The Next Frontier of Gaming: the Creator Economy

Play-To-Earn model currently attracts a lot of attention. Some Metaverse platforms allow users to not only interact with other players, but also to be rewarded with digital tokens convertible in real money.

Meta is building a creator economy on Horizon Worlds, a free VR platform, online video games developed by Meta for Oculus. On Horizon creators make money thanks to their own skills: Players use the platform’s tools to build custom VR spaces and play games together with coworkers and other players. Creators are basically VR world designers that create digital assets thanks to their technical skills and own the intellectual property rights to the content they create (NFTs). Today the gaming platform is only accessible via VR headsets, but because users monetize based on how much other players engage with the game content, Meta is planning to allow users to also access the platform via web in order to attract more gamers.

Another popular platform is Axie Infinity, a Metaverse game experience created on the Ethereum blockchain where users can purchase NFTs of their favorite monster and pit them against each other in battles. With the “play-to-earn” approach, creators are rewarded with crypto tokens - called Smooth Love Potion (SLP) – each time they sell their items. Moreover, they can also loan their NFTs to other players to use and earn with, and profits are divided between the parties. As of February, Axie Infinity had more than 1.8 million DAU and NFT sales volume of $4 billion. There’s no way to play the game without buying the three Axie NFTs needed to create your first team: If you win, you’re rewarded with SLP and you can convert your token into Ethereum, and then into dollars. That’s how users make money playing the game.

Compared with traditional gaming experiences, in Metaverse users are immersed in an environment where they can create, interact, explore, and participate in a wide variety of experiences.

In the Metaverse, most of the content users spend time with, is created by other users. Content creators are incentivized and rewarded based on how much time other users spend engaging with the platform, therefore, to increase profits it is crucial to continuously improve the user experience first, developing the underlying technology, then integrating new tokens in the platform.

It does not come as a surprise that gaming could become the entry portal for the Metaverse, because gaming is a fun and globally adopted activity, and is also extremely advanced technologically. The market opportunity for monetization through the gaming industry is massive, for both platforms and players: Today out of about 8 billion world population, 5 billion people are internet users, 4.6 billion are social media users, and 3 billion are video gamers ripe for potential conversion into Metaverse users.

In summary, gaming is still at the early stage of development in the Metaverse, but the rapid growth of its user base and the increased attention from big companies represents a huge opportunity to invest in the market. Moving from an independent virtual world to an integrated “digital twin of the real world” with better technology and experiences, will bring a wider audience of users and more per-users spending.

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The information in this article should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Delian Partners SA. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in this article are subject to change at any time without notice.

How is AI impacting the healthcare industry?

In the wake of the pandemic, the demand for better healthcare services is rapidly increasing. A smart hospital refers to a combination of artificial intelligence, cloud technology, and connected devices utilized to enhance patient’s care services and optimize hospital’s workflows. The objective is to create a connected ecosystem to provide patients with the best experience while allowing hospitals to increase their operational efficiency.

Healthcare startup Subtle Medical has developed a deep learning-based application which enhances images during the acquisition phase of the radiology workflow and improve hospital's productivity by reducing work hours for diagnosis. The company uses NVIDIA’s Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to improve PET image quality and shortening the image recognition pipeline, from 10 minutes to 10 seconds per patient.

Intel also uses AI based applications to make healthcare services more personalized, connected, and smart. Through Natural Language Processing (NLP), Intel is accelerating the development of telemedicine: In the next years for doctors, it will be normal to visit a patient remotely or to keep automatically note of a visit, uploading it directly into the Cloud. The combination of Telemedicine and AI will help smart hospitals to systematically analyze patients’ real-time data and to respond quickly to emergencies, as AI software can analyze data quicker than humans and more rapidly identify medical issues before they become calamitous.

Also, tech giant Apple is working with hospitals to make it easier for patients to share information with their doctors: Through the Apple Watch, people can share their health data with doctors and keep these recorded in a dashboard accessible through the app. Apple collaborates with many institutions to establish the clinical accuracy of Apple Watch features by continuously upgrading its software and technology, showing that the cardiac metrics it monitors is as good as clinical tests.

Smart hospitals are disrupting the healthcare industry. As reported by MarketWatch, the smart hospital market is expected to be around $77.80B by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 23.5% over the forecasted period. Technology can enrich people’s lives, and AI – including machine learning, deep learning, etc.- plays a critical role to reach this goal. By combining innovative infrastructure and smart technologies, it will be possible to create a metaverse where patients' health can be constantly kept under control and hospitals can respond quicker than ever to emergencies providing more personalized treatments.

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The information in this article should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Delian Partners SA. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in this article are subject to change at any time without notice.

Social Commerce: A growth opportunity for Shopping

Social commerce is a part of the broader e-commerce ecosystem resulting from the combination of a 16.4% growth in social media usage year-over-year and the need for companies to reach customers wherever they are. In short, social media platforms today help businesses turning customers’ dependence on images and video into shopping activity, providing them with an immediate purchase experience.

Instagram and Facebook are leading the social commerce trend worldwide. Recently, Shopify partnered with the two platforms to connect more than 1million merchants with a potential daily customer base of 500 million and 1.9 billion users, respectively. As reported by eMarketer, in the US, 58% of Millennials said social media are an important source of information when making shopping decisions. Shopify’s customers can discover products while navigating on their favorite social network and interact directly with brands via messaging and Livestream shopping. After that,, they can complete orders by paying on the social platform through Shop Pay.

Pinterest also offers a visual interface that is ideal for social commerce, but unlike other platforms, 97% of the top searches on Pinterest are for unbranded goods. This unique marketplace is a great advantage for small and medium-sized businesses because their content can gain visibility based on the quality of their product and not by brand awareness. In addition, Pinterest’s most distinguishing feature is the use of Augmented Reality on its platform: When users see something in the real world, they can take a picture using the Pinterest camera and run a visual search for similar products. Or again, through an AR feature called "Try On", users can try on different makeup, save for later shopping, or buy through the retailer’s site.

According to Statista, Social Commerce is currently worth $89.4B, but it is expected to skyrocket to $600B in the next seven-year, as more people grow accustomed to buying online. With evolving technologies and the increasing use of smartphones, social networks are a key distribution channel for companies to both find new customers and boosting sales.

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The information in this article should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Delian Partners SA. The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. The views reflected in this article are subject to change at any time without notice.