Lily Snyder

JPMorgan opened a lounge in Decentraland. They’re now a metaverse company. Or are they?

I decided to visit the Onyx lounge myself.

It was not easy to find the lounge. I had to look through a couple articles before one that listed the coordinates. It’s at Metajuku mall at 94,21. Once there it was easy to find the lounge. A large JPMorgan sign hung outside the entrance.

I expected to talk to a JPMorgan representative or possibly interact with some 3D objects. Instead, I was greeted by a difficult-to-read timeline of the blockchain and 2D videos. The videos opened in a new tab outside of Decentraland.

There were a couple other people in the lounge but we didn’t talk.

J.P. Morgan is enabling the gaming ecosystem

This isn’t to say JPMorgan only launched a lounge in Decentraland for hype. They wrote a white paper titled Opportunities in the metaverse by Christine Moy and Adit Gadgil. I think JPMorgan knows just what they’re doing.

“In fact, the financing company may not be a company at all, but instead, a self-organizing, mission-based community of people (who may not have met at all in person), also known as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).”

Opportunities in the metaverse

The paper outlines the hype versus reality of the metaverse. They acknowledge that technology, commercial infrastructure, privacy and identity, the workforce of the future, and regulation all have work to do to form a true metaverse.

JPMorgan believes its “approach to payments and financial infrastructure will allow that interoperability to grow.”