The resignation of a top executive and a major virtual event snafu raises practical concerns about the Metaverse’s rise.

After Christine Moy, JP Morgan’s Global Head of Metaverse, departed after 18 years with the company. Ripples were sent across the Metaverse XR community.

The former executive wrote the hashtag #wgmi, or “we’re going to make it,” after listing her achievements with the massive investment bank, which included launching JP Morgan as the world’s first Metaverse bank and a list of work with cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and decentralized data technologies.

Her company’s aim, she said, was to “make the impossible feasible,” and her employees “never give up, despite all the hurdles of establishing something new at a major globally regulated institution.”

According to Moy’s LinkedIn profile,

“The Onyx by J.P. Morgan team is comprised of stars, and I look forward to seeing what this next generation will come with. As for my next [world-building] adventure, please stay tuned. I am super excited to share with you what is next!”

#Metaverse #market #growth due to the continued use of #XR #technologies to #improve user experience across platforms. #Factors likely to affect the #industry, starting with #growing desire for the metaverse to purchase #digitalasset with #DigitalCurrency.https://t.co/KrIT8rY1sC pic.twitter.com/r0JPekg1ZE

— cryptoknowmics (@ckmnewsfeed) May 28, 2022

Details about JP Morgan’s Metaverse XR

The news comes only days after the investment giant debuted its virtual bank in Decentraland’s Metajuku retail mall, which featured a live interactive tiger and a portrait of company CEO Jamie Dimon.

JP Morgan’s Onyx blockchain business, led by Moy, was charged with investigating use cases for the spatial communication platform and produced a white paper on the topic in February.

According to the company, users spent USD 54 billion on virtual items each year, sent over 60 billion messages on the Roblox platform, and owned $41 billion in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) internationally.

While some users applauded the platform’s features, others noted that the Metaverse bank had significant issues, which Bo Moon, TWO’s Chief Business Officer, called as “disappointing,” adding that he couldn’t “create a JPM virtual bank account or talk to anyone from JPM” on the platform.

“Oh, and sure, I’m stuck under JPMorgan’s virtual staircase,” he ended.

The Metaverse experience highlights important considerations about such platforms’ user experience, and when companies create new virtual worlds on an unprecedented scale, they may confront significant challenges.

Also, read – You Should Be Aware Of These Metaverse Security Issues

Metaverse XR and a Foo Fighters Concert

After Meta Platforms conducted its post-game virtual event on Horizon Venues with rockers Foo Fighters, online users had similar technological difficulties.

The sizeable online event produced by music video director Mark Romanek saw a massive spike in attendance, with 61,890 people expressing interest.

After musicians like Ariana Grande and Travis Scott arrived on Fortnite, the much-anticipated Metaverse experience served as a teaser of Meta’s intentions to establish the Metaverse XR.

In an article published by XR Today, Jerod Venema, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of LiveSwitch, said that the concert had significant issues, with just 12,000-13,000 of the roughly 60,000 spectators attending after Super Bowl LVI ended.

According to Venema, the problems, combined with messy entry instructions, sparked a rush of complaints on Twitter, Reddit, and other platforms, citing tweets from VoicesOfVR’s Kent Bye.

The Meta UX failure served as a lesson for the broader XR community. Many companies, including Meta, NVIDIA, HTC, Decentraland, and others, hold online events for top-performing artists, curators, global communities, governments, and content providers.