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On Friday night, Substack writer Matt Taibbi posted a thread showing former Twitter employees debating the decision to restrict sharing of a NY Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. Twitter CEO Elon Musk hyped the release of the so-called “Twitter Files,” saying they would expose how the company, under its previous leadership, engaged in “free speech suppression.”

The screenshots of internal communications reveal that Twitter employees were worried that the Post article could be the result of a Russian hacking operation. Their ultimate decision to suppress the story drew outcry from conservatives, and former CEO Jack Dorsey has said it was a mistake, noting that the company changed its policy on hacked materials as a result.

But Taibbi’s thread did not provide any direct support for Musk’s suggestions that Democrats conspired with Twitter to block the article. Taibbi wrote, “There’s no evidence — that I’ve seen — of any government involvement in the laptop story.” Furthermore, the thread exposed the names of ex-Twitter employees and the apparent email addresses of Dorsey and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (who criticized Twitter’s decision on the Hunter Biden story). On Saturday, Musk acknowledged that posting some emails was a mistake.

Elsewhere in the Twitter-verse…

• While Musk banned Ye’s account for tweeting a swastika on a Star of David, he allowed neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, who created the white supremacist website The Daily Stormer, back on the platform.
• Musk seems to have dropped his feud with Tim Cook over App Store rules, and said that Apple has “fully resumed” advertising on Twitter.
• Twitter is still hurting financially, though. Its US ad revenue was reportedly 80% below expectations during the first week of the World Cup.

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If you can remember back to January, Microsoft shook up the gaming world when it agreed to buy Call of Duty-maker Activision Blizzard for $69 billion. If it goes through, it’d be Microsoft’s biggest acquisition and one of the 30 largest deals ever.

Key word: if. The FTC has been fretting over the antitrust implications of this deal and, in a meeting today, regulators could vote on whether to sue to block it from going through. The primary worry: Microsoft produces its own console, the Xbox, and if it were to also own Activision’s games, it could withhold those titles from competitors, such as Sony’s PlayStation.

Given the enormous popularity of Call of Duty, it would be a nightmare scenario for Sony to get frozen out of the franchise. The franchise has generated $30 billion in revenue on its own, and the most-recent release, Modern Warfare II, racked up more than $1 billion in sales in its first 10 days.

Microsoft wants to show it can play nice

Like an alien descending the stairs of a UFO, Microsoft says “We come in peace .” As part of its campaign to soothe regulators ahead of a potential vote, on Tuesday it announced an agreement with Nintendo to bring CoD to the Switch for 10 years. Microsoft said it made a similar offer to Sony that would make new CoD releases available on PlayStation, but it seems that Sony hasn’t checked voicemail yet..

With its charm offensive, Microsoft is attempting to placate regulators not just in the US, but also around the world. 16 governments have to greenlight its deal for Activision, and only a small minority has approved it so far.

Still, the biggest fight may be on Microsoft’s home turf. Under the Biden administration, regulators have gone full beast mode in trying to block mergers over antitrust concerns. So far during Biden’s term, the DOJ has sued to block eight mergers and the FTC has also sued to block eight. Over the same period of the Trump administration, the DOJ challenged one merger and the FTC five, per the NYT.—NF

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From Chance the Rapper to the random dude you drunkenly talked to at a concert, seemingly everyone has taken to Instagram to flash their AI-created portraits. The souped-up selfies come from photo-editing app Lensa AI through its “Magic Avatars” feature that generates original images of users’ likeness rendered in various artistic styles.

Lensa acts as an intermediate between Stable Diffusion, the open-source AI tool that powers it, and the portrait subject. After paying $3.99 to use the feature, you upload 10–20 selfies and Lensa spits out 50 stylized portraits that look like they’re the work of an eclectic digital artist collective.

You’re not alone in seeing it everywhere: The appeal of visualizing one’s anime, sci-fi, or fairy princess alter-ego landed Lensa at the top of the charts among free apps in the Apple and Google app stores soon after the Magic Avatars feature launched late last month.

But while Lensa might be a great source of eye-catching material for an artsy dating profile, many observers are unsettled by the implications of its rise. So let’s ruin the fun and take a peek into the Pandora’s box of ethical murkiness that comes with new technology.

Who’s not impressed by your new profile pic?

Artists: Many digital artists and copyright holders say they’re not being credited or reimbursed for their artwork, which is being used to train the AI model that the company behind Lensa, Prisma Labs, is monetizing. Artist Lauryn Ipsum pointed to what she says are frequent instances where fragments of artists’ signatures are visible in the digital avatars. She tweeted her frustration at the fact that “people are still trying to argue it isn’t theft.”

Others worry about how automated art generators might devalue their skills as visual creators (similar to how certain newsletter writers are made uneasy by the writing talent of OpenAI’s new chatbot).

Privacy advocates: Some users expressed privacy concerns about how Lensa uses their photos and personal data. Prisma says it deletes your selfies after they’re turned into avatars, but it uses them to train its neural networks and reserves the right to use personal data to improve the product.

Ethicists: All it takes to use Lensa for sexually predatory purposes is a few photos of the victim. Unlike human artists, the app can’t tell right from wrong and can be easily tricked into churning out erotic stylizations of whatever images it gets fed. Technology researcher Olivia Snow went as far as using her own childhood photos to demonstrate that Lensa has no qualms about sexualizing images of children.

What’s next? Some creators have called for a boycott of Lensa, urging people to hire an old-school, flesh-and-blood artist for their next round of stylized selfies. But now that AI art tools exist, they aren’t going away and we’ll have to learn how to navigate the presence of paintbrush-wielding machines in our lives.—SK

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In an early Christmas gift to Youtube Shorts and Instagram Reels, this week the US Senate unanimously passed a bill that would ban TikTok on the government-owned devices of federal employees. Though the legislation faces an uncertain future in the House, several states have already enacted similar bans. And a bipartisan group of legislators wants to go further, proposing a full-on nationwide TikTok prohibition.

Lawmakers have nothing against lip-syncing challenges and 20-second plant care tutorials, but they see the short-form video app as a national security threat and point to a parade of red flags (no Communist Party pun intended) concerning privacy and security that arise from TikTok being owned by a Chinese company: Beijing-based ByteDance.

But TikTok is hoping to salvage the American Dream of virality for its 135 million US-based users. The company has been negotiating with the Biden administration for months, hoping to reach a deal to keep the company running in the US with changes to its data governance policies.

So how exactly could your twelve-year-old cousin’s favorite thing to do before bed be a threat to anything other than her emotional development?

The case against TikTok

FBI Director Chris Wray warned that the Chinese government could weaponize the powerful recommendation algorithm for “influence operations.” Wray also claims China can collect user data for espionage.

This isn’t just TikTok-phobia:

• Leaked audio from the company’s internal meetings obtained by BuzzFeed suggests that engineers in China have accessed US users’ data.
• Forbes learned of a Beijing-based ByteDance team’s plan to surveil the location of at least two Americans using TikTok data.
• Chinese law mandates that businesses share intelligence with the government upon request.

All this has lawmakers like Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) saying that Americans aren’t safe on TikTok unless ByteDance sells it to a company not based in China. US users themselves, too, appear worried. A recent YouGov poll found that 41% of Americans think TikTok is a national security threat (35% said they’re not sure).

But some experts think these concerns are overblown

If you’re worried that a CCP cadre might cringe at unpublished footage of you munching corn off a rotating drill, or steal your personal info, remember that TikTok isn’t the first app to hoover up user data.

Information researcher Clifford Lampe told Forbes he thinks TikTok “collects as much data as any social media platform.” And researchers from the University of Toronto concluded last year that the app doesn’t appear to collect “contact lists, user files, or geolocation coordinates” without user permission.

China also doesn’t need TikTok to get a hold of personal data: Hacking or buying it off a shady data broker (as it has done on multiple occasions) are options, too. Besides, much of it can already be found in public sources.

As for TikTok itself, it claims US user data can’t be accessed from China without the oversight of a US team and assures it would never share data with authorities in Beijing.—SK

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What’s the opposite of quiet quitting? Because that’s what Elon Musk seems to be doing as CEO of Twitter.

After another head-spinning day on the bird app, Musk posted a poll asking users whether he should step down as the company’s chief executive (“I will abide by the results of this poll,” he said.) As of 5am ET, more than 57% voted “yes”—he should step down. 

As bizarre as it sounds that a CEO would leave their professional fate to random people (and an untold number of bots), there’s reason to think that Musk will actually abide by the results: He restored former President Trump’s account after that choice won in a poll, and also reinstated banned journalists’ accounts this weekend when users voted in favor of that option.

But in even posting the survey in the first place, Musk seems to be issuing a cry for help. In the roughly seven weeks since he (reluctantly) bought Twitter for $44 billion, the only constant has been chaos—from the debacle of a rollout of Twitter’s subscription service to haphazard and inconsistent application of content moderation policies.

That chaos reached a climax yesterday

A new rule instituted (briefly) by Twitter caused even Musk’s most loyal supporters to lose faith in him. The company said Sunday that it will no longer allow the “free promotion” of certain rival social media sites on its platform: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, and three others.

• In response, former CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted that the policy “doesn’t make any sense.” (Dorsey previously said that Musk was “the singular solution I trust” to lead Twitter.)
• Venture capitalist Paul Graham, who just last month bashed Musk critics, tweeted “This is the last straw. I give up” after Twitter announced the rule change. Graham’s account was subsequently suspended, then reinstated.

After receiving pushback, Twitter once again reversed itself and deleted its posts about the new rule.

Big picture: While criticism from his backers may have been the immediate cause of Musk publicly questioning his role as CEO, the fundamental issue is that Twitter is simply a failing business under Musk’s ownership. As advertisers have paused spending on the platform and Musk faces $1 billion in annual interest payments, Twitter has reportedly been seeking new equity investors to help fund the company.

As for the question of whether Musk has a replacement in mind if he does step down, he said yesterday “There is no successor.”

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The bride wore pink with white polka dots.

Candice, 42, stood at an altar surrounded by snow-peaked mountains and exchanged vows with Ryan, 45. The guests clapped and blew kisses at the happy couple, but they weren’t wearing typical wedding attire. One was a human–bear hybrid and some were floating in the air. Others were wearing crowns or brightly colored wigs, and one wore a bikini top with plaid pants. But the over-the-top apparel and man–animal hybrid didn’t bother Candice and Ryan, because the “anything goes” style of their guests fit perfectly with the couple’s location: Decentraland, an Ethereum-based virtual world where people can play games or buy land in the form of NFTs.

“What’s great about the metaverse is you can just do whatever you want,” Candice Hurley told Morning Brew, noting the avatar she used in the 3D, virtual world wasn’t a reflection of her real-life self. “I went with something a little different, a little more funky.” (The couple’s 11-year-old helped pick her attire.)

Candice and Ryan Hurley have been married for 14 years and their Decentraland wedding was a renewal of those vows. The IRL affair wasn’t quite as interesting. On February 4, the Phoenix couple and their son gathered at a law office, where the bride and groom sat at different laptops, controlling their own avatar. Guests logged on from around the globe. Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick officiated, but his presence was entirely symbolic, since Bolick’s authority doesn’t extend to Decentraland.

The absurdity of the ceremony went beyond the style choices. Like all weddings, Candice and Ryan’s had plenty of hiccups. But instead of cold feet or a missing caterer, the bride fell through the aisle and struggled to make it to the groom due to high attendance that overloaded the server. “I’m coming, I promise,” Candice jokingly assured Ryan, as someone helped her sort out the issue on the laptop. Ryan’s avatar danced as he waited at the altar. Then, they ran out of wedding favors. In keeping with the Web3 theme, the couple decided to give guests an NFT of their dog, Pepper, but had only minted 1,000 copies—not nearly enough for the roughly 3,200 people who signed up to attend, many of whom the Hurleys didn’t know. (The event was open to the public and advertised on social media and by a PR firm.)

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Late last year, someone paid $450,000 to be Snoop Dogg’s neighbor. That would’ve been a steal for a mansion in Los Angeles, but this property is located in The Sandbox, a virtual gaming platform where people can buy digital property with cryptocurrencies. Snoop made a major investment there last year with Snoopverse, his own digital world where users can experience the rapper’s lifestyle (including virtual parties and access to exclusive NFTs) with a private party pass, currently selling for the equivalent of about $1,000.

Investors are joining Snoop in the metaverse with hopes that it will lead to big rewards, even as most Americans are still trying to grasp the concept of the metaverse beyond Mark Zuckerberg’s rollout of Meta. The metaverse scares more Americans (32%) than it excites (just 7%), according to a poll from Axios and Momentive released in April. The term gets thrown around vaguely, but the metaverse is not just one type of tech or place. It’s a purposefully vague concept still being developed—both by Big Tech companies and futurists—but, broadly, it’s the blurring of the physical and digital realms through world-building, virtual- or augmented reality, and a new digital economy based on NFTs and cryptocurrencies. Author Neal Stephenson coined the term in his 1992 novel, Snow Crash. In January 2020, venture capitalist Matthew Ball defined what it could mean as the next iteration of the internet, something beyond the sci-fi world. Ultimately, Zuckerberg’s announcement in October 2021 that his company would pursue its future in the metaverse catapulted the idea to mainstream consciousness.

Facebook’s rebranding to Meta last fall sent investors rushing to buy virtual property, spurring $187 million in sales in four of the most recognized metaverse platforms with land that November. Many virtual worlds offer property in the form of NFTs, which are recognized on a blockchain, or a digital, public ledger. People can purchase plots of land using cryptocurrencies and develop them to live out their wildest dreams. Just like when dealing with IRL real estate, location matters: The most desirable platforms are the 3D gaming worlds Decentraland, The Sandbox, Somnium Space, and Cryptovoxels (now Voxels). Decentraland has customizable avatars with funky, bright hair colors and neon outfits. The Sandbox is where Snoop Dogg created his estate, a digital rendering of the elements of a music video that debuted in April (bathtubs full of cash, a stage with neon marijuana leaves). Somnium Space has a more realistic look and feel, reminiscent of The Sims, and Voxels is set apart by its pixelated aesthetic. Most activity is concentrated on The Sandbox and Decentraland. As of May 2022, some 20,000 people or groups owned 100,000 parcels in The Sandbox. Somnium Space and Voxels are smaller and have fewer parcels available.

But risk is plentiful in the speculative market. Those buying up virtual property are either securing a storefront on the next Rodeo Drive for a bargain or spending a whole bunch of money on nothing. One person’s dream of living in a virtual mansion next to Snoop Dogg’s avatar might be meaningless to other buyers–particularly if the rapper were to shut down the Snoopverse. For now, The Doggfather is busy at the virtual mansion. In the music video, he shows off an indoor pool where women avatars swim and a garage lined with fancy cartoon cars. His avatar, with signature shades and a pinstripe suit, bore an uncanny, albeit surreal and Lego-like, resemblance to the rapper. The music video, the first of its kind, opens with Snoop learning how his Sandbox investment has climbed from $300,000 to $4.8 million.

But it might be hard to recreate Snoop’s luck. Laws around “real estate” in the metaverse are more similar to contract laws than property ones, and laws governing physical real estate do not protect people who buy metaverse property. Value in the metaverse is measured in crypto, which is volatile itself (the crypto market lost a stunning $300 billion in value over just a few days in May). Much of the focus on metaverse land is driven by retailers setting up online stores and advertising, but there are opportunities for events, like concerts and sports. Ariana Grande has performed in Fortnite and Justin Bieber sang to fans through virtual entertainment company Wave. If the metaverse matures and becomes a go-to destination for entertainment, working, and shopping, then holding a piece of virtual land could become a very valuable deed. That’s the future Zuckerberg wants. But if the metaverse is just an absurdist, overhyped trend catering to the tech community, as its sharpest critics fear, millions in investment will be lost.

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Brokers Tal and Oren Alexander have sold some of the priciest homes in America to people like Ken Griffin and Kanye West, and they’ve even been the listing agents on the most expensive residential real estate transaction in the United States (a mere $238 million). Now, they are brokering deals in the metaverse, focusing on luxury mega-mansions in the Sandbox, Decentraland, and other metaverse platforms. They’re not the only brokers that have started selling in the metaverse where real estate has become increasingly pricey–sales topped $500 million in 2021, a figure that is expected to double this year. But unless you’re in the market for a million-dollar metaverse listing, a broker is optional for aspiring metaverse homeowners.

There’s no need for a broker to guide your hand through mountains of paperwork, since all the transactions are stored on the blockchain. Plus, buying and selling metaverse real estate usually occurs on a peer-to-peer basis through secondary marketplaces like OpenSea, similar to finding a listing on Zillow. But finding and buying a plot of land in the metaverse can still be confusing, especially since some intrepid soul has yet to write Metaverse Real Estate for Dummies.

Unlike IRL real estate, which is mostly a safe-haven asset, metaverse real estate is as risky as any other crypto asset (which, right now, means very risky). A deed in the metaverse is an NFT, a smart contract on the blockchain, just like a CryptoPunk or Bored Ape. It’s essentially a smart contract that represents ownership of that particular parcel. “First things first, get a wallet. Have the ability to purchase,” Josh Schuster, principal of Silverback Development and a metaverse real estate expert, said. These metaverse platforms, just like real-world countries, all have different currencies. For example, Decentraland transactions use either the native token, “mana,” or ethereum, while the Sandbox supports both ethereum and its own token called “sand.”

Finding a metaverse property starts with exploring the map of a desired virtual world. In Genesis City, the first metropolis in Decentraland, one of the largest metaverse platforms, there are 43,689 private land parcels. The best locations in Decentraland are usually around the plazas, especially the Genesis Plaza, where avatars enter this virtual world. Just like in real life, a studio next to a major downtown area is more valuable than a four-bedroom in the middle of nowhere. Plots around Genesis Plaza are expensive: While the cheapest single parcel in Decentraland, equivalent to 52.5 square feet and far from attractions, is going for 3,990 mana ($3,065 as of this writing) on Decentraland Marketplace, a plot the same size right next to Genesis Plaza is 299,999 mana ($230,419). (The value of mana has been plunging fast these days, so the values of land parcels in dollars change accordingly.)

Deciding on which piece of property to buy depends on the buyer’s ultimate goal for the parcel. “The buyer has to think about, what do they really want to do in this space? Is it an investment? Do they actually want to build something and they become more sophisticated?” Schuster asked. A lot of virtual communities are designed to replicate the real world. For example, in Decentraland, there are districts with different themes. Vegas City is a digital Sin City that emulates the Las Vegas Strip and hosts casinos, clubs, and cinemas. Decentraland also has a Fashion District, which is the hub that recently hosted Metaverse Fashion Week. The best way to flip land and make a quick profit is to buy parcels close to a celebrity who has put down metaverse roots, like Snoop Dogg in the Sandbox or Paris Hilton in Roblox. Then, aside from finding famous neighbors, buying up locations with a lot of digital foot traffic could prove valuable. Buyers in Genesis City believe their purchases ares akin to buying land in New York City in the late 19th century, and Genesis Plaza might be the next Grand Central Station.

Buyers can also build mansions, galleries, or even stadiums to ostensibly add value to the land and generate income. In the physical world, landlords make money by collecting rent, creating advertising space, or selling their properties when they appreciate in value. That’s true in the metaverse, too. Tokens.com bought 116 parcels in the heart of the Fashion District, and its CEO Andrew Kiugel plans to develop the virtual area into a destination for luxury brands and that can be monetized by renting space out.

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Nina Jane Patel designed her avatar, a cartoonlike version of herself with blonde hair and freckles, and entered Meta’s Horizon Venues, a 3D digital world, using a virtual reality (VR) headset. She was there for less than a minute before a group of men avatars touched and groped her avatar without consent, taking photos as they harassed her. Patel detailed the “horrible experience” in a December 2021 Medium post. It “happened so fast and before I could even think about putting the safety barrier in place,” she wrote. “I froze.”

Patel isn’t the only woman to report digital sexual harassment on Meta’s virtual reality platforms or in other digital worlds in the metaverses. When Facebook rebranded itself to Meta last fall, it mainstreamed the concept of living a digital life in 3D metaverses, or virtual worlds where people can meet and play. But the early presence of digital sexual harassment, which can include nonconsensual touching, verbal harassment, and simulation of sexual assault on avatars, raises questions about whether this new immersive tech can shed old tech’s problems.

It’s not that the metaverse creates new opportunities for digital sexual harassment—social media has always been rife with gender-based harassment—but virtual reality technology dissolves the gap between the physical and digital selves, creating immersive experiences that heighten both realism and emotional connection. Users watch as digitally rendered hands grope a representation of their own body, and it all feels increasingly real, just as metaverse designers intended. “All of these innovations and technology that can make a digital life seem like a real one with real feelings, that has exacerbated the impact of sexual misconduct in a metaverse,” Michael Bugeja, a professor at Iowa State University who teaches media ethics and technology, said.

For those like Patel who experience digital sexual harassment, it can be degrading and emotionally devastating. It’s “surreal,” it’s “a nightmare,” Patel wrote. Despite this, and despite Big Tech’s history of ignoring the concerns of groups particularly vulnerable to online harassment, sexual harassment and its aftermath are often glossed over or ignored by developers. It’s a problem that needs a solution, especially as haptic technology–tech that mimics the effects of touch–evolves.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University recently developed a VR attachment for a headset that sends ultrasound waves to the mouth, allowing people to feel sensations on the lips and teeth (fingertips are the other haptic hotspot, where it’s easiest for developers to send signals of feeling). With the mouth attachment, players can feel spiders, raindrops, and even a stream from a water fountain on their lips. They can simulate brushing their teeth. But headlines ran away with the advances by declaring that users would soon be able to kiss, and subsequently feel the kiss on their physical bodies, in the metaverse. For now, that’s not true. Another set up of lips would be too large of a haptic signal for this type of tech, said Vivian Shen, one of the researchers behind the attachment. Her research is an example of how developers are looking for ways to mimic touch that feels intimate and real. Another company, Teslasuit, introduced a full-body haptic suit that resembles a wetsuit. It can capture the feeling of bullets, for example, or a hug. Then there’s Meta: Last year it developed a prototype for a haptic glove far more sophisticated than its current hand controls that would allow people to feel an object’s weight and texture when they lift it in a digital world.

Better, more realistic haptic technology is coming to the metaverse even as harassment is persistent. Women on nearly every social media and gaming platform have told stories about grotesque harassment, stories so common that their narrative arc is now familiar. According to a recent Pew survey, 33% of women under 35 report having been sexually harassed online, compared to 11% of men. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are more likely to be harassed, too. It’s unsurprising then that digital sexual harassment was routine in early virtual worlds. In 1993, reporter Julian Dibbell wrote in the Village Voice about a “rape in cyberspace” in LambdaMOO, an early text-based online world. One player known as Mr. Bungle used a “voodoo doll” gaming feature that let him attribute actions to other people in the community rather than his own character, even though he was behind the keyboard. He created a narrative in which some players performed nonconsensual sex acts on others. Dibbell’s reporting asks the same questions about the boundaries between the digital self and a physical being raised in the metaverse. This debate has simmered for nearly 30 years, and the tech community is no closer to a consensus on what digital sexual assault means or how to prevent it.

Bugeja has studied what he calls “avatar rape” for more than a decade, and witnessed it in 2007 on a virtual beach in Second Life, where he watched one male avatar “violently rape” another who had been sitting at a boardwalk bar, drinking a martini. That made him a fierce critic of the platform’s use for education. Some saw Second Life as the future of gathering to work and learn (a familiar refrain used to market the metaverse). He worried experiencing digital harassment could trigger a trauma response in someone who had been sexually assaulted in real life. “I’m saying not to get rid of the metaverses,” Bugeja said. “I’m saying, let’s put more controls in the metaverses. Let’s de-emphasize the profit margin.”

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For 7,400 Binance stablecoins, an aspiring metaverse athlete can buy a pair of Asics sneakers. That’s about $7,400 in fiat, making the multicolor low-tops some extremely expensive shoes, even for the most dedicated sneakerhead. The Asics are NFTs that grant access to an invitation-only digital exercise space, StepN. Cofounder Yawn Rong recommends that users get started with three pairs. (Yes, that’s more than $20,000 worth of NFT sneakers.) Thousands of dollars on digital shoes might sound excessive, but it’s a steal compared to the NFT Nikes someone bought in April 2021 for $134,000. But unlike the Takashi Murakami-designed Nikes, the Asics promise the buyer a chance to earn back the money—by exercising.

StepN is one of the many fitness-focused metaverse companies that are broadly called move-to-earn. It’s a simple concept: Users exercise IRL and generate in-game currency that can be used to edit their in-game avatars, upgrade their in-game equipment, and in some cases, convert that currency into cash. The value of the in-game currency fluctuates, meaning a grueling run today might be worth the same amount as a sluggish walk to the mailbox tomorrow. To a mix of applause and groans, move-to-earn is here. Some critics, and even some fans, are calling it a Ponzi scheme. Those who are building move-to-earn universes say it’s the future of fitness. Either way, it’s a logical next step for the metaverse, where the name of the game seems to be financializing everything, including your morning walk.

Move-to-earn, the underlying concept of the fitness metaverse, has connections to both the wider metaverse and the regular meatspace. Nintendo’s Wii Fit, launched in the United States in 2008, encouraged users to gamercise, though it didn’t offer any monetary reward. (In fact, the games could cost the user their TV screen if they lost grip on the remote.) And in 2012, an app called GymPact allowed users to earn monetary rewards for meeting their weekly gym visit goals, paid for by users who missed theirs. But none of these efforts could quite match the intensity of a traditional gym, plus they didn’t come with the potential to get absolutely shredded while earning cash.

Only 23% of Americans meet the CDC’s guidelines for leisure-time physical activity, according to a 2018 survey, so there’s a market to financialize the simple act of moving around. Metaverse companies are hoping to capitalize on that market, not just through earning tokens but through rethinking the relationship between gaming and exercise. OliveX, a Hong Kong-based company that’s focused on different types of gamified fitness, introduced a jogging app called Dustland Runner where users follow an audio storyline about a dystopian world infested with pirates. Runners complete missions by, well, running, and earn DOSE tokens (short for “dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins”) for their efforts. There’s also an app called 22 Pushups, an extremely utilitarian push-up counter that tracks reps via your phone’s camera. Users generate DOSE tokens in several OliveX games, except for those in the US, where OliveX does not issue the tokens where regulations prohibit it. Instead, users earn “completion tickets,” which the company hopes can be converted to DOSE tokens later on. OliveX also invested in Genopets, a move-to-earn game in which users care for a “digital spirit animal” by moving around and completing cognitively stimulating puzzles for GENE tokens, said Marisa Lam, head of marketing and communications at OliveX.

“Everyone is talking about move-to-earn,” Lam said. “But we would like to give that a twist: It’s move and earn. [For us,] it has always been about making exercise fun, long before blockchain.”

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