During 2022 it was hard to get around without running into the term “metaverse”. Following Facebook’s rebranding at the end of 2021, almost everyone was eager to tell us about their vision for digital worlds where we can work, play and socialize on a persistent platform.

Anyone who has been paying attention, however, will have noticed that these views often differ greatly. While Meta focuses on creating virtual reality environments, companies like Microsoft and Nvidia are developing metaverse environments to collaborate and work on digital projects. At the same time, those who believe that the future of the Internet is decentralized and blockchain-based are experimenting with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to enable ownership of…