THE METAVERSE AS A GLOBAL ECONOMIC TREND

The article discusses a new global trend in the development of the economy called the “metaverse”, announced in October 2021 by Mark Elliot Zuckerberg as a result of improved interaction between a person and new information technologies (digitalization), including the real world, virtual space, the spiritual world and the fantasy world as interconnected levels. Based on the approaches of various authors, the author’s vision of the metaverse as a transformational stage in the subsequent development of the digital economy is proposed through the use of end-to-end technologies such as Big data, gamification technologies, augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR), blockchain and others: the concept is defined, presented the main elements, the principles of the functioning of the metaverse, its advantages and disadvantages are disclosed. In the course of the study of futurologists’ forecasts, a strategic assumption was made that the metaverse as a global economic trend can contribute to the transformation of the chaos of future digitalization into an interaction system, become a platform for economic entities and a successful strategic project.