Pepsi’s inaugural NFT collection, a series of cartoon microphones with Pepsi logo noses, was released last week. Budweiser, which changed its Twitter username to beer after purchasing an NFT and Ethereum domain name in August. Immediately, he replied “Greetings, brand new acquaintance. WAGMI.” “Thanks, fren! WAGMI,” Pepsi answered.
“This is going to look fantastic in the metaverse,” Facebook, which renamed itself Meta in October, tweeted to Pepsi.
“Just kill it all,” one Crypto Twitter user summed up the exchanges. “We’ve become the precise thing we came out to eliminate,” said another, sarcastically.
Adidas also announced a metaverse initiative with the studio behind Bored Ape Yacht Club this month, as well as purchasing a Bored Ape NFT and overlaying branded apparel over it. Nike purchased RTFKT, a metaverse shoe studio, so as not to be left out. A Sea Hams NFT and an Ethereum domain name were purchased by White Castle.
Nike’s move, in particular, sparked outrage among crypto enthusiasts. “Congrats on ur withdrawal from web3,” DIGITALAX’s Emma-Jane MacKinnon-Lee tweeted to RTFKT. It’s a shame you didn’t stick it out for the long haul. There’s still a lot of work to be done to revolutionize fashion and break free from legacy brand dominance.”
There were many “rip rtfkt” replies.
A conflict is on the verge of erupting. The fury can cut both ways: crypto people can see brands flooding into Web3 and making it uncool, similar to the many recent cases of gamers getting unhappy over crypto invading their platforms.
When Pepsi gleefully tweets it, crypto language like “WAGMI” (we are going to make it) could die quickly. In addition, Facebook’s attempt to recover the term “Even Keanu Reeves is appealing, “Can we just not have Facebook invent metaverse?” The concept of a metaverse is far older.”
But how about the technology?
Brands are scrambling to stake ownership claims in the metaverse, despite their attempts to adopt crypto terminology (and are already suing to do it). The concept of centralized businesses owning gated zones is diametrically opposed to the metaverse’s entire aim. The biggest challenge to an open metaverse, according to Animoca chairman Yat Siu, is tech giants like Facebook and Tencent, while Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney believes no single business can own the metaverse. Meta, on the other hand, is a powerful competitor, with 2 billion users and a market cap of $930 billion.
All of this reminds me of the 2018 “blockchain, not bitcoin” hype cycle, when banks and other financial organizations began claiming to be developing their own blockchains (crypto, ehh, not so much, that was still icky to them). Blockchain’s entire premise is that it is permissionless, open, peer-to-peer, and decentralized. A JPMorgan-controlled, closed, permissioned blockchain misses the point. Then there were the blockchain name revisions, which culminated in Long Island Iced Tea becoming Long Blockchain.
Is it possible that all the brands snatching up.eth domain names will make owning one of them a lot less cool?
If you believe the metaverse is genuine and here to stay, as well as crypto tools like Ethereum domain names, NFTs, and DeFi pools, you won’t mind brands racing in because if it all truly gets mainstream, everyone will be in. And, in order for crypto to thrive, it must welcome everyone and provide easier UX onramps for beginners.
Nonetheless. It’s difficult not to grimace when you see a cartoon microphone with a Pepsi logo on it.