What is a Metaverse?
From the likes of Facebook’s recent name change to Meta to multi-million dollar NFT sales, the Metaverse has been in the news a lot recently. The term may seem new, but it was actually originally conceptualized in a 1992 cyberpunk novel titled Snow Crash. In this article, we will break down what the Metaverse is, what it looks like today, and where it might be going in the future.
Snow Crash described the Metaverse as an “imaginary place” that is “made available to the public over the worldwide fiber-optic network”. That is actually a pretty accurate — if broad — description of what the Metaverse is today.
More specifically, a Metaverse is a shared, immersive, persistent world where users can interact as avatars (a digital representation of themself — or something completely unique), where they can own, trade, develop and interact with digital property. This digital property can vary widely, and can be as simple as a plot of land or cryptocurrency, or as complex as a fully interactive art gallery designed from scratch. That last part is pretty important — user ownership of in-world assets is a cornerstone of the Metaverse, as no one company owns the Metaverse, and is what differentiates it from simulation-based games or virtual reality (although the Metaverse may include AR or VR glasses as a medium for users to interact with it, it should be noted that the two are separate and exist independently of one another). Sound too abstract still? Let’s take a look at some examples of what the Metaverse looks like today.
For the purposes of this piece we are going to avoid the recent corporate entrants with an interest in the Metaverse. Corporations certainly have a place in the Metaverse — namely in the production of physical infrastructure that we pay for, and of course VR goggles — but we are going to focus on grassroots Metaverse implementations that are easy and free to access to all with an internet connection and a computer. Of these, Decentraland is probably the most notable example of such a project. The goal of decentraland is to create a virtual universe where users can interact with one another and maintain full ownership of in-game assets. Users can purchase plots of land in exchange for the cryptocurrency MANA, with the goal of building these spaces into an interactive space that users can pay to participate in — think art galleries, clubs, games, casinos, and more. The best part, though, is that you don’t have to pay to participate. Any user can choose their avatar and explore the virtual world, just by signing in with a web3 wallet. Another project that has exploded in popularity lately is The Sandbox and the SAND token. The Sandbox is spiritually similar to Decentraland but feels a little bit more polished, featuring web3 sign-in as well as traditional sign-in methods that non-crypto native users expect to see. The Sandbox is in Alpha, however, with more functionality to be released coming at the end of November.
The Sandbox and Decentraland are both great, but are ultimately limited by the scalability constraints of the physical hardware that users can use to interact with the virtual world, as well as the scalability constraints of the Ethereum mainnet in terms of how many users can be onboarded without causing congestion on the main chain. The best thing about the Metaverse, though, is that it is constantly being redefined and iterated upon. What we see today might become drastically different in the not-too-distant future. In the future, it is likely that the Metaverse will be incorporated into layer 2 protocols such as rollups, side chains, and other scalability technology. It is also likely that the integration of VR goggles will become a primary feature, rather than a work in progress, in order to give users a fully immersive experience. Companies have already entered the Metaverse, and even placed their intellectual property there, and this is another trend that is likely to continue. The Metaverse is firmly still in the building phase, but the space is heating up quickly with launchpads like GamiFi taking projects to the next level.
