The Metaverse: The new Frontier

Cryptocurrency has been growing in popularity over the past decade and is currently used as  much as the internet back in 1998. Most people understand it as an alternative to using  government backed currencies, however Ethereum’s debut in 2017 as the first smart  contact blockchain altered the way cryptocurrencies were perceived.  

Ethereum’s smart contracts have multiple use cases but the most popular of these is  allowing individuals to digitise artwork and sell the ownership rights via a contract. These  pieces of digital artwork are referred to as NFT’s (Non-Fungible Tokens). The blockchain  itself allows the owners of these NFT’s to be verified granting property rights to the  individual. The most notable location for these transactions to take place is on a website  marketplace called ‘OpenSea’.  

However, Ethereum is not the only smart contract platform in the cryptocurrency realm,  Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) are relatively new smart contract platforms with the latter  only receiving smart contacts through a hard fork in September of this year. It is also not  just artwork alone. Decentraland (MANA) and The Sandbox (SAND) are virtual reality worlds  built on the Ethereum blockchain that allow users to purchase land in this virtual world  using their respective tokens. Games and experiences can be created here, and you can  interact with other players. Nevertheless, one of the most notable features of these virtual  worlds is that since they exist on the Ethereum blockchain, NFT’s can also be displayed as  artwork within these worlds.  

CryptoClear has made its Members aware of the potential for virtual worlds and NFT’s and  where the space is headed with multiple articles and news updates focused on these ideas.  

You may have noticed that very recently Facebook has changed the name of its company to  ‘Meta’ and have spoken extensively on their vision for the metaverse. The most exciting  prospect of this is that Facebook own the VR company Oculus, a virtual reality gaming  platform and will look to implement the virtual reality experience into virtual worlds built on  a blockchain.  

At the centre of cryptocurrency, there is a strong belief in decentralisation, whether it be in  terms of money or applications. It is therefore difficult to assess how Facebook will be able  to integrate itself with these beliefs. Will they support the implementation of the virtual  worlds being developed currently or will they look at creating their own? Facebook or  ‘Meta’ is a large corporation with a social media monopoly so it is hard to imagine what  their virtual world would look like. Would it be a corporate dystopia?  

The strongest argument I have is that all these virtual worlds are web3 applications and that  there will be no one winner. The internet will remain decentralised and various worlds will be built on top of it. It is likely that a user will be able to remain completely sovereign over  the individual they create to occupy these virtual worlds and they will be able to use this  identity throughout them all, switching between worlds to access new experiences  whenever they desire.  

Either way this is a space that is still in its infancy and has a long way to go before serious  mainstream adoption comes around but expect more companies to start getting involved  soon with rumours circulating that Apple and Sony will be releasing new Virtual Reality  Hardware in the foreseeable future.  

At CryptoClear, we are always keeping our Members 1 Step ahead, if you would like to read  more about how we have been Investing in the Metaverse for years and you can too check  out the article here- https://crypto-clear.co.uk/how-we-are-investing-in-the-metaverse 

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