Move over Marvel’s Cinematic Universe—make way for the Metaverse! Don’t sleep on it and let’s find out what these metaverse-native leaders had to say about it during our recent Virtual Meetup #10 on February 24, 2021 @ 9PM EST.
Held monthly, CoinGecko’s Virtual Meetup is our live online community event where we explore different key topics in the crypto sphere and invite industry leaders to share their two satoshis.
In this meetup, we talked to Miles Anthony (Project Lead at Decentral Games), Matty Soudagar (Founder of DCL Blogger), and Andrew Steinwold (Managing Partner at Sfermion) exploring the current state of the metaverse, the opportunities it presents, and its future.
What is the Metaverse?
The Metaverse is an online 3D virtual public space where you can live, work, socialize and play games. For those who are building in the crypto metaverse like Miles, it’s the idea of ownership via Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).
You can think of it like Ready Player One where the protagonist plays a virtual reality game. The Metaverse consists of multiple virtual worlds connected by NFTs of which value can be transferred. Another way to look at is like owning property rights on a distributed ledger like the blockchain.
Are we ready to fully own our items and enter the Metaverse?
“We’re super early with this,” said Andrew. He put forth the analogy of where we are today with Metaverse as the early days of the Internet. There were problems and friction at the start but with time and effort, the technology became better. This would be similar to the development of the Metaverse.
Matty agreed and even added the idea of virtual reality (VR) is in its early days. But looking at how we are spending long hours on social media and the Internet in general, he believes that crypto and NFTs will take our online activity to the next level.
In terms of owning our items and wealth without depending on a centralized backing, it is a scary concept for most people. But more people are getting educated about the importance of owning crypto and the need to decentralize.
Can Anyone Access the Metaverse and are VR Gears Necessary?
All three of our speakers said that the Metaverse can be accessed by anyone via a web browser. While Miles pointed out that a VR headset may enhance the Metaverse experience, the hardware is not necessary. Despite that, Matty can envision a future where we’re all in VR.
What is the Role of Crypto Art in the Metaverse?
Crypto art provides a use case for the virtual land. It’s necessary and ideal for the Metaverse as artists can display their art to the network and earn crypto. And once artists or influencers realize that they can communicate with their fans and not just sell NFTs, they could do so much more on the Metaverse.
Andrew explained what an artist can do with NFTs. The first level is to display on a general platform like one does their pictures on IG. The second level is to display them in a dedicated space such as Decentral Games. The third level could potentially be creating a virtual world that is in itself an art piece.
In short, crypto art has a lot of potential on the Metaverse and adds value to both the artist and the fans.
Is a Multichain World the Future?
For most people, it wouldn’t matter if multichain is implemented as long as a token doesn’t get unlocked from the contract and pegged to the original NFT or is interchangeable one-to-one.
Miles added that the only reason one would need to bridge an asset from one chain to another is if they’re trying to bring one NFT to another marketplace to be traded for a cheaper price. On DG, it’s not an issue to have the asset on Ethereum but the game transactions on Matic because they’re tied to the same Ethereum address.
What Will Happen to NFT Trading Activity if the Crypto Market Crashes?
While it’s inevitable that trading of NFT will go down as the value of crypto goes down, there will still be a continuous interest and demand for NFTs.
Crypto is all about money while NFT has an added ‘human’ value which is the social aspect consisting of art, music, and games. And so despite the decrease in value and hype, NFT trading would continue at a good pace.
What Would Regulation Look Like in the Metaverse?
On the whole, the regulation would stifle innovation on the platform. Andrew is of the opinion that we should let innovation thrive without regulation despite the inevitability of bad actors. We can’t let this minority group dictate innovation.
Besides, Matty said that it’s difficult for regulators to keep up with the crypto space. Even if there is a regulation or that a platform is shut down like what has happened with video streaming sites, another will eventually pop up somewhere.
Therefore, it would be better if we could collectively be our own regulators and so that’s why the DAO governing system that represents the people could be the best way forward.
Bullish for Metaverse-native Products
The Metaverse is at its early stage but growing. It will certainly take niche development skillsets such as 3D design, scripting, and transactions to build compelling content on the metaverse and attract more people to be on it. The Metaverse will become a social place to be when more people invest their time and money to build the platform and add value to users.
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Stephanie has a keen interest in breaking down complex topics into beginner-friendly pieces. She has been in the crypto space since 2020 and wants to continue contributing to the demystification of the crypto industry to a broader audience.
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