Wall Street banking giant JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) has become the first major bank to enter the metaverse.
What Happened: The bank opened a lounge in blockchain-based virtual world Decentraland (CRYPTO: MANA) on Tuesday, and issued an 18-page report on how it sees the metaverse as a $1 trillion market opportunity.
JPMorgan’s virtual lounge is named Onyx, after its platform of Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) based services. Onyx is located in Decentraland’s Metajuku mall and features a jpeg image of CEO Jamie Dimon.
$MANA $SOL $ETH $JPM JPMorgan’s new lounge in Metajuku mall in Decentraland. Visitors are greeted by a digital portrait of Jamie Dimon and a roaming tiger. pic.twitter.com/cAZgVMFTj5
— Weather (@Weather40813438) February 16, 2022
“The metaverse will likely infiltrate every sector in some way in the coming years, with the market opportunity estimated at over $1 trillion in yearly revenues,” JPMorgan stated in the report.
The bank said it sees companies of all shapes and sizes entering the metaverse, including household names like Walmart Inc (NYSE:WMT), Nike Inc (NYSE:NKE), and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ).
“It is difficult to base a business strategy on such a dynamic space, characterized by explosive growth and the continuous innovation of new entrants. However, the costs and risks of engaging early and consistently in order to build internal intellectual property, develop hypotheses about future business models, and identify ecosystem partners and collaborators are relatively low,” the report indicated.
“The asymmetrical risk of being left behind is worth the incremental investment needed to get started and to explore this new digital landscape for yourself,” JPMorgan added.
Price Action: JPMorgan shares were trading 0.14% lower during the pre-market session on Wednesday. At press time, Decentraland’s native token MANA was trading at a price of $3.27, up 6.9% in the last 24 hours.
Photo by Paul Fiedler on Unsplash
