You might have been hearing a lot on the hyped term “Metaverse” and a lot of technicalities around this. There has been a lot of news coming out of investing in ntfs, play to earn games to the web3 world. This article shows how Metaverse will be a prominent part of the future we live in. But what do we actually mean by metaverse?
What is a Metaverse?
Metaverse is actually combined with two words, meta which means “beyond future” and verse which means “the universe”. That basically means we are here dealing with the future of the universe. This is meant to describe the iteration of the internet as it moves forward made up of persistent shared 3D virtual spaces, linked into virtual universes. An online world that works around the clock, just as the real world. This world has its own economies fuelled by creators and other infrastructure providers. Actually the metaverse functions around the concept of interoperability. Basically revolving around the use of non-fungible tokens making it different to traditional games that used to follow the concept of closed systems. This new web has become one of the hottest technology and socio economic topics. Combining different technologies like VR, blockchain and many others, lots of companies are already working on creating services for this new digital world. The big giant Facebook has also changed its name to “Meta”.
This also cleared the fact that the metaverse is truly on the verge of becoming the next big technology. The idea of Metaverse came upon a fiction writer named Neal Stephenson in the early 90s .
Sandbox and Decentraland utilise the principles of the metaverse this helps us to look how in the future the concept will look like.
This generally refers to shared virtual world environments or a computer-generated environment, which is accessible to users via the Internet. Basically a digital space ,extended reality space with the combination of augmented, virtual and mixed reality. At the moment, people interact with each other through social media platforms or by using messaging applications. In the virtual space, users will have their own “character” that can walk around and interact with other users. They can communicate with one another through avatars, text messages, sounds, music videos, video games, etc. A kind of a 3D experience will come into play for the users, with interaction looking like living in reality. The idea of metaverse has been there from a long time mainly popularised by video games and fiction novels. The time is for the web3 as told by experts we have come a long way from the start of web1. Finding information was the primary purpose of web 1.0 which made us only read through it. Interaction was not possible online because of this web generation. Web2.0 led to people interacting online in discussion forums and creating content that could be interacted, shared and also liked. This began the read-write era; with the interaction word brought to the online space. From static desktop web pages created for information usage via expensive servers and towards interactive encounters and user created content. Facebook, airbnb were the companies that started emerging during this time.
Most of the currently used services over this internet are owned by behemoths such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. This slowly started deflecting as it raised some complaints. Limited management of their data usage caused numerous allegations against these big giants. The blames states that businesses treat users unfairly, take advantage of their data, and put a serious threat on democracy and free speech. There has been a conflict inside facebook between what was good for the public and what was good for facebook and it chose to optimise for its interest, like making more money. According to experts this is a major reason why this new coming digital world could be a better place for all.
The future of web3 has already started, it's high time to get involved into this digital space.
Metaverse in the Present Times
Games like Minecraft and Roblox have already provided us with metaverse-like experiences and today we have been seeing games like decentraland and Sandbox which are blockchain enabled games. A game named “Second life” was launched in 2003 with the concept of living in a virtual world. This game provided insight into how the metaverses can work even before the time when blockchain technology came into existence. The blockchain enabled games like sandbox and Decentraland incorporate NFT assets into their working environment in addition to game’s own fungible currency. Now this tends to amplify that the virtual lands being bought on Decentraland and the decorations that are bought on Sandbox for your virtual avatar are assets that utilize the non fungible tokens and players can trade them for in or out of the game. This makes the utility of such bought assets more valuable than the older traditional concept of games.
In the current phase of metaverse as a concept, virtual headsets seem to become an integral part of virtual worlds. We are wired to perceive the world around us visually and spatially with the light that falls into our eyes which provides us a 3D dimensional spatial image of the world with depth. Virtual reality headsets can actually copy and create the same 3D environment around us. Now these virtual headsets make you trick into believing where actually you are is completely real. These headsets allow the voice to actually come from the very original space and direction making it all close to what we are used to in real life.
Almost every developing firm working on virtual reality is developing their own cyberspace for their VR headsets such as Meta and Steam.
To be a part of this early phase metaverse you will require a crypto wallet such as Metamask to sign in. You can also have a look around at other virtual hangout spaces in Decentraland, Sandbox, and Spatial.
The blockchain games!
The blockchain games have in-game NFTs that can be exchanged, bought and sold on other secondary markets. The metaverse is a virtual world which is actually made up of multiple interconnected virtual worlds in some ways. This also makes the play-to-earn paradigm and the NFTs provided by blockchain games to play an important role in the metaverse.
Metaverse Benefits
- Providing an open and fair economy that is backed by blockchain technology.
- Benefit from crypto metaverses by having new ways to play, invest, collect as well as new ways to profit from it.
- The play-to-earn gaming economy will be occupied and blockchain game players will be empowered through NFTs.
- Providing users with most advanced options for transferring real world assets and services.
What does the Future Metaverse Present?
The future the metaverse shows is quite similar to real life in many aspects and even replaces some real-world activities like working or hanging out. It is basically trying to incorporate web3 technology enabled through blockchain technology like NFTs and Cryptos. There are already some metaverse NFT vendors who have enabled their NFTs to be usable in some metaverse games such as clothing and footwear and more are planning to venture into the domain.
There has been a lot of news on selling or renting virtual lands for a price on such games and sense it to be a great investment opportunity.
The future metaverse can also be a huge contributing factor for the growth of the virtual economy, which depends on video games and virtual worlds where disruptions are almost nil. As such, both users and creators gain a lot and this can even increase if non-fungible tokens are incorporated into in-game assets so that decentralization of the virtual economy becomes a reality. This makes the metaverse in the future a thought that should not be missed today to plan on.
The idea of not being operated or controlled by an organisation or company and running openly is what looks like the metaverse of the future. The participation of creators will be from across the world as more brands are looking to open their outlets on the broader metaverse.
Learn more on Metaverse and the coming of web3.0 here-
Disclaimer: This blog has opinionated information which does not make us liable for anything.