Vitalik Buterin Takes a Dig at the Metaverse, Calls It a Branding Ploy

Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin says that Metaverse isn’t what we think it is.

The Metaverse is broadly understood as a virtual decentralized world with immersive social settings and experiences that utilize avatars, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) technologies, with blockchain technology being the tie that binds this all together.

“The Metaverse is poorly defined and often seen more as a brand name than a product. It’s envisioned as a virtual universe where everyone can participate and is not owned by anyone,” Buterin said on stage during the BUIDL Asia conference in Seoul. "It’s frequently associated with virtual reality, where needs are simpler, akin to wanting a laptop without the laptop.”

Buterin continued, arguing that while the Metaverse is often associated with virtual reality, it's not the be-all and end-all of the metaverse.

“It’s super useful but not really a-verse," he said.

For the metaverse to work properly, we need something that combines “all the different virtual world elements we already have, including crypto, virtual reality, and some AI parts, in the right way," he said.

Also, on stage at BUIDL Asia, Buterin said that if account abstraction is going to become mainstream, it must balance security and convenience, something that Ethereum doesn’t yet have in place.