The metaverse, a concept that was ripped from dystopian 1990s sci-fi book Snow Crash to facilitate futurist investments for cryptobros and NFT weirdos, is now a thing ANZ is thinking of becoming a part of.
The blue bank of Australia, as reported by iTnews, wants to get in on the latest buzzword, but doesn’t want to be too hasty about it, in that it needs answers to “really key questions” before entering the space.
The metaverse, mind you, being a crypto-washed collection of 3D worlds, gamifying the internet with heavy inspiration from videogames already doing this and a focus on transactions and buying assets. Sounds fun right?
ANZ’s stance is, to be fair, similar to how a lot of companies are standing on the peripherary of Web3 buzzwords. While plenty of companies are indifferent about the space, ANZ is willing to explore potential within it… Just not actively until there’s consumer protections in place.
Speaking at a Trans-Tasman Business Circle panel, as reported by iTnews, Nigel Dobson, the ANZ banking services lead, said that there’s opportunity to explore a business model that “makes sense”, while hype precedes the foundations of many companies in the space. He added that the metaverse is an “exponential version” of what’s already happening on the internet, including the privacy and security problems we’ve been trying to catch up with for decades now.
In short, ANZ’s argument is that cross-border regulation would need to catch up with the metaverse before the bank gets too caught up with it, and added that there’s potential in sharing information across various blockchains and worlds.
“I’m no expert in the space, but I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done in that space to ensure that we do bring some sort of trade-off between anonymity and privacy to accountability,” Dobson is quoted as saying.
“Otherwise, we will not move forward and the metaverse will become a dangerous place. Which if it does, then commerce will cease to exist.”
And that’s… Kind of it, really. He talked a bit about decentralisation, smart contracts and ANZ’s “stablecoin”, but ultimately the takeaway point is that the bank doesn’t want to jump into the space until it has some proper consumer protections.
There has been some enthusiasm in Australia with regulating cryptocurrencies, but nothing in the vein of the larger metaverse just yet. Regulation in the space doesn’t really exist anywhere, but it will likely catch up as enthusiasm builds.
It’s also not the first time ANZ has circled around the metaverse. Last week, ANZ Wordline’s collaboration project “Payment Solutions” revealed the first local brand to be showcased in their Decentraland showroom. What does that mean? They get an ad in a browser-based game.
As always, Web3 is going great.