prolly nothing... https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/16/walmart-is-quietly-preparing-to-enter-the-metaverse.html Walmart is quietly preparing to enter the metaverse PUBLISHED SUN, JAN 16 202210:32 AM ESTUPDATED 3 HOURS AGO Lauren Thomas@LAURENTHOMAS SHARE KEY POINTS Walmart appears to be venturing into the metaverse with plans to create its own cryptocurrency and collection of NFTs. The big-box retailer filed several new trademarks late last month that indicate its intent to make and sell virtual goods. In a separate filing, the company said it would offer users a virtual currency, as well as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. A shopper carries a bag outside a Walmart store in San Leandro, California, on Thursday, May 13, 2021. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images Walmart appears to be venturing into the metaverse with plans to create its own cryptocurrency and collection of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. The big-box retailer filed several new trademarks late last month that indicate its intent to make and sell virtual goods, including electronics, home decorations, toys, sporting goods and personal care products. In a separate filing, the company said it would offer users a virtual currency, as well as NFTs. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Walmart filed the applications on Dec. 30. Source: Gerben Intellectual Property In total, seven separate applications have been submitted. In a statement, Walmart said it is “continuously exploring how emerging technologies may shape future shopping experiences.” It declined to comment on the specific trademark filings. “We are testing new ideas all the time,” the company said. “Some ideas become products or services that make it to customers. And some we test, iterate, and learn from.” Source: Gerben Intellectual Property “They’re super intense,” said Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney. “There’s a lot of language in these, which shows that there’s a lot of planning going on behind the scenes about how they’re going to address cryptocurrency, how they’re going to address the metaverse and the virtual world that appears to be coming or that’s already here.” Gerben said that ever since Facebook announced it was changing its company name to Meta, signaling its ambitions beyond social media, businesses have been rushing to figure out how they will fit into a virtual world. Source: Gerben Intellectual Property Nike filed a slew of trademark applications in early November that previewed its plans to sell virtual branded sneakers and apparel. Later that month, it said it was teaming up with Roblox to create an online world called Nikeland. In December, it bought the virtual sneaker company RTFKT (pronounced “artifact”) for an undisclosed amount. “All of a sudden, everyone is like, ‘This is becoming super real and we need to make sure our IP is protected in the space,’” said Gerben. Gap has also started selling NFTs of its iconic logo sweatshirts. The apparel maker said its NFTs will be priced in tiers ranging from roughly $8.30 to $415, and come with a physical hoodie. Meantime, both Under Armour’s and Adidas’ NFT debuts sold out last month. They’re now fetching sky-high prices on the NFT marketplace OpenSea. Gerben said that apparel retailers Urban Outfitters, Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie & Fitch have also filed trademarks in recent weeks detailing their intent to open some sort of virtual store. A report from CB Insights outlined some of the reasons why retailers and brands might want to make such ventures, which can potentially offer new revenue streams. Launching NFTs allows for businesses to tokenize physical products and services to help reduce online transaction costs, it said. And for luxury brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton, NFTs can serve as a form of authentication for tangible and more expensive goods, CB Insights noted. Gerben said that as more consumers familiarize themselves with the metaverse and items stored on the blockchain, more retailers will want to create their own ecosystem around it. According to Frank Chaparro, director at crypto information services firm The Block, many retailers are still reeling from being late to e-commerce, so they don’t want to miss out on any opportunities in the metaverse. “I think it’s a win-win for any company in retail,” Chaparro said. “And even if it just turns out to be a fad there’s not a lot of reputation damage in just trying something weird out like giving some customers an NFT in a sweepstake, for instance.”
If you've ever seen a bunch of C-suite executives talk mindlessly amongst themselves, this is exactly what metaverse looks like to me.
I honestly think the idea in general for NFT's and the Metaverse is kind of dumb. Sure, use NFT's to show how rich you are because why not buy GIF art for 100 ETH. Likewise, if you're a fat ass, lazy couch potato, then go play around in the metaverse vs. the real world. Perhaps I understand why companies are eager to pile in to own a piece since they may need to advertise there, but its about the only useful utility I see. But here is the thing. If we want BTC to be successful, if we want the government to not have the power to print up unlimited cash, and if we want free market capitalism to reward risk takers but also punish the ones who fail, then this means we won't have all this cash floating around to waste on this stupid shit. If sound money like BTC flourished even sooner, I don't think we'd have the billionaires that we do today, and I don't think we'd have the income inequality that we have. All that NFT's show me is the results of a reckless FED. I do like the idea behind tokenized ownership that is permissionless, but NFTs right now are only in style because of their price appreciation. So my point is that to those of us who see the value in the BTC standard, the idea of "hard and sound" money, then we also cannot think that people will be wasting away doing jack shit in the metaverse and wasting obscene amounts of money on pixel art. Governments only have money to distribute because its free for them to print it up, and they are directly at the center of all the grave injustices that technology has brought. If we had sound money, and governments could only distribute what they collect, the entire fabric of our society would be re-written. I understand the thesis of Jeff Booth and the deflationary aspect of technology, but we are a long way away from people working 4 hours a week and have that be enough of a contribution to society so that they can rightfully reap the rewards of said technology. In contrast, what will first happen with the collapse of fiat currency is that each unit of some new digital currency, perhaps even BTC, that cannot be printed out of thin air will be cherished. People will have to provide something useful in order to earn it, and there won't be this extreme excess of consumerism. If the metaverse in fact saves time and money, they sure, it will be easily accepted and flourish, but I think the future will be all about meeting basic biological needs like food, water, shelter, etc. Even something like healthcare will collapse because without unlimited money to throw at problems, you won't get big pharma pushing their weight around, or greedy hospitals fleecing patients. At least this is my hope for what comes out of the fiat collapse.
What is 1 BTC worth again? How many bottles of water? How many pallets of Ramen noodles? How many avocados? How many bags of rice can I get with my NFT of a My Little Pony .gif? Refresh my memory.
If you can create, say 8 polygons in Autodesk, apply a jpeg texture and place it for sale on any site, you could be called as someone who just entered metaverse & NFT's. That would take about an hour or so. For a newb to do. With some YT tutorial. 100+ yr old ,,NFT" -
the adoption of NFTs of both digital and real items i think is a trend we'll continue to see. consider how houses, cars, plots of land, etc, etc, are currently sold and bought with deeds, lawyers, etc. i think the future is that property and large capital items will be "NFT'ed" making the sale and transfer much more streamlined, and everything recorded on the blockchain which is decentrally secured. do i think a jpeg of a pixelated kitten is worth 2 ETH? no. but the technology is finding support all over the place and so the possibilities are endless.
These early stages of NFTs is seeing novel pictures of monkeys that are going for silly money as people attempt to get involved and pay whatever for the pleasure but moving forward I see NFTs being an integral part of day to day life. As such early adoption but some of these large cap companies is likely prudent of them.
makes sense. why sell cheap chinese crap when you can sell virtual crap that costs even less to make ?
I predicted this back in 2013 or so. I even gave them ideas how to do it, mind you back then, not many people used crypto for purchases. It would have been very easy for Amazon to introduce their own currency and make it popular (unlike BTC) right away. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...ered-crypto-domain-names.314789/#post-4541431