The metaverse is a virtual three dimensional universe that represents everything in the physical world. It consists of a virtual world where users can basically live their normal physical lives without interference from physical factors. Users can basically have fun, eat and drink, work, get paid and do all sorts of stuffs that can be done in real life.
The metaverse is different as depicted by different companies who try to create their own virtual world as best they think the world should be. All these metaverses try to represent the physical world in a virtual form and while the metaverse is still in it’s early stage, huge progress has been made so far compared to a time when it was only possible in science fictions.
Recently, a lot of investors and companies have been exploring the metaverse and even acquiring assets there. Instead of buying physical assets such as lands and houses, lots of persons have been buying assets in the virtual world. This is evident with Kucoin, one of the world’s leading crypto exchanges buying an office in Bloktopia’s metaverse.
CHECK OUT: WHAT ARE NFTs?
METAVERSE AND CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Since every economy needs money for transactions and the metaverse is a virtual economy, only a virtual currency can be used for transactions in this kind of economy. Fortunately, cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies and are well suited for this purpose because of the trustless, transparent and secure nature of the blockchain.
Many already existing metaverses already have their own virtual currency which is used as a transactional currency in it’s virtual economy. These virtual currencies only apply to a particular metaverse and cannot be used for transactions in another metaverse. This is similar to the official currency of the United states being the US dollar and the official currency of Nigeria being Naira.
These virtual currencies can basically be used in their respective metaverses for purchase of assets like lands, houses, shopping, charity works and many other actions represented from the physical world.
Some examples of popular metaverses and their transactional currecies are; Decentraland which uses the MANA, Axie infinity which uses the AXS, Bloktopia which uses the BLOK and many others that can be found by clicking this link.
METAVERSE AND NFTs
Another very important aspect of the metaverse are NFTs. NFTs refer to non-fungible tokens which are cryptocurrencies that can only exists once in it’s original form. NFTs could be piece of arts, in-game items and many more which contains a cryptographic information that can never be altered.
With the concept of NFTs, users can own lands, houses and other assets in the metaverse in form of NFTs. Since NFTs are non-fungible and have it’s ownership information coded into the token, it makes it well suited for representation as real estate assets in the metaverse.
NFTs have also been used in the gaming metaverse as can be seen in games like axie infinity. Players earn rewards in form of NFTs and this rewards can in actual sense be exchanged for AXS token which in turn can be exchanged for real money in the physical world.
FEATURES OF THE CRYPTO METAVERSE
Creators of different crypto metaerses have sought to differentiate their world from other metaverses in several key ways. Some of them are;
1. DECENTRALIZATION
Crypto metaverses are decentralized with some or all of it’s components built using blockchain technology. This decentralization means that those games or metaverses do not have any third party interference and everything runs on a transparent and secure system which is the blockchain.
This decentralization also means that the metaverse is not owned by it’s creators, but instead owned by everyone who lives in it. Even if the creators of the metaverse were to walk away, it remains and continues to operate so long as people continue to live in it.
CHECK OUT: 7 WAYS TO MAKE MONEY IN THE CRYPTO SPACE
2. GOVERNANCE
Since the metaverse is not owned by it’s creators but by it’s users, it is only fair to leave decision making regarding the entire metaverse to the actual owners which are the users. Metaverses such as Decentraland make use of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and governance tokens to help put their users in charge of decision making through a voting system.
In this way, the economy of the metaverse embraces democracy and carries everyone along.
3. PHYSICAL WORLD VALUE
Since crypto metaverses make use of crypto tokens for transactions in their virtual economy, these currencies have real world economic value as they can easily be traded using centralized or decentralized exchanges. Also, NFTs won as rewards or bought as assets in the virtual world can be traded in various NFT marketplaces such as opensea and refinable.
CONCLUSION
The metaverse is still in it’s early stage and no one knows what turn it will take in time to come. Recently a lot of big companies such as Meta (facebook) have been investing in metaverses and this can only mean that the virtual world is gaining lots of needed attention.
The metaverse has already made a good number of investors rich as is evident with people who invested in projects like decentraland, axie infinity and bloktopia. The sector continues to boom and many investors are of the opinion that it is the next big thing.
Even with the recent buzz in the metaverse sector, investors are advised to do a proper research and only invest what they can afford to lose.
