Samsung Metaverse: NFTs, AR/VR and Questions on Privacy and Security

January 11, 2022

Enthusiasts for NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, which are one-of-a-kind digital objects purchased with cryptocurrencies, can now boast of their latest collections to friends and family on Samsung’s new smart TV sets.

That’s not all.

The South Korean tech giant has also opened its first store within the metaverse called Decentraland. Decentraland is an Ethereum-based virtual reality platform.

The company said technology joins art, fashion, music and sustainability at its new store.

In the Samsung metaverse, an immersive world, users can attend music concerts with NFT passes, tennis fans can watch the Australian Open from the Rod Laver Arena, virtually, starting Jan 17.

Samsung has packed its virtual world with places including New York’s top auction houses Sotheby’s, a Soho Plaza, dedicated to art and pop culture icons, it also has digital casinos and other gaming destinations for poker, mini golf etc. The virtual also has a zoo and a museum district among other digital attractions.

At the Consumer Electronics Show 2022, last week, Samsung unveiled an integrated platform that lets users trade NFTs on its new smart TV sets, even as experts described the new feature as a minefield for hackers.

Samsung’s three new smart TV models — MICRO LED, Neo QLED and The Frame — will let customers discover, purchase and trade digital artwork through its TV screen-based NFT explorer and marketplace aggregator.

“Smart TVs are notorious for being hackable.. a lot of these Internet of Things (IoT) devices are so bad at handling security. So, I would not encourage you to connect your TV to the internet, let alone have a wallet embedded into it searching for and purchasing NFTs,” said Naomi Brockwell, tech journalist, film and TV producer, and creator of privacy, tech, and crypto channel NBTV, to crypto and tech news website Coindesk.

William Foxley, editorial director at Compass Mining, a marketplace for bitcoin mining told Coindesk that a feature like this heightens the risk for stolen passwords and stolen NFTs.

Samsung’s entry comes at a time when companies like Facebook FB, (now Meta), Google (GOOGL) – Get Alphabet Inc. Class A Report, Microsoft (MSFT) – Get Microsoft Corporation Report, Nike (NKE) – Get NIKE, Inc. Class B Report and Roblox (RBLX) – Get Roblox Corp. Class A Report among others are racing to build the metaverse.

Investment firm Wedbush told investors last November that the metaverse will allow users to create digital assets like NFTs with added financial incentives.

For Meta Platforms, the metaverse is a $10 billion project to transition Facebook from its much-criticized social network and related family of apps into what founder Mark Zuckerberg has called an “embodied internet.”

Samsung’s immersive world, where you can buy and sell exclusive digital assets, like land and wearables, engages fans with mystical quests leading to exclusive NFTs and a live mixed reality dance party.

The Samsung 837X store is modeled from its physical location in New York City, and the virtual store will be open to Decentraland visitors for a limited time.