player Me. You can then import your decked-out digital self into metaverses such as Portals. You effectively become you in an ethereal world.
Moreover, these digital clothes have a real-life doppelgänger that you can wear. Basically, then, you and your digital shadow can dress identically.
A Parallel Tommy Hilfiger advertisement showing a model and his digital avatar wearing the same outfit.
All of this sounds shrug-worthy at first. Why would anyone buy digital clothes? Why would anyone need an avatar of themselves? And who cares what the avatar is wearing?
Maybe the best answer is, “Ask Nike.”
The sportswear giant has so far sold $185.3 million worth of digital clothing. Dolce & Gabbana, Adidas, Tiffany, and Gucci have tag-teamed for $60 million in sales.
Why?
People in the metaverse want to look sharp. They want to show off their designer clothing, just as people in the real world do. Makes perfect sense. If you’re going to meet friends at a club in South Beach Miami or wherever, you want to look fly. No difference in the metaverse when you go to meet friends there.
Items of digital clothing—most of which are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that you can resell—are a symbol of fashion sense, membership, and affluence…just as in real life.
Who else cares about this are people like me—investors in the cryptosphere.
Peter Lynch, the famous mutual fund manager who once ran Fidelity’s Magellan fund, wrote in his book One Up On Wall Street that all you really need to do to succeed in the stock market is look around and pay attention to where people are spending their money. Look at the trends you’re seeing in your own life.
Well, crypto and the metaverse are trends.
They’re still burgeoning trends, given that such a small segment of global society is involved in the space yet. But they are trends nonetheless, and they are growing rapidly. Just the fashion component of metaverse spending is predicted to hit $6.6 billion by 2026.
Throw in gaming and sports and entertainment and avatars and education and on and on, and the metaverse is projected to see combined sales of $1.8 trillion to $5 trillion by 2030, according to several industry studies I’ve seen.
Even if we take the lower number…and even if that’s off by 90%…that’s still $180 billion, nearly 1,000x larger than Nike’s existing sales.
I absolutely want to be a part of that as an investor.
Investing in metaverse plays themselves can be challenging if you’re new to the game. But owning the brand-name cryptocurrencies that power these metaverses is going to pay off huge too.
Metaverses operate on the blockchain, and every transaction requires a small, usually insignificant fee denominated in that blockchain’s native currency. Thus, the ever-increasing number of transactions in various metaverses (and there will be uncountable numbers of metaverses) will mean an ever-increasing demand for cryptocurrencies that power those transactions.
So, owning those cryptocurrencies is the easy way to benefit as companies like Tommy Hilfiger, Nike, and others invade Portals and the many, many other metaverses that exist and which will be popping up.
You can make a small fortune simply because you own the cryptocurrency that hundreds of millions of people like me are going to be using as we step out into the metaverse looking all dapper in our digital duds.
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