Future Scenarios: A Financial Network Analysis of Stock Market Returns in the Metaverse Environment

The paper examines the financial market as a potential environment for the transformative power of the metaverse. The primary hypothesis is to construct future scenarios by investigating the metaverse’s influence on the financial returns of companies involved in its development. The focus lies on analyzing the relationship between the Metaverse Index (MVI) returns and the returns of metaverse-oriented companies, with the aim of predicting emerging socio-technological trends. A dataset comprising daily closing prices of the time series from 2019 to 2023 was collected, including the MVI and 47 metaverse-related assets classified into 13 business areas. A two-step methodological approach was adopted: 1) correlation network analysis and 2) graph embedding strategy performed on correlation networks. The results highlight that the current scenario, characterized by a strong connection between MVI, technologies, cryptocurrencies, and real estate, which defines the meta-economy and digital property, will play a pivotal role in the future. The forecasts emphasize the development of metaverse-native enterprises, the creation of new stock market indexes designed to assess metaverse performance, and the development of customized intellectual property for their business models.