How Megabanks Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley Are Talking About the Metaverse

More and more Wall Street firms are addressing the metaverse and Web3 to clients and investors, a potential sign of adoption

share

key takeaways

  • Morgan Stanley sees the metaverse as an $8 trillion market
  • Goldman Sachs said blockchain is one of the most “disruptive technologies” since the 1990s

Morgan Stanley, the Wall Street giant that manages $6.4 trillion in assets, said the metaverse will be “the next big investment theme” in a note to clients last month. On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs then described blockchain as being key to Web3 development in a report. 

More and more behemoth financial institutions are addressing the metaverse to clients and investors. 

“[The metaverse] can fundamentally change the medium through which we socialize with others,” Edward Stanley, an Equity strategist at Morgan Stanley, said. 

Stanley added that certain stocks in gaming and tech sectors such as Roblox and Meta (formerly Facebook), along with those concentrated on augmented reality like Alphabet Inc., can benefit from growing adoption of the concept as well. 

Goldman Sachs sees blockchain as one of the most “disruptive technologies” in the past several decades, including the advent of the internet. 

“We believe that the metaverse is likely to be an amalgamation of different 3D spaces and that users will move between these regularly,” Rod Hall, an analyst for Goldman Sachs, said. “If any virtual goods or services are unable to move from one space to another with the user, we believe their value is likely to be more limited.”

Atomic Form co-founder Garrette David described the banks’ reports as “a huge positive,” adding it signals further adoption by institutions who have been historically skeptical of cryptocurrency as an asset class at all.

“Given the speed at which they’re reporting it, I would say we are definitely mainstream. It took banks years to publicly sell interests in, or comment on, economics behind public networks and blockchains,” David said, who runs a startup that develops non-fungible token displays and a Web3 platform.

According to Goldman, it will take “many years” and “cross-company collaboration” to seamlessly onboard millions of users into the virtual augmented world. 

“Investment implications are hard to predict at this juncture, but companies who are dependent on centralized control of user identity will likely find their business models challenged by the adoption of blockchain,” Goldman said.


Get the day’s top crypto news and insights delivered to your inbox every evening. Subscribe to Blockworks’ free newsletter now.


Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (19).png

Research

Suilend has grown into the top money market and liquid staking provider on Sui. STEAMM, Suilend’s Superfluid AMM, presents a compelling avenue for growing market share within Sui’s DEX landscape and revenue generation for the protocol. Suilend’s multi-product suite position it well for owning market share across key verticals. While current metrics across the Sui ecosystem are likely inflated due to Sui Foundation incentive programs, SEND trades at amongst the lowest multiples in the lend/borrow sector, suggesting that a bull case for continued growth in the ecosystem may be mispriced.

article-image

A Blockworks Research report looked at who could take up some of the marketshare in the launchpad space

article-image

Business-to-business stablecoin payments are on the rise, per a report from Artemis, Dragonfly and Castle Island

article-image

Crypto continues to do its thing: incentivizing behavior

article-image

Kraken will soon offer Backed ‘xStocks’ as Solana tokens

article-image

In a unanimous decision, the US Court of International Trade has ruled that Trump’s IEEPA tariffs are unlawful

article-image

The platform has over $22 million in assets and allows anyone to invest in tokenized real estate