Merriam-Webster Dictionary Listed ‘Metaverse’ And ‘Altcoin’

The American Merriam-Webster Dictionary (also known as “Webster’s Dictionary”) included the words “metaverse” and “altcoin” in its 2022 list of terms. Bloomberg writes about it .

According to the dictionary, the metaverse is defined as “a permanent virtual environment that allows access and interaction of several separate virtual realities.” The meaning of the word altcoin (altcoin) is “any of the various cryptocurrencies that are considered an alternative to established cryptocurrencies and especially bitcoin.”

The dictionary also included the terms “atmospheric river”, “greenwash”, “supply chain”, “shrinkflation” and others. In 2021, the main word, according to the editors of the dictionary, was “vaccine”, and earlier the word of the year was “pandemic”.

Despite the information noise, not everyone in the IT industry believes in the imminent emergence of a worthy metaverse. For example, Raja Koduri, Senior Vice President of Intel’s Architecture, Graphics and Software division, has previously stated that the computing power of computers needs to be increased a thousandfold to implement the concept. Current performance is simply “not enough to realize this vision.”

Earlier, Kevin Werbach, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, expressed a similar opinion. According to him, blockchain and cryptocurrencies will “perfectly fit” into virtual worlds. Now the hype around the metaverse is well ahead of the actual progress of the concept, Werbach believes.

And it seems that some investors have already begun to realize the “overheating” of the market for existing metaverses. The editors wrote that according to the results of the II quarter, the number of losses of Roblox amounted to $ 176 million, which has increased compared to last year. As  the company explains, “the increase in losses was due to increased costs to support business growth.” This has sparked speculation that Roblox may be working on creating their own version of the metaverse.