Asia’s Richest Man, Mukesh Ambani, Thinks Metaverse will Unlock Next Generation of Value Creation
The Indian billionaire chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, endorsed blockchain technology and DeFi at a recent event as India’s parliament debates a crypto bill.
Mukesh Ambani; Source: World Economic Forum / Eric Miller
key takeaways
- Mukesh Ambani believes that blockchain and DeFi will level the playing field when it comes to finance
- Ambani thinks the metaverse will unlock a new decade of “tremendous value creation
The richest man in Asia, Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani is majorly bullish on blockchain as the country prepares to introduce a bill to regulate the crypto sector.
“Digital technology, I believe, is a great leveler, a great democratizer,” he said during the Infinity Forum. “Today it still is a world where large companies get easier finance and small companies don’t get easier finance, and the same thing with people, and I think that will change.”
Ambani’s Reliance Industries is a conglomerate made up of telecom, retail, logistics, and life sciences companies. It owns a controlling stake in Jio, the nation’s largest mobile phone operator.
In the next decade, the introduction of a regulated crypto industry into India “will enable and redefine the decentralised financial sector in a way we have never imagined,” he said.
In a country as unequal as India, which has seen the Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality, rise in the last decade, Ambani believes that finance powered by digital ledgers will be the great equalizer in the country.
“The new oil, data, can be generated and consumed everywhere and by everybody. It has the potential to create value equitably across sectors, geographies, and economic classes,” he said.
Ambani also believes that the metaverse will unlock a new decade of “tremendous value creation” where “ideas and innovations will become more valuable” rather than the amount of physical capital an entrepreneur has access to.
“We are witnessing the fourth revolution, that is the digital-first revolution, where digital will be life for billions of people — which will be used in all technology — five or six kinds of technology will merge together, they will transform the whole world,” he continued.
“Therefore, the coming digital-first revolution is going to make our world and make India more inclusively prosperous than we can now imagine.”
Ambani makes these comments as India’s parliament prepares to review and vote on a comprehensive crypto bill. Early reports said that the bill would “ban private cryptocurrency” but in fact it would only ban private crypto wallets.
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