Realm partners with Alkimi to bring ads to the metaverse

Neal Stevenson, an American author, has become a legend in Silicon Valley after predicting the emergence of the metaverse in a 1992 techno-dystopian science-fiction novel titled Snow Crash. While he admitted to making things up in his book, his eerily accurate predictions have earned the admiration of many, including Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.

In the latest actualization of Stevenson’s fictional depictions of a virtual world saturated with the neon glow of commercial advertising rings, Realm announced a collaboration with Alkimi to bring ads to the metaverse.

Realm, a mixed-reality NFT platform, detailed that this partnership seeks to create a fraud-free, transparent, and sustainable advertising environment. Alkimi, a Constellation-powered decentralized advertising platform, will help Realm incentivize play-to-earn gamers by offering them revenue from ads.

Specifically, Alkimi and Realm plan to tap into revenue streams from existing advertising formats and share the proceeds with the players that transparently create the data.

Sharing the motivation behind this partnership, Realm founder Matthew Larby said,

Advertising is a fundamental part of most existing social applications but the deal's been pretty bad for both the person who creates the data and the advertiser who struggles to verify their spend.

The metaverse is ripe with opportunity

Ben Putley, the CEO and co-founder of Alkimi Exchange, commented on the partnership, saying,

Advertising has always followed eyeballs and as we see the numbers of people spending time in metaverses it will quickly become a channel advertiser will look to include in their strategies. Working with Realm allows us to help advertisers find their users in metaverses in a respectful, transparent and effective way.

This news comes after JPMorgan Chase recently said the metaverse is a $1 trillion opportunity, adding that marketing will potentially become one of the leading segments in the burgeoning meta-economy. As a result, mainstream companies have been increasingly diving into the sector to secure their spots.

As the metaverse continues gaining popularity, people will inevitably start spending more time in virtual worlds. Consequently, many brands will focus on advertising their products in the space. Without care, metaverse developers could easily create a virtual world similar to Stevenson’s description in Snow Crash, where underpaid delivery drivers traverse endless virtual tunnels of advertising.