Cryptocurrency in Virtual Reality

As our civilisation becomes more deeply immersed into a virtual world, we can expect changes that are still beyond what we can imagine. But we can try to imagine, right? And hey, if you can imagine something and try to make it happen, or invest in others trying to make it happen – you may just turn your dreams into currency.

I remember my father taking me to a place with Virtual Reality in the late 80s/early 90s (I can’t remember which). Some guys had rented out a small space – looked like an old warehouse – in the city. They had three or four virtual reality setups going (helmet, hand controls and all) which you could play for 10 minutes for $10 or something. The graphics were just red and green lines against a black back-drop. Awesome idea and great fun, although from a financial investment perspective, they were just a little early.

The time for common use of immersive VR using helmets and all is coming closer. Hopefully those big helmets will disappear over time to make way for a more comfortable means of participating in the technology.

If people are one day spending larger proportions of their lives in VR, they will certainly be looking for a means of buying ‘stuff’ while they are there. Cryptocurrency looks like a fitting solution to that problem.

Using a Google Chrome extension called MetaMask, it was striking to see how this may work. Using our old school ‘browsers’ to surf the ‘net’ (oh wait, sorry that’s now – we aren’t in the future yet – I’m jumping the gun) MetaMask displays how much currency you have on your screen to purchase things over the net while you are browsing. It’s a web-based interface wallet of sorts – I’m sure this is just one example out of many. It makes life (the surfing the net part of your life) nearly like a computer game where you have your credits or tokens and you navigate around spending them as you will. The perceived real value of these tokens are getting closer and closer to what we regard as ‘real money’ when it comes to Cryptocurrencies.

A new virtual world alternative may be just what our civilisation needs, offering everything you can dream of with only minor impacts on the resources available to us. Everyone can have the things they dream of, whatever that may be.

Alternatively, as the world’s resources become further and further depleted, and the populations grow, the percentage of people who can afford real items may decrease. With human nature being as it is, people will still have a drive to obtain things. In the virtual world, what these things may be could prove to be very interesting. When you one day have your own virtual house, car, pet that is indistinguishable to those you may find when you remove the helmet – what else will you want to buy in the virtual world?

Perhaps a completely virtual life will become the best or only option for a great life one day. Everything your body needs will be provided intravenously as a grey coloured goo, while you blissfully go about your life enjoying the delicious beautiful foods you see before your eyes, while your body actually sits below the earth's surface where everyone escaped to after the climate ran into a few problems. Or did that already happen? (yeah I stole that from the Matrix)

There is a long road between now and those possible futures. The road for Cryptocurrencies will be just as long, with plenty of comers and goers along the way. There is every chance that Cryptocurrencies will be here for the long term and will play a part in a more virtual world. In the meantime, it will be great to watch the real-world uses for them unfold, and make use of them ourselves to make our lives easier, more interesting and with any luck – decentralised.

It would be great to hear about what others imagine happening on this topic, and what they might see themselves buying in the virtual world of the future (please remember this post and comments section is rated PG). Will there be a VR Steemit?

Cheers and decentralise

strapped

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