These ‘Undiscovered Gems’ Are the Future of Investing
In this segment, Financial News Anchor Jessica Borg interviews blockchain expert Marija Matic about how gaming, cryptocurrencies, social networks and the metaverse will merge, creating a vibrant, new virtual economy.
Marija is editor of Undiscovered Cryptos, wherein she focuses on up-and-coming projects — “hidden gems” — that investors can profit from even before being officially launched.
You can watch the video segment or continue reading for the full transcript.
Jessica Borg (narration): Crypto adoption is surging around the world, and it will play a huge role in a new kind of economy that’s already at our doorstep.
Marija Matic: I think 2023 adoption will be even bigger because we’re going to have many more games and metaverses launched, and the opportunities to acquire the users.
JB (narration): The future is always the focus for blockchain expert Marija Matic, who is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Cryptoeconomics.
As editor of Undiscovered Cryptos, she analyzes tokenomics.
MM: Tokenomics is like a monetary policy of tokens, so this space is evolving very fast. There are so many experiments. It’s incredible.
JB: You focus on the real gems, the cryptos that are up-and-coming.
MM: We call them undiscovered gems and it’s about the future of technology and how the traditional world lives within the gaming or social networking space, and financial space, and how it will evolve.
There is going to be a huge blend between gaming, social networking and the virtual world. You’re going to have everything in the same space.
JB (narration): They’ll be converging in the metaverse — 3D virtual worlds being developed.
JB: It can be really difficult to vet what has potential and what might not ever get off the ground.
MM: My aim is to find those ones that have strong teams, that have strong ideas, and that have some kind of competitive advantage.
In crypto, mostly everything is open source, and you can basically just copy and paste any kind of code, or fork it, and just copy a project.
When the project is so small, the most important thing when starting out is to not pick the scammers, because there are so many scammers in the space.
And when the project is very new, or very fresh, or very small, there is much higher risk.
When the project is starting, it really does need one team to devote its time to the project, before the project becomes decentralized.
With the small gems there are so many angles that need to be looked at and need to be followed, and I really love doing that. This is what I’ve been doing for years.
This is what excites me because I am a futurist type of person, and I really like to look in the future and predict what our future will look like.
So many games will live within the metaverse and within the virtual world.
JB (narration): They’ll be more advanced than current virtual games like Roblox (RBLX), which is enormously popular.
Roblox has its own rewards currency, but users need real dollars to purchase premium assets in the game.
MM: Add to that real crypto, and you will have a huge economy.
Crypto is just meant to be implemented in these kinds of games, or part of its own blockchain games.
You’re going to have real virtual economies, so I think gaming and metaverses will be a way to onboard people to crypto.
JB (narration): And they’ll include virtual real estate for sale.
This is Bloktopia, a virtual 21-level skyscraper with its own token.
Marija sees a big trend moving forward in selling in-game parcels for high prices, for things like stores and boutiques and virtual advertisements.
MM: Whether it’s a city or a building, or space — where you have spacecraft and planets and conquerors and everything — I’m quite sure that some virtual land will be of much higher worth, when it comes to the sale or rent, than real shops in Manhattan.
So that’s why we are seeing these games, these virtual worlds — even before launching their governance tokens — they are not only holding these large sales of land parcels within the game, but also other assets within the game.
Because the games have not fully launched, they have different kinds of economic incentives to buy certain non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and certain assets.
For example, you can buy a gas station and you can stake it, and you will get a governance coin, and a certain annual percentage yield (APY) of the governance token.
So, just by owning some of these assets right now, you can also earn governance tokens and wait for the game to launch.
But once the game is launched, these incentives will be replaced by the real economy.
JB (narration): She also sees NFTs and digital avatars given new life.
Nike (NKE) started a collection and fashion house Dolce and Gabbana has theirs, tokenizing its clothes on the Polygon (MATIC) network, which is complimentary to the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.
Marija envisions an app where you can use your avatar to take part in cross-compatible metaverses.
MM: What we have now, these two-dimensional representations of ourselves, are going to be a little bit different.
They may be 3-D, they may be “meta-humans.”
And we would be able to use our own avatar and move it from one metaverse, or one game, into another.
This is like Know Your Customer (KYC) verification. You have projects that are developing these kinds of things.
Maybe you will have a Netflix (NFLX) type of experience. For example, if you don’t want to use the virtual reality (VR) headset or other gadgets, you can maybe go to a Netflix-like app, and instead of choosing movies you can choose the metaverses and click on them with your unique avatar.
And your application for entering this social world will probably be a wallet, where your avatar will be stored as a type of NFT and it will also store land parcels that you earn within the games or virtual worlds.
Maybe you’ll own taxi stations, and then people who want to drive around in the taxis and crash them around will have to pay you and give you microtransactions and send you some tokens to rent these taxis from you.
JB (narration): Coins that are part of this crypto megatrend could soar.
Keep in mind, there is a lot of tech needed to build out these concepts.
MM: When it comes to metaverses, it’s not just one technology that needs to be developed, which is blockchain. There are so many different technologies.
We are talking about gadgets, maybe full bodysuits. We are talking about something called ‘mixed reality.’ For example, maybe it will have holograms or augmented reality.
It’s something where you can move between the worlds — the real world and the virtual world.
Maybe you get bonuses for Dolce & Gabbana clothes. They will be available somewhere on the street, but you can only see them if you open your camera on the phone.
JB (narration): The possibilities are endless, and so is the profit potential … if you’re savvy about what to invest in.
JB: Crypto analyst Marija Matic, it’s always great to speak with you. Thank you so much for your expertise and insights today.
MM: Thank you, Jessica. It was lovely speaking with you.
Best wishes,
The Weiss Ratings Team