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Is Blockchain-Based Virtual Reality the Future?

You haven’t uploaded yourself to the Metaverse yet, which begs the question: what’s the deal with VR? Although it’s been around since 1968 and major companies such as Facebook, Google, and Samsung have invested in virtual reality initiatives like the Oculus Rift, headsets plus equipment can still add up to over a hefty $1000 USD; Mark Zuckerberg admits that “VR is locked in a vicious circle of needing enough content to lure in consumers”; and, at the end of the day, you’re fumbling around a room for a couple of hours (taking time to rest your brain from VR-induced motion sickness), emerging with nothing to show but a splitting headache and a harsh realization that you’re back in reality.

Welcome to the future 🙂

Why Virtual Reality Is Just Revving Up
The Dark Side: Why You Wouldn’t Want to Live in Virtual Reality
How Blockchain Transforms the Virtual World
Why Should I Care About Blockchain-Based VR?
In Conclusion…

Just Revving Up

Virtual reality startups are just beginning to launch their offerings to the public, Decentraland’s VR avatar center opened up to users earlier this month, CEEK recently launched their first virtual reality gift card, and competitors such as Vibehub, Nanome, and Revolution VR are hot on their heels. Wonderful. But, you may ask, what’s new about this?

For years, advocates of virtual reality have struggled to overcome several major barriers to mass adoption — centralized corporations controlled user accounts, hackers eliminated digital assets, and developers lacked incentives to create quality VR content.

Now, blockchain is changing the game.

This means that Decentraland, CEEK, Vibe, and other virtual reality startups are introducing what you could call…VR 2.0. Rather than relying on high-def, graphically breathtaking games and visual experiences to attract their user base, they’re banking on their ability to replicate the sense of community of the real world; and, they plan to defeat the dark side of VR with none other than blockchain.

The Dark Side: Why You Wouldn’t Want to Live in Pre-Blockchain VR

Let’s imagine for a moment that you’ve decided to expatriate the real world and move online to a world much like that created by Second Life, a VR platform that gained crazy numbers of adopters back in the early 2000s. Now, everything may be cool and groovy for a while with this centralized setup. But humor me and hang on before you cut all ties with reality.

Would you really want to spend countless hours building up a life complete with a house, possessions, and social connections – essentially, what you spent your 20s doing! – and feel your stomach drop as a gaming platform suddenly fails?
Or, choose to place the final brushstroke on your artistic masterpiece, sell your first business product, or film your first movie…and feel helpless to stop others from copying and profiting off of your creative talent?
Or, remain unsure that the people you interact with on a daily basis are who they claim to be — that is, who’s to say that someone hasn’t suddenly decided to impersonate your beloved mother, business partner, or romantic interest?

(If you answered any of those with a resounding NO, you’re not alone.)

How Blockchain Transforms the Virtual World

// Decentralises power //

According to Decentraland founder Ariel Meilich:

“If this power were put into the hands of the users instead [of big gaming corporations], the true potential of VR might be realised.”

If you’re exploring a virtual reality world, you often have the ability to buy products: clothes, avatars, materials, or land. Those virtual possessions, unfortunately, are usually stored in a central database and controlled by a single entity, which means that if the central company gets hacked, goes under, or decides to change your account holdings, you can’t do anything but utter a few expletives at your screen and start from square one all over again.

But what if you recorded these purchases — virtual land, a hot pair of Rayban sunglasses, a CryptoKitty — on blockchain so that they were stored permanently? After all, blockchains aren’t just used for cryptocurrencies. They can store much more complex information; for example, when you buy a plot of land in Decentraland’s Genesis City, that plot is represented on the Ethereum blockchain as a unique token with specific coordinates and maintained by a smart contract.

It’s like owning a piece of land, or a car, or a rocking pair of shades in real life. Just like how others trust that you possess, (say, a Lamborghini) because they can physically see the proof, anyone can check the global, decentralized blockchain ledger and verify that you’re the rightful owner. What’s more, you can reuse your accessories on other platforms, control their content, and feel confident that a central gaming company won’t lose your information, eliminate your belongings, or change the rules of your world.

That’s the first plus. Here’s the second…

// Provides an incentive to create //

“As an owner, you have full creative freedom and any income generated by anything you make goes straight into your pocket.”

— Ariel Meilich

In a blockchain-based system, users can rely on cryptocurrencies to recreate a trusted economy without needed banks or other middlemen to run transactions. Businesses, entertainment venues, home…with control over your content, you can run and monetize them, with all profits going straight to you. It’s a Digi-human creative renaissance, let’s call it, as described by our friends from AltCoin Mag:

“Companies and individuals could purchase, design, and sell buildings. Designers could create virtual clothing (whose look could far surpass what is possible in the real world) that could be sold to individuals for online identities. Artists could create art displays which surpass all limitations of the physical world.”

— AltCoin Magazine

But let’s say you’re not quite buying land in Genesis City quite yet…

Why Should I Care About Blockchain-Based VR?

Rather than exploring exoplanets and endless reaches of our universe, there are those who think that in the end, humans will choose virtual reality. This means that when the conversation shifts to VR, we’re talking about the creation of worlds that you could potentially live in someday.

In Conclusion…

In order to create VR that takes off, we’re going to need to recreate what really matters to us in reality: people, experiences, connection. Even if we go digital, we’re still human.

Yes, there will be a slow curve of adoption as headset costs fall, content quality increases and blockchain-based social and economic structures provide the incentive for people to join the world of VR. But in the meantime, as this brave new world slowly gains appeal in a wider market, we may see its ripples out into reality. As Simon de la Rouviere predicts:

“we will most definitely see a new surge of people demanding exactly that reality into the real world. Down with corrupt governments. Down with archaic governance. Down with intolerance. Down with all the bull****.”

Until then?

Start designing your virtual avatar.

Gamers Invest Just Over 1 Million USD In Blockchain for Virtual Real Estate

In blockchain, virtual worlds have been developing over the past few years and gaining traction. This week gamers and virtual reality supporters have spoken, investing 1 million USD of fiat into digitally generated worlds and property.

Investing in real estate is what many call a sound investment, however, does this also apply to virtual seaside views and luxury apartments in the gaming worlds as well?

The 1 million Investment

As Blockchain continues to be adopted, there are multiple platforms using the technology to create these environments, including Neoworld, The Sandbox, and Cryptovoxels.

Between the aforementioned platforms, much of the 1 million surge in investment has come. Sandbox selling 7% of its virtual land within the game, raising a staggering 168,000 USD last week with over 6000 sales made to players and average orders equalling 28 USD.

Decentraland clocking just under 600,000USD in trading and speculation on their real estate, and finally Cryptovoxels confirming 200,000USD in volume as well.

With games like Sims, Second Life and Minecraft showing huge popularity allowing players to build worlds and characters, it is not surprising that newer titles and development would happen.

Blockchain-powered gaming has continued to grow heavily in the past 12 months with major sectors becoming involved and with such investment still coming into the markets, the growth seems likely to continue further as we go into 2020.

With populations increasing and land becoming more scarce, is it viable for us to look into virtual environments using VR devices (Virtual reality) to enjoy the simpler joys in life? Many of us will not be able to afford beachfront property, 3 story mansions or enjoy the benefits of travel, however with VR, all of this is much more possible. Is it the future?

Only time will tell, but with the continuing million-dollar investments, perhaps it’s more probable than not.

Image via Shutterstock

Nvidia Plans to add Innovation in the Metaverse with Software, Marketplace Deals

Leading American multinational technology company Nvidia Corporation has set its eyes on adding more creativity in the metaverse with various marketplace and software deals.

The company disclosed that it had rolled out plans to offer software to artists and other creators for free needed in developing virtual worlds for the metaverse. Nvidia also acknowledged that it intends to avail a free version of its “Omniverse” software to individual artists for this purpose.

Furthermore, the firm has struck technology deals with different marketplaces, allowing artists to sell their three-dimensional content.

The metaverse continues to gain steam in the modern era because it entails shared virtual worlds where avatars, buildings, land, and even names can be bought and sold, often using cryptocurrencies.

Therefore, these virtual worlds are made more lifelike using technologies like augmented and virtual reality that is heavily dependent on graphics computing availed by companies like Nvidia.

As per the announcement:

“Nvidia is seeking to turn its leading position in supplying the computing hardware for the metaverse into a set of software tools for creating and selling content within virtual worlds, a business opportunity that has helped Nvidia shares more than double in value over the past year.”

In September 2021, William Quigley, the co-founder of stablecoin Tether (USDT), disclosed that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) would become the revenue model of the metaverse.

He added that when reality is combined with digital numbers, unimaginable changes would be produced based on how the world interacts.

Some celebrities are already reaping the dividends of entering the metaverse. Reportedly, Taiwanese pop singer and musician Jay Chou earned nearly $10 million after venturing into the metaverse NFT market.

Donald Trump's NFT Trading Card Collection

In recent days, there has been a significant uptick in the daily sales volume of nonfungible token (NFT) trading cards belonging to the former President of the United States, Donald Trump.

According to market analytics aggregator Cryptoslam, sales volumes on January 18 and January 19 saw surges of 800% and 600% respectively when compared to sales volumes on January 17.

Following reports that the former president was seeking to rejoin Facebook and Twitter in advance of the 2024 presidential election campaign, some experts believe that the rekindled interest could be due to his imminent return to social media networks. This speculation comes after it was reported that the former president was seeking to rejoin these networks.

On December 15th, a collection of 45,000 self-themed trading cards was released, and the price of each card was originally set at $99 USD.

Customers who purchased the collection were instantly placed into a sweepstakes with “thousands of prizes,” some of which included one-on-one meals, zoom calls, and games of golf with the previous President.

They sold out very rapidly and achieved daily sales volumes of more than $3.5 million, but after that, their sales volume sank to a baseline of around $26,000 by the end of 2022.

Yuga Labs, the company that created Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), has blocked the secondary trade of its “Sewer Pass” non-fungible tokens on markets that do not provide full support for creator royalties.

It is possible to mint the Sewer Pass, which serves as an admission pass to its new skill-based non-flip-to-win game called Dookey Dash, but only for those who are members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club or the Mutant Ape Yacht Club.

According to the statistics provided by NFT Price Floor, The Sewer Pass has had a large amount of transactions on secondary markets, with a floor price of 1.81 ETH (which is equivalent to $2,809) and sales volumes of 15,627 ETH (which is equivalent to $24,267,411).

Secondary sales of the collection have already brought in more than $1.2 million in income for Yuga Labs, which is based on a 5% creator royalty charge for the collection.

According to the announcement, “Neopets Metaverse” will be a play-and-earn virtual pet game based on the original, and it would enable users to “grow, care for, personalise, and combat with their Neopets” on the blockchain. The game will be based on the original “Neopets.”

Neopets was established in 1999, and its parent business has high hopes that its newest product, Neopets Metaverse, would reintroduce “the magic of Neopets in a wonderfully fresh light to old-time gamers, as well as recruiting and fostering a new generation of Neopians.”

The news has been received with a lacklustre reaction from the community, with some members speculating that the community’s earlier attempt to create a Neopets metaverse was unsuccessful.

Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a pair of haptic gloves that they hope will allow users to experience the feeling of touch in the metaverse.

The HaptGlove is an untethered and lightweight glove that will enable users of the metaverse to interact with virtual items in a manner that is much more realistic by communicating a sense of touch and grip. The innovation was developed by HaptLabs.

When users put on the HaptGlove, they are able to sense when their virtual avatar’s hand touches something, as well as tell how hard the object is and what shape it is. This is made possible by the HaptGlove restricting the user’s finger positions, which enables users to sense when their virtual avatar’s hand touches something.

According to NUS, the HaptGlove will also be valuable in other fields, such as education and medicine, since it will enable surgeons to practise their procedures in a “hyper-realistic environment” and will provide students with the opportunity to gain practical knowledge via hands-on practise.

Although the idea of haptic gloves is not new, as for example, Meta is now working on their own version of them, NUS say that theirs is capable of providing users with a far more realistic feeling of touch in comparison to other haptic gloves that are already on the market.

It has been suggested by those working on metaverse games that because virtual reality is such an immature technology, it is difficult to incorporate it into metaverse products. As a result, games like The Sandbox and Decentraland have not yet fully incorporated virtual reality clients into their gameplay.

Rarible, a marketplace for NFTs, made the announcement on January 18 that it was going to extend its marketplace builder to accommodate Polygon-based NFT collections.

The cryptocurrency exchange Binance made an announcement on January 19 that it would be tightening its rules for NFT listings. As part of the new regulations, the exchange will require sellers to complete Know Your Customer (KYC) verification and have at least two followers before they can list their NFTs on the platform.

Original Snow Crash Manuscript Goes Up for Auction

According to a page that can be found on the official website of Sotheby’s, the original manuscript of Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash, the novel that is credited with coining the phrase “metaverse,” will be put up for sale. The auction is a part of a series dubbed “Infocalypse” that will take place on February 23. The series will feature both physical and digital goods linked to the well-known novel.

Lot 2 of the series contains the original manuscript that was written. It is “wrapped in original Xerox 4200 Paper,” it is sealed with masking tape, and it has “corrections and notations throughout written in blue ink by Neal Stephenson in his hand.” Additionally, the author has inscribed the title of the book on the spine of the book using a sharpie marker.

In addition, there is a “updated typesetting document” up for auction in Lot 4 of the sale. This is a later version that was revised and supplemented by the author with extra handwritten notations and alterations.

Other real-world items are also being sold at auction as part of this series. These include the original painting that was used as the cover art for the 1993 mass-market paperback edition of the book; a leather jacket that was going to be used in a video promotion for the graphic novel; slides that were used for the concept of the graphic novel; and a real sword that was inspired by the one that the book’s protagonist wielded.

In addition to these tangible artifacts, the series will also include non-fiction tales (NFTs) of digital art that were created in response to the graphic book idea that came before Snow Crash.

The dystopian novel Snow Crash was first released in 1992 and takes place in a world where the majority of people reside in cramped storage facilities. The main character, Hiro, is a pizza delivery worker who needs to battle robbers in order to deliver pizzas to customers. The story chronicles his adventures. Hiro doesn’t have much of a social life since he spends all of his free time in a virtual world known as “the Metaverse,” which is a place where people go to get away from the stress of ordinary life. The inhabitants of the Metaverse, however, are transformed into “nothing more than a jittering cloud of negative digital karma” due to a computer virus. The journey that Hiro takes through the book to discover a cure for the virus is the driving force behind the story’s action.

According to the Washington Post, the book has racked up sales of more than one million copies on the continent of North America alone. Since the publication of the book, enthusiasts of virtual reality have been increasingly using Stephenson’s term “metaverse” to describe the developing virtual world that is being created by virtual reality technology. In recent years, the term has become a buzzword that is frequently searched for online.

The growth of the metaverse has provided some people with new job prospects and has contributed to the transformation of Web3 gaming.

Meta's Virtual Reality Programmers Earn $1 Million

In recent years, Meta, the parent corporation of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has indicated interest in expanding into the metaverse. This interest comes as a result of the rapid growth of all three of these platforms. Even though the company’s section responsible for developing the metaverse, Reality Labs, is projected to incur enormous losses of $13.7 billion over the period of 2022, Facebook’s chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg, is unwavering in his dedication to the company’s long-term ambition.

In spite of the company’s financial woes, a recent article published in The Wall Street Journal revealed that total remuneration for Meta’s virtual reality programmers may reach up to one million dollars. According to the claim, which cites unnamed persons with knowledge of the situation as its source, salary packages for metaverse developers at Meta vary from around $600,000 to roughly one million dollars annually.

The intentions that Meta has for the metaverse have been greeted with opposition from several parties, including the Federal Trade Commission, which has filed a lawsuit against Meta in an effort to prevent the latter from acquiring a virtual reality firm. Because of the “serious risks” involved and the potential for damage, two senators from the United States have also asked Zuckerberg not to provide teens access to the metaverse platform Horizon Worlds.

In spite of the difficulties, Meta is carrying out its ambitions in the same manner as before. A court in the United States gave the business in question permission to go through with the purchase in February of 2023. Additionally, on March 13, the head of commerce and finance technologies at Meta made an announcement that the company will be discontinuing its support for nonfungible tokens on Facebook and Instagram for the time being. This decision was made in order for the company to concentrate on finding alternative methods to promote artists, individuals, and companies.

The fact that Meta is so focused on the metaverse brings a variety of possibilities and difficulties to the table for the organization. The company’s high compensation for virtual reality programmers may raise doubts about the company’s spending priorities, given the enormous losses that have been incurred in the company’s metaverse-building section. Despite this, it seems that Meta is resolved to go through with its plans for the metaverse in spite of Zuckerberg’s unflinching commitment to the long-term vision.

Epic Games CEO Defends Metaverse

In a recent tweet, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney pushed back against a recent article from Business Insider that claimed the Metaverse was “dead.” The article, written by PR firm CEO Ed Zitron, argued that virtual worlds had been abandoned by the business world, citing Meta’s Horizon Worlds, Decentraland, and Yuga Labs’ Otherside as examples of metaverses that had failed to live up to their hype.

Sweeney, however, was quick to point out that there are currently 600 million users across virtual world platforms like Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, The Sandbox, and VR Chat. In his tweet, Sweeney sarcastically suggested that the Metaverse was dead and that it was time to organize an online wake for the 600 million monthly active users across these platforms to mourn its passing.

This isn’t the first time that Sweeney has spoken out in defense of the Metaverse. In April 2022, Epic Games announced a $2 billion funding round aimed at accelerating the company’s plans for the Metaverse. The investment included a $1 billion investment from Sony Group and KIRKBI, the holding company behind the LEGO Group.

Shortly after the funding round, Epic Games and LEGO Group announced a long-term partnership to build a “family-friendly” Metaverse. While neither company has revealed any concrete details about the collaboration, LEGO Group CEO Niels Christiansen told the Financial Times earlier this year that the company was looking to announce more details soon.

Sweeney’s defense of the Metaverse is understandable, given that Epic Games is heavily invested in the technology. As the creator of the Unreal Engine and Fortnite, two major players in the virtual world space, Epic Games is well-positioned to take advantage of the growing interest in the Metaverse.

It remains to be seen whether the Metaverse will live up to its hype, but with major players like Epic Games and LEGO Group investing billions of dollars in the technology, it’s clear that the concept is not going away anytime soon. As more and more people turn to virtual worlds for work, play, and socializing, it’s possible that the Metaverse will become an integral part of our daily lives.