The Metaverse Podcast - Metaverse Insights from a Banking Leader, with Lam Chee Kin of DBS Bank

Primer: DBS is Singapore’s leading consumer bank. What are their strategies concerning the Metaverse? Let’s find out from Lam Chee Kin, Group head of Legal and Compliance at DBS, in this episode of the Metaverse Podcast.

Background

• Group head of Legal and Compliance at DBS Bank

• Is a geek and gamer who has been exploring immersive worlds

• Started out gaming with the TRS-80 computers

Web3, The Metaverse, And Immersive Reality

• One definition of the metaverse is anchored on social media

• Another definition of the metaverse is anchored on Web3/DeFi-denominated, blockchain-denominated alternate realities

• Another version of the metaverse comes from games that are not Web3 or social media-centered

How Will These 3 Things Be Unified Together?

• Is a believer in the social and psychological value of being able to experience things that are beyond our normal physical limitations

• The metaverse is anchored on the human being being able to immerse himself in an alternate reality and all the potential benefits and risks it brings

• Immersive reality enables people to experience sustainability-related initiatives in countries they would not normally visit or take risks they would not normally take because it is too dangerous

The 3 Pillars Of Immersion, Delivery, And Digital Assets

• The primary factor driving the compelling nature of the metaverse is the idea of immersion

• In an aging population context, we need to think about how people could experience life differently

• Have to start from the perspective of what type of immersive content-driven experiences would be compelling to the largest number of human beings

“Imagine if people could experience the Star Wars universe in a fully realised digital alternate reality and acquire a lightsaber or an X-Wing Fighter. How cool would that be and being able to pass that X-Wing Fighter to your son?”

- Lam Chee Kin

• The immersive experience not only has to be accessible physically, but also financially

• The technology has yet to be miniaturised to an adequate level and is usable by a reasonable human being

• Content-driven immersion is a function of time:

  • People creating immersive experiences

  • People coming up with the technology to deliver those experiences

• The third pillar is digital assets

• Digital assets do not necessarily have to be Web3 digital assets

• The winner of the immersive experience and delivery of the experience will end up deciding on the type of digital asset denomination that the universe will be driven by, which may or may not be on the blockchain

An Open Or A More Restricted And Safe Metaverse?

• The idea of managing risk is to reasonably foresee what downsides will come from a particular proposition, opportunity, business, etc.

• There are 3 buckets that he looks out for:

  • Legal issues

  • Regulatory issues

  • Ethical or public policy considerations

• These individual buckets need to be addressed as completely as possible before they can be passed out into the world

• One of the well-known problems in DeFi and crypto is the idea of property on the blockchain:

  • What is your property?

  • How do you transfer that property?

  • How do you record an interest in respect of that property?

• This has tied lawyers up in knots

• The UK has published a law on it, but it is just one jurisdiction’s perspective

• Need ways of thinking about how businesses are to be regulated in the metaverse, the economic models, the type of licensing regime, etc.

• Some people play games to make other gamers’ lives miserable. This is known as griefing

• Has observed griefing in some of the early iterations of social media-driven metaverses

• There’s also social isolation — in Japan, some people get so engaged in an alternate reality that they just isolate themselves from society

The Downside Risks Of The Metaverse

• When social media first came out, people did not expect that there would be downsides (e.g. surveillance capitalism, echo chambers, disinformation, etc.)

• Have to carry this thinking toward the metaverse as well

His Role At DBS

• Has to extrapolate from what he thinks the Web3 business is going to do

• Metaverse-driven business models represent economies driven by the economic characteristics of their respective metaverses:

  • How many assets are created?

  • How many assets are destroyed?

• There will be a future of multiple metaverses

• When multiple metaverses interact with each other, it parallels what is happening in the real world where currencies in different jurisdictions interact with each other

• DBS is spending a lot of time on the infrastructure for the metaverses

• There needs to be economic interoperability — pricing an asset in different metaverses and in physical reality as well

His White Paper

• It’s basically an argument around why we need a human-centered view and how a human would exist in the metaverse

All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Summaries are prepared by The Reading Ape. While reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate content, any errors in interpreting and summarizing the source material are ours alone. We disclaim any liability associated with the use of our content.