80% of Metaverse Users Use Crypto, Paypal Survey Finds

A Paypal survey on the metaverse showed that 56% of respondents said that their use of crypto will increase over the next five years. 

The study defined the metaverse as “a virtual space where users can act through an avatar and interact with each other and with a computer-generated environment.” It also cites both Meta and Roblox as metaverse companies.

Though the study digs into the role crypto plays, the metaverse definition used by Paypal is not directly related to blockchain technology.

The survey was commissioned by Paypal late 2022 and included 10,000 adults active in the metaverse.

Crypto and the metaverse

Eighty percent of metaverse users currently use crypto, while 97% of metaverse users hold coins — Bitcoin (BTC) takes the cake as the most-held coin, while ether (ETH) and robux (RBX) come in second and third. 

While the metaverse isn’t making easy money for people yet, this is an area that 75% of users are interested in, with the majority wanting to get paid in crypto over fiat despite the market downturn.

However, the metaverse has a few hurdles to overcome with it comes to both interoperability and safety of funds.

“For money in the metaverse to effectively perform the three core functions of money unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value), the metaverse financial infrastructure needs to provide three kinds of money interoperability – interoperability across metaverse platforms; interoperability between metaverse platforms and other online environments; interoperability between virtual and physical worlds,” the survey said.

The majority of those surveyed also seek the ability to either insure payments against fraud or store digital assets securely. 

“In the case of the metaverse, digital wallets could extend to enabling avatar verification and interoperability too,” the survey said.

The state of the metaverse

Paypal said that it expects spending in the metaverse to be in the billions. The survey found that the majority of the users currently engage with video games in the metaverse. 

Currently, people are spending $28 billion a year in the metaverse with slightly less than 38 million people. 

“Taking current users and future users in the U.S. together, the estimated total spending in the metaverse would be $72.6 billion in the next year and $92.7 billion per year on average in the next 5 years,” the survey said.

In the past year, there’s been mass speculation on the state of the metaverse — is it dead? Evolving? 

Meta, which renamed itself after its metaverse plans, was used as a prime example of the metaverse gone wrong, with the stock dipping below $100 throughout 2022 and Meta announcing thousands of job cuts. 

Meta’s metaverse unit lost a whopping $5.7 billion so far this year.

Even Microsoft let go of its metaverse team months after creating it. 

However, companies such as Fidelity and Gucci have entered the metaverse. Gucci teamed up with the Bored Ape Yacht Club back in March to see how fashion can interact with the metaverse. 

Fidelity has doubled down on its metaverse presence, launching Pancake Empire Tower Tycoon on Roblox and Bloom-o-rama in Decentraland. It’s also not the only — for first — traditional finance company to take steps in the metaverse, with both HSBC and JPMorgan both making their own metaverse moves. 

Apple announced a virtual reality headset on Monday, though the announcement – which happened during the Worldwide Developers Conference – made no direct mention of the metaverse or any of Apple’s plans to enter the category.

The survey’s conclusions compare the metaverse to camera technology. Basically, we may be able to access pictures of places across the globe, but that doesn’t stop people from visiting monuments — and has even evolved to allow us to have a camera with us at all times. 

“We imagine, though, that the metaverse will be more like the camera; not a wholesale replacement of our physical lives, but a supplement to them,” Paypal said.

---

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

• Blockworks Daily: The newsletter that helps thousands of investors understand crypto and the markets, by Byron Gilliam.
• Empire: Start your morning with the top news and analysis to inform your day in crypto.
• Forward Guidance: Reporting and analysis on the growing intersection of crypto and macroeconomics, policy and finance.
• 0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox. Market highlights, data, degen trade ideas, governance updates, token performance and more.
• Lightspeed: Built for Solana investors, developers and community members. The latest from one of crypto’s hottest networks.
• The Drop: For crypto collectors and traders, covering apps, games, memes and more.
• Supply Shock: Tracking Bitcoin’s rise from internet plaything worth less than a penny to global phenomenon disrupting money as we know it.