By David Birch and Victoria Richardson (including illustrations by Helen Holmes)
Money in the Metaverse: Digital Assets, Online Identities, Spatial Computing and Why Virtual Worlds Mean Real Business will be published in late April 2024 with an RRP of £22.50. To preorder a copy (with free UK postage and packing), see below.
The Metaverse – built from virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality – is arriving via wearable headsets that have cameras, microphones, speakers, sensors and communications built in. These spatial computing technologies create new social and economic connections, and while some of these connections are virtual, the business implications are very real.
The authors set out the potential for financial services in metaverses and the ‘always-on’ immersive future internet, beginning with a look at the key technologies needed to make these metaverses useful for businesses. They then go on to explore the emerging realities in which new markets will function and the digital assets that will be exchanged in transactions between online identities.
The book develops a comprehensive and practical model of the Metaverse and the nature of those new transactions in a business environment. It has a clear view of virtual worlds and it provides both a simple taxonomy for digital assets and a tried-and-tested model of digital identity that will provide a better understanding of the opportunities that exist in the many metaverses where we will work, rest and play in the near future.
Money in the Metaverse can be pre-ordered for £22.50 through our online shop:
Buyers in the UK get free postage and packing, while there is a flat rate fee for postage for buyers in Europe and the “Rest of the world”. Please ensure you use the correct option in the drop-down menu at the link above.
Anyone who orders the book before the 31st of March 2024 will receive it in advance of the official publication date (expected to be in late April).
If anyone wishes to order five or more copies, please email lpp@londonpublishingpartnership.co.uk as discounts may be available.
Praise for Money in the Metaverse
“Being a father to a son who is a huge Roblox fan, I’m very much aware of how comfortable the next generation already is with the Metaverse, and how entirely at home they are imagining the application of digital money and assets in that context. In fact, I pay my 14-year-old son’s allowance in Robux. So when Birch and Richardson map out the potential of business in these emerging virtual worlds, the cynics should listen. We were always going to end up doing business in the Metaverse, the only question was how quickly it would become a major sector in its own right.”
— Brett King, bestselling author of Bank 4.0, Branch Today Gone Tomorrow and The Rise of Technosocialism
“Provocative, insightful, and entertaining, this book is a perfect reminder that we’re still in the early stages of a digital revolution. For enterprises both big and small, understanding this is essential to ensuring one’s digital future, and this book provides an important practical framework for planning your journey.”
— Alan W. Brown, professor in digital economy, Exeter Business School
“In Money in the Metaverse Birch and Richardson explain the role of trust, security, data and DeFi in what will soon be a dominant domain for business: the Metaverse.”
— Ross Buckley, Australian Research Council Laureate and Scientia Professor at UNSW Sydney
“A must-read book for anyone wanting to delve into the future of financial services.”
— Jim Marous, The Financial Brand
“Rarely does a business-oriented book bring as much imagination to underpin its arguments as this one does.”
— Eva Pascoe, co-founder of Cyberia, London’s first internet café
“In a field full of hype and hand-waving, this is precisely the book we need: deeply researched, wide-ranging, systematic and incisive. This is the metaverse as a virtualisation of everything from commerce and leisure to industry and identity. An essential guide to the new infrastructures of value, exchange and trust that are shaping the twenty-first century.”
— Tom Chatfield, author of Wise Animals: How Technology Has Made Us What We Are
