Facebook-turned-Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has, in essence, staked his and his company's reputation and future on the metaverse.
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Editor's Note: Does the Metaverse Have a Leg to Stand On?
Molly Jane Zuckerman writes...
We may have missed the boat on the initial hilarity last week when Meta's Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his metaverse's new human legs, and it turned out that they were fake.
The Facebook-turned-Meta founder has, in essence, staked his and his company's reputation and future on the metaverse: beyond the name change, Meta has spent millions on developing an online world called Horizon Worlds that should change the metaverse game.
So far, it hasn't.
The game has been roundly mocked for almost all of its recent announcements, from the oddly lo-fi meta selfie of Zuckerberg in front of the Eiffel Tower, to reports that the Meta product team isn't using the project, to the lack of legs in the metaverse.
At least one of these pain points was supposed to be corrected this week, when Horizon Worlds previewed its legs feature with Zuckerberg dancing virtually on his brand new meta pins. Which turned out to be less real-time and more "animations created from motion capture."
We've said this a thousand times and we will say it again — metaverse gaming has a long, long way to go in order to catch up with the graphics, storylines and gameplay of AAA games that have ruled the gaming industry for decades.
If the metaverse is ever going to work, either at Meta or anywhere else, then legs probably need to exist in some form. Even though most virtual reality systems don't have human legs for their avatars (it's not just Meta falling behind here), metaverse game/world developers may need to get more creative about their understanding of a metaverse.
Who says that in a metaverse virtual world, humans need to have human legs? What if we had eight legs and spider-crawled or squid-inked across the screen? Or a dolphin tail? Or the floaty end of a ghost? Isn't this the metaverse?
Horizon Worlds is struggling right now 😬
An embarrassing new article sheds further light on Meta's battle to take the metaverse mainstream — with disappointing user numbers. According to The Wall Street Journal, Horizon Worlds currently has fewer than 200,000 monthly active users — and a target of attracting 500,000 by the end of 2022 has been slashed. A big problem for Mark Zuckerberg's platform concerns how many users don't return to the app after the first month of use, the newspaper reported. All of this has contributed to dwindling user numbers — and now, just 9% of the worlds that have been built within this metaverse actually get visited by more than 50 people. In a survey, users claimed they were struggling to find virtual spaces they actually liked.
Brian Armstrong is selling Coinbase stock 📉
Brian Armstrong has revealed that he's selling 2% of his Coinbase stock to support scientists focused on increasing human life expectancy. In a rather eyebrow-raising announcement, the CEO said he would be gradually offloading these shares over the next 12 months. Armstrong stressed that he intends to lead Coinbase "for a very long time" — and his plans shouldn't be misconstrued. According to Forbes, Armstrong owns about 19% of Coinbase's shares — and collectively, they're worth an eye-watering $2.7 billion. Offloading 2% of his holding would result in a $54 million donation, with NewLimit and ResearchHub named as two of the beneficiaries. Coinbase stock has had a pretty torrid 2022 — and year to date, it's lost about 75% of its value.
Mango Markets exploiter defends himself 🥭
A man who was involved in draining $114 million from Mango Markets last week has released a statement — and insists his actions were legal. Avraham Eisenberg says he was part of a "highly profitable trading strategy" — and the group were using the protocol as it had been designed. However, he argued that Mango Markets' development team "did not fully anticipate all the consequences of setting parameters the way they are." Eisenberg said the strategy had led to Mango Markets becoming insolvent because its insurance fund could not cover all liquidations, with users unable to access funds. He said he began negotiating a settlement "with the goal of making all users whole as soon as possible as well as recapitalizing the exchange."
