JPMorgan becomes the first bank in the Decentraland metaverse

JPMorgan, the largest US lender, had become the first bank to arrive in the metaverse, having opened the Onyx lounge in a blockchain-based virtual world Decentraland. According to a report, the bank sees “limitless” opportunities in the virtual world, with a new workforce and expanded virtual real-estate ownership financed by DAOs.

JPMorgan Chase has opened a lounge in Decentraland, as the biggest bank in the US looks to capitalize on what it says is “limitless” opportunity in the virtual world known as the metaverse.

In Decentraland, one of the most popular metaverses, the bank’s Onyx lounge resides in Metajuku, a virtual version of Tokyo’s Harajuku shopping district. A tiger wanders the first floor, and a picture of the bank’s boss Jamie Dimon hangs on the wall. A winding staircase leads to the second floor, where a person’s avatar can watch experts talk about the crypto market.

JPMorgan’s new footprint in virtual real estate coincided with the bank’s release of a white paper on opportunities in the metaverse – a market which it said could eventually generate $1 trillion in annual revenues.

Christine Moy, the global head of Liink, Crypto & the Metaverse for JPMorgan, tweeted that the bank wrote the paper to “help clients cut through the noise and highlight what we would love to see built or scaled next in commercial infrastructure, tech, privacy & identity, workforce, and social governance,” in the metaverse.

For example, the bank sees expanded virtual real estate ownership and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) as the financial arm for those purchases.

In just six months in 2021, the average price of a parcel of virtual land doubled to $12,000 from $6,000, the report noted. JPMorgan also sees a new workforce and more virtual concerts like Ariana Grande’s.

“We are now at an inflection point, where it seems that not a day goes by without a company or celebrity announcing that they are building a presence in a virtual universe,” the report said.

Increasing mainstream adoption of the metaverse is also being driven by interest from massive brands, noted JPMorgan, citing Adidas’ and Nike’s move to create NFT-based products and shopfronts, with Samsung opening a metaverse store as giant steps forward in adoption.