BBuiuilldinding a Rg a Reessppoonnssibiblle Me Meettaavveerrssee Our study found that 68% of consumers say they would like to use the same avatar across multiple platforms.11 Interoperability The many communities, platforms, marketplaces distributed systems and applications. The most and worlds of the metaverse are likely to operate likely outcome of these efforts and others is that with different degrees of openness. But users some parts of the metaverse will be built on open want to interact seamlessly with applications and and interoperable standards, while others will be service providers across virtual worlds and digital walled off and operate under proprietary standards. asset platforms—and there are opportunities to drive interoperability and openness into the In the longer term, companies must overcome foundation of the metaverse. several challenges to achieve interoperability. First, it is difficult to align economic incentives, We are currently creating an enterprise-grade and it is particularly hard to balance the and vendor-agnostic universal wallet that equities of new entrants and incumbents, as houses users’ tokenized assets such as money, well as those of platforms, publishers and objects and identities. The solution serves as a content creators. Second, technology must be window of interaction between various actors engineered to enable interoperability, which and metaverse platforms to enable verifiability, is a lengthy and time-consuming process trade, ownership and—most importantly— that requires mobilization of vast resources, trust between parties. In addition, several as well as collective agreement and action consortia and standards bodies, including the from metaverse platforms. Third, different Hyperledger Foundation, the World Economic approaches to metaverse platform governance Forum and the Khronos Group, have efforts (e.g., decentralized community-based or underway to improve interoperability across centralized governance) introduce additional complexities around security and privacy. 13