What is the Metaverse?

The Metaverse is a 3D virtual reality world, to which we will be able to enter and be part of in the future, using computers or virtual reality glasses.

The metaverse is not physical, but lives on the internet, and through the use of technology such as virtual glasses, we can create and access a new world, like duplicating the world we already live in, but with infinite possibilities, and without moving from the same physical place.

The best example so that we can understand what a metaverse is, comes with the famous movie Ready Player One, released in 2018.

Source: Warner Bros. Pictures│YouTube Channel │Ready Player One Official Trailer 1

What is the goal of the Metaverse?

The Metaverse began with Snow Crash, a 1992 science fiction novel written by Neal Stephenson. In this book, Stephenson posed a virtual world, because the outside world had turned into a nightmare.

Today, companies like Facebook, Microsoft and Nvidia, have announced that they plan to invest a lot of money, time and resources to create metaverses.

The Metaverse aims to create a second reality for all humans, where we can connect with many more people and do many more activities, without physical distances being an impediment. The Metaverse will allow its users to work, meet, play and socialize together in these 3D spaces, while being in the comfort of their homes.

It can also have other practical applications, such as work meetings in which everyone shares a virtual office space, while connecting from their homes, and does not even have to worry about getting ready or dressed in any way. It will not matter if you are disheveled or still in pajamas, what the rest of the people will see will be your avatar, your virtual character.

The Economics of a Metaverse

Metaverses are a virtual extension of our real world. Within these, whole economies will exist, like the ones we know today.

Virtual Currency

Metaverses will have their own virtual money or currency system. This will allow users to buy and sell properties, services and products.

Cryptocurrencies are of great importance for the development of metaverses, and there are already several growing projects that have their own cryptocurrency. We’ll talk about this later.

Land and Properties

The metaverses are very similar to our present reality, since land and property will be an essential part of them. Virtual land parcels will be sold (in fact are being sold already), and those will have predefined sizes. In those, users will be able to build their houses, businesses, and virtual parks.

Nowadays, The success of NFTs makes it possible for the metaverses developed on blockchains such as Ethereum, to have real exchange of virtual land and properties, and that these have unique identifiers that are impossible to copy or falsify. These properties can be resold for higher prices, just like it is done in the real world.

Do you want to know what NFTs are? Click here.

Jobs

The Metaverse increases the chances of being able to work within it. Either your company allows you to operate from home within the Metaverse, or you might find a job offered within the Metaverse itself, and be hired for it.

Events

The metaverse opens up a great possibility to organize virtual events, such as conferences, concerts, art exhibitions, among others, to which you and many other people can attend with their virtual avatars, either for free or purchasing a ticket.

Games or Fun

One of the greatest possibilities of the Metaverse is to be able to create virtual environments to play with other avatars, compete or have fun, in ways that perhaps we have not been able to enjoy before.

These modalities are the most used today by games that are early versions of metaverses, such as the famous Minecraft, Roblox or Fortnite.

The Metaverse, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies

If the Metaverse will make all of the above come true, we will need a sure way to demonstrate our ownership over many things. Likewise, it will be important to feel safe transferring these assets and money around the metaverse. This is where the Blockchain will play a key role.

It is also worth mentioning that it will be important that all its members have a vote in the decisions that happen in the metaverse and how it changes or evolves, if these will be such an important part of our lives.

The metaverse developers who believe in the importance of digital proof of ownership, of the transfer of value, governance and accessibility to information, are already using the Blockchain and cryptocurrencies as the basis of the development of these projects. Blockchain provides a decentralized and transparent way to manage metaverses, while the development of these virtual worlds by companies such as Facebook or Microsoft, means that a single company, person or entity, can control and decide everything.

What metaverses already exist?

Within the universe of Blockchain, there are already some projects that are demonstrating from now, to know what is needed to create a virtual world in which we all participate and decide.

Decentraland

Decentraland is a metaverse based on the Ethereum (ETH) Blockchain technology, and its purpose, is the creation of an open virtual world, in which its users can socialize, explore, play and make commercial transactions, having their own avatar, and using the Decentraland cryptocurrency MANA, as a mean of exchange.

Do you want to know more about Decentraland and MANA? Click here.

The Sandbox

The Sandbox is also a metaverse based on Ethereum technology, in which its users can create their avatars, improve them and interact with a vast virtual world, in the pure style of Minecraft. Like Decentraland, it has its own cryptocurrency, SAND, which allows its users to buy and sell land, properties, or any other type of asset available in that virtual world.

If you want to know more about the growth of Sandbox, read the article here.

Is the metaverse necessary?

This is a difficult question to answer. It is almost as if we want to answer if artificial intelligence is necessary for humans, but we are developing it anyway.

Metaverses are becoming an increasingly latent reality, but it is still necessary that the processing capacity of computers, the quality and technology of augmented reality glasses and the speed of the internet in many countries increase, for the metaverse to become a reality for everyone.

With the announcement of Mark Zuckerberg on the decision to turn Facebook into Meta, and direct the destiny of the company in creating a Metaverse that all Facebook and Instagram users can access, a new chapter of the Metaverse began, but also generated a lot of criticism.

Is it correct that a single company controls our new universe? What is the true purpose and interest behind creating this by Facebook?

All these questions will have to be answered in the coming months and years, but the reality is that the metaverse has a clear decentralized future as well. The blockchain and cryptocurrencies have come to stay, and there are already many enthusiasts not only developing these projects, but also many users joining them.

The metaverses created on the basis of the blockchain, suppose a fairer virtual reality, where we all own the universe and can decide the future of it.

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