Metaverse!!!!!!!!!!!
- What Is the Metaverse and Why Does It Matter?
The term “Metaverse” just leaped into the front of everyone’s mind with Facebook announcing their decision to rebrand their corporate name to Meta.
But what exactly is the Metaverse?
In contrast to the normal internet that we all know, the metaverse is a 3D immersive environment where users can then interact with others via their avatars.
The first person to write about the metaverse was Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, although the concept had already been discussed in many other sci-fi books.
If you’re looking for an early example of the Metaverse, look no further than the online virtual reality game Second Life.
Launched in 2003, Second Life is an open world environment that allows users to live a literal “second life” through their avatars, from playing music and taking a trip to the store to, even, gambling!
At its peak, it is estimated that Second Life was reaching one million users per day.
Another way of looking at the Metaverse is that of the internet brought to life, or at least vividly rendered in 3D.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described the concept as a “virtual environment” that users can actually enter and immerse themselves in, rather than just staring at the content on a screen.
Think of it as a limitless world of interlinked virtual communities where individuals can meet up, hang out, and engage in all sorts of different virtual activities, all through the use of emerging technology like VR headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphone apps, and other devices.
The important thing to note here as the metaverse gains even more mainstream traction is that it has also become tightly linked with all sorts of niches and developments in both the Web 3.0 movement, which we covered right here, and the broader crypto ecosystem, particularly when it comes to NFTs and DeFi.
Take the Sandbox, for instance.
The Sandbox is a blockchain-based metaverse built on Ethereum that allows players to create their own items, mint them as NFTs, and monetize their creations by selling them in a virtual NFT marketplace, something we touched upon in this very newsletter when explaining the value proposition of non-fungible tokens.
The Sandbox, and other metaverses like Decentraland, also use in-game currencies and assets (MANA in Decentraland; SAND and LAND in the Sandbox) that power every aspect of these virtual worlds. Users can even buy and monetize virtual real estate in the Sandbox.
Expect lots of attention and focus on this topic over the coming months.
The metaverse is just getting started! Thank you Facebook...I mean Meta.
