Nvidia’s CEO Talks Crypto, NFTs, and The Metaverse

Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO, talked about the future of the metaverse in a briefing with press members during Computex, including his views on NFTs and crypto.

The idea of the Metaverse has been part of popular culture for decades ever since American science-fiction author Neal Stephenson used it in “Snow Crash”. As seen in movies like Ready Player One, Tron, Altered Carbon, and many others, the Metaverse seems like an inevitable outcome of technological advancement.

The metaverse is a virtual world that connects with the world we currently live in, enabling people to interact with each other independently of physical barriers. Such a virtual world has a real design and economy, as well as avatars and digital assets that belong to users in a realistic manner.

With Nvidia being one of the leaders when it comes to Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), as well as in the gaming industry, Jensen Huang seems like one of the most qualified authorities to discuss the topic. As such, he was asked about the topic during the virtual computer exposition.

Asked about his thoughts on the metaverse, Huang stated his belief that “we’re right on the cusp of it” and that “there will be many types of metaverses.” He stated that components like VR and AR technology are coming together faster than ever before as a result of being more accessible and easy to use for consumers.

With Nvidia having its own metaverse project, dubbed Nvidia Omniverse, the company combines most products ever developed by its team of experts. It is currently being used by more than 400 companies including BMW, WPP, and Bentley.

Blockchain and Crypto Will Have an Important Role in the Metaverse

Due to the digital nature of the Metaverse, technologies like Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrencies are expected to have an important role.

As metaverses are all about user ownership over digital assets, the immutability of blockchain could provide a way for users to truly own anything they obtain through it.

Huan shared his stance on the potential economy of a metaverse by stating:

“The economy in the metaverse will be larger than the economy in the physical world. Digital currency, cryptocurrency, could be used in the world of metaverses.”

With NFTs growing in popularity around the world will also allow them to play an important role in the metaverse economy, allowing users to interact with the assets they own via AR.

Games like Decentraland and The Sandbox are already creating virtual worlds powered by blockchain, crypto, and NFTs, using them to represent everything from Virtual Land to the game currency.

The success of these two projects shows the increasing interest of institutional investors in such an approach, which could be “easily” translated into the metaverse.

The Graphic Card Industry Is Excited About Proof Of Stake

Huang was also questioned about the increasing demand that the crypto mining industry has placed in the graphic cards industry, which has resulted in increased prices and unavailability around the world.

In this regard, Huang said the reason Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other networks chose Nvidia’s GPUs for mining was their energy efficiency, performance, and benefits for distributed networks.

However, this popularity also resulted in a shortage problem in the semiconductor market, affecting more than graphic cards.

He said,

“Our strategy is to alleviate, to reduce the high demand that is caused by crypto mining, and create a special product, the CMP, directly for the crypto miners. If the crypto miners can buy, directly from us, a large volume of GPUs, and they don’t yield to GeForce, so they cannot be used for GeForce, but they can be used for crypto mining, it will discourage them from buying from the open market.”

This increasing shortage problem and the need for a more efficient method of crypto mining have led networks such as Ethereum to, “implement a second-generation.” With more people depending on DeFi, he believes that, “this is a great time for proof of stake to come.”

During the discussion, Huang also shared Nvidia’s commitment to protecting the GeForce supply for gamers, who have historically been the major source of income for the company, while also offering crypto mining with alternative solutions.

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