Kids these days are growing up in a connected world where their digital identity matters more. They are spending increasing amounts of time online across different virtual spaces, ranging from social media to gaming and entertainment and are adopting multiple identities along the way. Digital assets in the form of virtual fashion and non-fungible tokens are offering new ways for consumers to shop, exchange goods and live their identities online. Going forward, more of our presence will be in the Metaverse, more of our assets will be in the Metaverse and more of our services will be for consumers in the Metaverse. Brands see this emerging Metaverse in which people work, socialise, shop and play as an opportunity to engage with their customers and unlock revenues. In all this, it's important to remember that branding goes beyond a physical object because it states what that object says about the user or owner, sets a philosophy and describes a way of being. This is something which I think brands will eventually have to play out virtually in the Metaverse. In this context, the Metaverse is the forum of the future for brand engagement with young consumers. Personally, I don't see much limit to the Metaverse nor do I think there will be a moment when we can say "we have the Metaverse" – it is and will continue to grow organically over many years as more users and companies join this virtual space. When looking at technology, it tends to outpace regulation and the Metaverse is no exception here. Enforcing GDPR as well as COPPA across the Metaverse to protect young users will be highly challenging. Some research has been done on this: 9 out of 10 companies we talked to are likely to be infringing rules either intentionally or unintentionally - it's very hard to police. One of the other big challenges for the Metaverse from a user perspective is the ability for users to have one identity across all internet experiences. How many usernames and passwords do you use every day? Web 3 is looking to solve this and create one internet identity which can follow you across different platforms allowing for greater interoperability. This will be a big step forward for the user experience.