ProShares Strategist Says Metaverse Presents ‘Half a Trillion-Dollar Opportunity’
The word metaverse has been gaining a lot of traction in recent months, ever since Facebook rebranded to Meta in order to focus on this new virtual world.
Investment in the metaverse and metaverse technology has grown significantly over the past year and according to ProShares Advisors Global Investment Strategist Simeon Hyman, metaverse presents an investment opportunity for individuals and institutions alike.
“Today you have an immersive but not quite interconnected metaverse,” Hyman told Yahoo Finance Live.
“There’s already a half [a trillion] dollars being made in the metaverse. That’s likely to double even in the context of just the near term [with] social media, interactive gaming, and live music, before we even get to the interconnected piece on the other side.”
ProShares recently launched its metaverse ETF (VERS) designed to give investment access to companies shaping the digital frontier.
The VERS ETF tracks Solactive’s Metaverse Theme Index includes 40 companies across a broad range of industries, from data processors and software to social media and gaming. It utilizes algorithms to determine metaverse investment opportunity as it evolves.
A few of the companies tracked include Apple (AAPL), NVIDIA (NVDA), Roblox (RBLX), Microsoft, Meta, Snap Inc. (SNAP), and Unity (U).
“It’s really interesting, when you look at the basket of companies,” Hyman added. “It’s almost like a timeline of innovation over the years, because companies like Microsoft are there, but so is NVIDIA, and of course Meta, but more recent companies like Roblox and even more recently than that, a company like Unity. So this is an evolving opportunity.”
According to Hyman, funds like ProShares’ metaverse ETF are forward-looking, although the companies included are already currently generating revenue within metaverse.
“And, you know, what we’ve found over the last decade or so, is that some of these transformational thematic ideas can be very, very important parts of that growth piece of your equity portfolio,” he said.
Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.