By Marlon Madden
There has been a growing interest in the digital world, and Barbados has not been left out of this action. In fact, Government has announced that it could be the first to establish a metaverse embassy, following the approval by Cabinet over the weekend.
But what exactly could this virtual reality look like and who are likely to benefit? Barbados TODAY chatted with prominent Barbados economist Jeremy Stephen, who outlined what a digital or metaverse embassy could mean for a range of sectors.
He explained that while a metaverse could allow for an individual to still get a physical item, it was more about the provision of an immersive experience.
“If a Bajan knows how to code already, they are ready for the metaverse. Anybody who jumped on the augmented reality train two to three years ago, which is the majority of the University of the West Indies computer programming students, any of them right now are ready for this,” he said.
Stephen said: “The great thing about the metaverse is that it should allow the average Bajan, if money is available, to invest and properly manage their investments”. It is expected that the Barbados metaverse embassy will provide for e-visas and teleportation. It will also offer a 3-D virtual environment for the identifying and purchasing of a digital range of products and services.
Stephen reasoned that this digital space should allow for a growing micro-finance space. “If the credit union movement is smart they will be looking at financing the same purchase of digital real estate or financing firms that are able to create digital asset in the metaverse,” he added.
“I see the legal fraternity becoming more adept at the use of smart contracts – contracts that can be verified and executed without the interaction of an intermediary . . . You also have the case where law firms could actually become more engaged in the whole idea of real property in the metaverse.
So it broadens the legal fraternity’s reach into not just different products produced by Barbadians, but possibly to represent the interest of persons wider afield,” he explained.
Officials are hoping to work with traditional partners and form new alliances to deepen engagement in a range of areas including investment, business, tourism and cultural services.
Pointing out that the benefits went beyond the obvious tourism and cultural industries, Stephen said the global business sector, agriculture and even individuals could benefit from the metaverse embassy.
“The international business community could also use metaverse as a way to prove substance. This was one of the issues that the Canadians and the Europeans in particular had with firms setting up in places like Barbados, where you have a company set up but it is a shell company and doesn’t do anything in that country.
“So the whole idea of the metaverse is that you can set up some kinds of substance – you can create legislation that says if this person has something running, for example, they bought a digital piece of real estate and they are able to hire people in the metaverse to do the work and if part of their company is to sell digital real estate or create digital products or non-fungible tokens as part of the business then that proves substance,” he explained.
He explained that as it related to agriculture, this would involve the testing and modelling of crops, using new technology and processes.
“They can see now, based on computer simulations, how it should grow. They can feel it a bit more and it might feel more real than just crunching numbers,” he said.
“The benefit therefore is that they spend less overtime on research and development and there is less wastage as a result of moving from just a number or conceptual stage into actual data and beta testing (a final stage that indicates an application is ready for release to the public). So any industry right now that can benefit from efficiencies, especially when it comes to technological efficiencies, are those who will benefit from the metaverse,” he explained.
Stephen further explained that the virtual and augmented reality could be mixed with real life, indicating that this would base on the kind of contract that is signed between the parties.
Using the increasingly popular NFTs (non-fungible tokens) as an example, Stephen explained that while these are non-interchangeable units of data on the blockchain, there was still a way for owners to easily obtain a physical copy of items such as paintings or audio.
“It can have terms attached to it which says the owner of the NFT is given these rights, not just the digital work of art, but ‘I the artiste will send them a limited edition replica or the original that I made but was then copied digitally’, or if you are smart, the NFT holder would be given certain rights of access to you the artiste so that if you put out more work in the future they would get first dibs which they can then sell again in the digital space or in the metaverse at a profit,” he explained.
The digital enthusiast pointed out that the metaverse would not be for everyone, explaining that “not everybody is going to get it, but the people who are getting it are the people who are taking people along with them”.
“That is the private sector, but the onus is really on Government to ensure that it doesn’t have blockages to these very organic forms of development,” he said, pointing out that several locals have already been involved in the space.
Stating that strong laws should be put in place to govern the metaverse, Stephen warned that “the worst thing you could ever hear is that the digital embassy or the metaverse embassy was hacked because there is a loophole in legislation that basically bound the developers of it to producing very crappy code”.
Government is said to also be finalising agreements with Somnium Space, Superworld and other metaverse platforms.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday
