The Metaverse
The metaverse is a combo of virtual and augmented reality, in which real-world people can create avatars and “live” in virtual spaces and own virtual items.
It is expected that the metaverse will expand and offer you a hyper-real alternative world to live in.
The word metaverse can have different meanings to different companies, based on the specific product that they’re developing. Most of the existing metaverses that exist today are online games, that rely heavily on science fiction to enable players to perform actions they could never perform in real life.
For instance, one such blockchain-based video game that is starting to rise within the metaverse space is Decentraland (MANA).
Elements of the metaverse
What is metaverse, and what exactly should you expect from a metaverse? Although it might not have all these things, it should at least tick some of these boxes:
- Have features that are compatible with other web services or real-world activities
- 3D computer graphics and personal avatars
- Have social interactions that are more goal-oriented and less competitive than traditional video games.
- Users can create their own virtual objects and environments.
- Virtual goods can be linked to other economic systems, from which users can profit.
- Design that is well-suited for virtual and augmented reality headsets, even though they often support other hardware
As more metaverses have emerged with the launching of blockchain games, we’ve seen many of these gaming offering in-game assets that are registered as NFTs.
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a digital asset that can prove ownership over digital assets. Some of the games that offer digital assets as NFTs are Decentraland, Sandbox, Axie Infinity, Plant vs. Undead, and more games are set to be launched in 2022.
But a true metaverse has to be interconnected with other platforms and worlds. And blockchains could be the foundations of these worlds. However, information from one blockchain might need to pass to another as users move from one world to the next. If the worlds can communicate and bridge with one another, seamless experiences will be possible.