The digital revolution that promises to establish the metaverse continues to arouse the interest of some investors attracted by the future explosion of web 3.0, and a new proof of this is the appearance in Europe of sectoral funds that are committed to this digital universe.
If at the beginning of December, the news about the creation of NFT exchange-traded funds focused the attention of the crypto world, financial institutions are betting at this beginning of 2022 on investing in the metaverse.
ETC Group, the financial firm responsible for launching the first German exchange-traded bitcoin product, announced on March 17 the launch of “Europe’s first metaverse-themed ETF,” to be listed on the London Stock Exchange under the METR label.
Europe follows in the footsteps of the United States
At the same time that ETC Group celebrated the launch of its European fund on March 17, in the United States they joined the celebration with the launch, that same day, of the ETF of the investment fund manager Proshares.
Proshares chose the same date to announce the launch of its own metaverse fund, listed under the VERS label.
According to the information provided by the manager, its exchange-traded fund “tracks 40 companies that cover a wide range of sectors, from device manufacturers to data processors, as well as social media, games and other platforms that facilitate interaction digital”.
Through the ETC Group fund, meanwhile, investors will gain exposure to “companies that are making their mark in the metaverse industry, such as manufacturers of virtual reality or augmented reality products, manufacturers of semiconductors, or wireless communications.”
One way or another, the relevant factor is that Europe was leading a trend that had already taken its first steps in the United States, where managers like Roundhill Investments were already leading the way thanks to ETFs like “METV”, which replicates the Ball Metaverse Index, “designed to track the performance of the metaverse.”
Big investors look to harness the impact of the metaverse
ETC Group founder and CEO Bradley Duke said at the launch of his company’s ETF that “the metaverse has been difficult for investors to avoid.”
“It has gone from being an obscure, theoretical idea to being described as the evolution of virtual reality, or the next iteration of the Internet, so our ETF will allow investors to gain exposure to this exciting investment opportunity,” it added.
This call to action to invest in a movement that can shape the future of society was also repeated by the CEO and founder of Proshares, Michael L. Sapir, who pointed out:
“The metaverse may have as much of an impact on society as the advent of the Internet or the mobile phone, and the investment opportunity has the potential to be just as compelling.”
The promise of “what the metaverse could become”, therefore, was extended as the common denominator of the launches of these ETFs, which supported their arguments in reports such as those of Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley, where figures of potential growth of the market up to 12 billion dollars worldwide.
“The metaverse has the potential for $8.3 trillion of total US consumer spending, depending on the level of disruption,” the Goldman Sachs report stated.
Morgan Stanley, meanwhile, noted that “the gaming and media landscape has already shown some key elements as to how the metaverse could evolve, and how topics like decentralized web activity and virtual experiences could become hallmarks of many of the coming waves of Web 3.0 computing.”
And so that investors can be attentive to this evolution without having to buy a plot of land in the metaverse, as HSBC or JP Morgan already did, these exchange-traded funds were born for sale both in Europe and in the United States.
