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Prager Metis Just Spent $35k So They Can Service Clients In the Metaverse

We have officially arrived into the dystopian future ’80s sci-fi movies warned us about: accounting firms are now planting their flags on the metaverse.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Prager Metis International LLC, a New York-based accounting and advisory firm, on Friday said it opened a virtual three-story property on a site it bought for nearly $35,000 in late December. The firm, which operates 23 physical offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia, made its purchase on the Decentraland platform in partnership with Banquet LLC, a firm that funds and manages blockchain ventures.

Prager Metis plans to use its virtual building to advise companies and other new and existing clients on tax and accounting issues, Chief Executive Glenn Friedman said. The firm expects that many of its clients, particularly those in the entertainment and fashion industries, will seek its services in the metaverse as more companies decide to conduct business there, according to Mr. Friedman. “If the metaverse is going to replace the internet, then certainly business is going to use it,” he said.

You mean the Metisverse right? Heh. (Honestly the only reason I wrote this article was to use that joke.)

How is this any different from Second Life? You know, that thing the Maryland Association of CPAs did like 15 years ago? Look, I’ve been to CPA Island, it’s cool and all but we haven’t quite reached the point in this season of Black Mirror where the air is so unfit to breathe we have no choice but to do all our business transactions virtually. Rona aside, we can still conduct business in the real world.

Skepticism notwithstanding, it seems investors are jumping all over themselves to throw money at … whatever this is, so I guess said investors will need CPAs to virtually manage all those virtual assets. Or whatever.

Um … shouldn’t the graphics be, like, better? I feel like it’s 2011 and I just watched a GMod clip. Minus the trolls. Unless these are the trolls and this is some elaborate performance piece demonstrating how easy it is to separate people from their money using words like innovative and emerging global digital phenomenon.

“The Metaverse offers new possibilities for organisations to create value through innovative business models, as well as introducing new ways to engage with their customers and communities. We will leverage our expertise to advise clients who wish to embrace the Metaverse on the full range of challenges presented by this emerging global digital phenomenon,” said PwC Hong Kong partner William Gee when his firm snapped up a piece of The Sandbox in December. “The Sandbox Metaverse offers players and creators a decentralized and intuitive platform to create immersive 3D worlds and game experiences and to safely store, trade, and monetize their creations” according to a press release that maybe makes more sense to one of you than it does me.

OK. Whatever. Have fun with that. I’ll just be over here binge-watching DNSL videos so I can prepare myself for the nightmarish future in which we get our outfits by lootbox and paychecks in coins while the real world burns around us. I’m sure clients will be lining up to utilize these services, after all it was so easy to get them to switch over to the cloud. Oh wait …

Photo by Erik Mclean from Pexels