{"id":16542,"date":"2023-01-20T22:43:50","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T22:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2023\/01\/20\/lightspeeds-mercedes-bent-on-why-the-metaverse-isnt-overhyped\/"},"modified":"2023-01-20T22:43:51","modified_gmt":"2023-01-20T22:43:51","slug":"lightspeeds-mercedes-bent-on-why-the-metaverse-isnt-overhyped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2023\/01\/20\/lightspeeds-mercedes-bent-on-why-the-metaverse-isnt-overhyped\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightspeed\u2019s Mercedes Bent on why the metaverse isn\u2019t overhyped"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source:https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2022\/05\/21\/lightspeed-venture-partners-investor-mercedes-bent-metaverse-hype\/<\/a><\/br>
\nLightspeed\u2019s Mercedes Bent on why the metaverse isn\u2019t overhyped<\/br>
\n2023-01-20 22:43:50<\/br><\/p>\n

\n

On the Chain Reaction<\/a> podcast this week, we dove into a topic that tends to stir up strong emotions, even from those outside the crypto space \u2014 the metaverse. Mercedes Bent, an investor at Lightspeed Venture Partners who focuses on consumer investments in crypto, joined us to unpack this loaded term and explain why she sees its potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s become like a punching bag,\u201d Bent told TechCrunch. \u201cIf you think about the potential of it, and why maybe a geek like me gets excited about it, it\u2019s because there are things you can do [in the metaverse] that you could not do in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The prospect of attending an event with tens of thousands of other attendees across the world in the metaverse, for example, excites Bent. But even more than entertainment, Bent is enthusiastic about the potential for the metaverse to have an impact through education. She shared the hypothetical example of public school students being able to learn from the best instructors in the world in a metaverse similar to the movie \u201cReady Player One\u201d \u2014 though without the dystopian elements, she qualified. Bent\u2019s vision squares up with some of her non-crypto consumer investments at Lightspeed, such as small-group live education platform Outschool<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But what will the metaverse actually look like? When we asked Bent, who once worked for virtual reality technology company Upload, she said she used to think the metaverse had to be tied to VR technology, specifically the head-mounted display screen.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s since realized that what the metaverse has to offer has less to do with how users access it physically and more to do with the sense of community it can foster.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what this era \u2014 the 2021 and 2022 era of the metaverse terminology \u2014 has shown is that it\u2019s not about the headset, it\u2019s not about what physical apparatus you use, it\u2019s about the sense of [a] collective being together, and presence,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

While VR tech itself has been around for decades, Bent posits that the metaverse gained traction as a concept last year because it offered one thing classic VR games like Second Life did not \u2014 the ability to transfer in-game currency to fiat currency. Cryptocurrency, she believes, made that switch possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was obviously in-game currency and there were obviously virtual goods you could buy before, but the ability to be able to transfer that to fiat and then go use it in the real world to pay your rent bill is just something entirely different that we didn\u2019t have in such a mass quantity before,\u201d Bent said.<\/p>\n

That technological development coupled with the onset of the pandemic, which gave people the opportunity to spend more time online, gave the metaverse new life, she continued.<\/p>\n

Skeptics think the metaverse gets a lot of hype and isn\u2019t backed by substantial technology or user adoption. Bent said that in her experience, skepticism is to be expected for any early-stage consumer products.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese hyped areas look really non-obvious. I mean, they don\u2019t have traction; they\u2019re just an idea. They\u2019re often from a founder who hasn\u2019t necessarily had the most pedigree, so you have to kind of take a leap of faith,\u201d Bent said. Bent\u2019s mission as an investor is to back \u201cearly-stage consumer companies that are unlocking wealth creation for underserved individuals and regions,\u201d according to her website \u2014 a thesis that might help explain where she finds some of that faith.<\/p>\n

As an early-stage consumer investor, Bent pushes back on the idea that it\u2019s too early to fund consumer-facing crypto companies that haven\u2019t yet honed their user experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are not very many companies [in web3] that I would say have scaled to what I would call a mass audience yet. We have Metamask, which is pretty far along, but I think all of these companies are up for grabs in terms of [whether] somebody else could come along to replace them,\u201d Bent said. \u201cI think we\u2019re going to see the next WhatsApp, AOL and Google founded in short order.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Subscribe to Chain Reaction on\u00a0Apple<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a> or your alternative podcast platform of choice to keep up with us every week.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

<\/br><\/br><\/br><\/p>\n

Tech, Technology<\/br>
\n<\/br>
\nSource:https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2022\/05\/21\/lightspeed-venture-partners-investor-mercedes-bent-metaverse-hype\/<\/a><\/br><\/br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source:https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2022\/05\/21\/lightspeed-venture-partners-investor-mercedes-bent-metaverse-hype\/ Lightspeed\u2019s Mercedes Bent on why the metaverse isn\u2019t overhyped 2023-01-20 22:43:50 On the Chain Reaction podcast this week, we dove into a topic that tends to stir up strong emotions, even from those outside the crypto space \u2014 the metaverse. Mercedes Bent, an investor at Lightspeed Venture Partners who focuses on consumer investments in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","category-technology"],"yoast_head":"\nLightspeed\u2019s Mercedes Bent on why the metaverse isn\u2019t overhyped - Science and Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2023\/01\/20\/lightspeeds-mercedes-bent-on-why-the-metaverse-isnt-overhyped\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lightspeed\u2019s Mercedes Bent on why the metaverse isn\u2019t overhyped - Science and Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Source:https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2022\/05\/21\/lightspeed-venture-partners-investor-mercedes-bent-metaverse-hype\/ Lightspeed\u2019s Mercedes Bent on why the metaverse isn\u2019t overhyped 2023-01-20 22:43:50 On the Chain Reaction podcast this week, we dove into a topic that tends to stir up strong emotions, even from those outside the crypto space \u2014 the metaverse. 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