The view from Aaron Grinhaus’s office, which was not located in midtown but in the metaverse, was a popular topic of conversation among his coworkers and friends. Two park benches were placed near the water feature, and a denim blue sky was seen above. Companies’ moves into the virtual world were reported on in the latest metaverse news.
Toronto law firm Grinhaus entering metaverse
“It’s a cute little office,” the lawyer said in an interview on January 25.
The Toronto law firm Grinhaus is one of a growing number of companies that are setting up offices in a virtual world called themetaverse to push the limits and learn more about cutting-edge technology.
People are very interested in the future of the metaverse. Citigroup said that the market could be worth between $8 trillion and $13 trillion by 2030, and Goldman Sachs said that as more people do business in the metaverse, up to a third of the global digital market could move there.
But it’s not a foregone conclusion yet. Meta Inc., the company that owns Facebook, has put a lot of money on the metaverse. It even used the idea as part of its new name. If Citigroup’s prediction comes true, Meta will have been part of a growing industry from the beginning, but its part of the business that deals with the metaverse will have lost US$13.72 billion by 2022.
Grinhaus Canada’s first metaverse office
Grinhaus has been helping clients for a long time who are interested in bitcoin, mining cryptocurrencies, and other projects that use cryptocurrencies and other cutting-edge technologies. He helps run the blockchain law program at the Osgoode law school and wrote the first legal textbook on blockchain law in 2019. Blockchain is the technology that makes it possible to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.
In January 2022, his law firm opened the first office in Canada that was in the metaverse.
Grinhaus says that the metaverse is an online place where people can talk to each other and do business.
Grinhaus agrees that it doesn’t sound too different from something on Facebook or Instagram. He thinks of the metaverse as a spectrum with social media on one end and virtual reality headsets on the other.
“Most people have been engaged in the metaverse for years. And they didn’t even know it,” he said.
The law firm’s office in Decentraland is somewhere along that range. Even though VR headsets are optional, Facebook is still a lot more fun to use without one. Anyone who has played “The Sims” might be able to guess how people use their avatars to interact with each other and explore the environment. On the company’s website, you can find the address of the Grinhaus office in Decentraland.
On metaverse platforms like Decentraland, where Grinhaus’s company is based, plots of land are sold using NTFs, or non-fungible tokens. NTFs are digital assets whose ownership is verified by the blockchain.
Brian Peterson, who is in charge of the Americas Metaverse at EY Canada, says that there are many business opportunities in the metaverse.
“We’re pretty comfortable now having virtual meetings and virtual conversations. So I think it’s a natural extension to try to get more human in our virtual experiences,” he stated.
Peterson says that businesses need to think about how they will deal with issues like ability, identification, and access in these new realms, even though EY’s metaverse lab is looking into it right now.
If a company builds an office in the metaverse without taking some of these things into account, employees may feel very alone.
Grinhaus thinks that the metaverse could be a useful tool for many jobs and make them easier to get into if it is used correctly. Some people might find it strange or silly.
“People think it’s very hard to understand, but it’s not. He also said that it was just another way to get in touch.
The law firm of Grinhaus can do a lot of things in the metaverse, but not everything, at least not yet.
Lawyers have to follow strict rules. For example, they have to check the names of potential clients before agreeing to contracts that let them help people with legal problems. There are several digital systems that make this possible, but Grinhaus, who always gets it wrong on the side of caution, said it’s up to the lawyer to decide if they’re comfortable that they’ve confirmed a client’s identity.
“I’m not skimping on anything. With the new technology, we’re adding to or improving what we already do to make communication better.
Grinhaus says that the same rules apply to giving and taking money. Since 2016, his law firm has worked with bitcoin. He also said that, no matter the currency, identity verification is important for all financial transactions.
Peterson says that the business world will show how useful the metaverse is. Businesses must consider their goals as technology advances and the potential applications for the metaverse become more clear, he said.
“If an organization creates an office in the metaverse and they don’t design around some of those things, then it can actually be quite isolating for employees.”
Some businesses look for these applications and possible problems on purpose.
In June, KPMG opened its metaverse collaboration center to U.S. and Canadian employees and clients. Kareem Sadek, co-leader of the firm’s crypto assets and blockchain practice, said that, unlike the Grinhaus office, it is not on a decentralized platform but on a private one that the firm has licensed. This is similar to how a company might get a license for Zoom or Microsoft Teams. That means you need a permission slip to get in, which gives you more freedom.
Katie Bolla, who co-leads the company’s metaverse offerings, says that over the past seven months, the KPMG hub has held workshops, meetings, training, roundtables, and other types of interactions. Others use headsets instead of computers or cell phones.
When people walk into the hub, they see a wide, open space with waterfalls, tropical plants, and noise in the background.
Bolla stated that you can kind of push the limits of physical reality to make something more immersive.
The expert says that if a company wants to get its employees more involved, the metaverse can be a better tool than video conferencing and cheaper than flying people around.
Bolla said that the goal is for the hub to be used in a more casual or natural way in the future. For now, though, KPMG plans a variety of activities and meetings there to encourage exploration.
“Even though it was launched last year with a single use case in mind, we haven’t stopped building and developing and expanding on it,” she said.
Content Source: ca.finance.yahoo.com
Cover Image Source: t3.com
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