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

Upcoming Events

MON - WED, MARCH 18 - 20, 2024

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will take place March 18-20, 2024 at The Hilton London Metropole. Why London? Momentum. London has become one of the world’s hottest crypto hubs. Innovation is thriving, new institutional investors are flocking in, and regulators like […]

recent research

l1 cover.png

Research

This analysis focuses on financial metrics for general-purpose L1 blockchains. In many ways, L1s should be viewed as an entirely new asset class more comparable to digital economies than traditional businesses. L1s are the core infrastructure enabling the creation of new-age businesses like onchain protocols.

article-image

Bitcoin rose above $28,000 amid speculation about the approval of spot ETFs and the long-term trajectory of the market

article-image

The crypto exchange database is expected to launch by the end of this fiscal year

article-image

USDC’s CCTP is coming to Cosmos, and it’s already live on testnet

article-image

The complaint alleges Binance’s actions were aimed at monopolizing the crypto market by intentionally harming FTX entities

article-image

The partnership comes amid speculation that China’s views on crypto may be softening

article-image

Six ether-related funds by ProShares, Bitwise and VanEck saw combined trading volumes of about $2 million Monday