Economic Systems in the Metaverse: Basics, State of the Art, and Challenges

Economic systems play pivotal roles in the metaverse. However, we have not yet found an overview that systematically introduces economic systems for the metaverse. Therefore, we review the state-of-the-art solutions, architectures, and systems related to economic systems. When investigating those state-of-the-art studies, we keep two questions in mind: (1) What is the framework of economic systems in the context of the metaverse? and (2) What activities would economic systems engage in the metaverse? This article aims to disclose insights into the economic systems that work for both the current and the future metaverse. To have a clear overview of the economic system framework, we mainly discuss the connections among three fundamental elements in the metaverse, i.e., digital creation, digital assets, and the digital trading market. After that, we elaborate on each topic of the proposed economic system framework. Those topics include incentive mechanisms, monetary systems, digital wallets, decentralized finance activities, and cross-platform interoperability for the metaverse. For each topic, we mainly discuss three questions: (a) the rationale of this topic, (b) why the metaverse needs this topic, and (c) how this topic will evolve in the metaverse. Through this overview, we wish readers can better understand what economic systems the metaverse needs and the insights behind the economic activities in the metaverse.