{"id":21837,"date":"2022-07-04T14:43:24","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T14:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=21837"},"modified":"2022-07-04T14:43:24","modified_gmt":"2022-07-04T14:43:24","slug":"does-the-metaverse-need-blockchain-to-ensure-widespread-adoption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=21837","title":{"rendered":"Does the Metaverse need blockchain to ensure widespread adoption?"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Many assume, too, that blockchain technology will play a key role in the Metaverse, along with other emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR). But, is the use of blockchain really a foregone conclusion?<\/p>\n

Stanford University professor Jeremy Bailenson recently moderated a World Economic Forum panel with some of the world\u2019s leading thinkers of the Metaverse and blockchain. \u201cThe first question posed to the panel was \u2018Do we need the blockchain for the metaverse?\u2019\u201d Bailenson, founder of Stanford\u2019s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, recounted to Cointelegraph. \u201cThe consensus was that the Metaverse could exist without blockchain.\u201d <\/p>\n

As an example, Bailenson offered up metaverse pioneer Second Life, founded in 2003, which has 70 million current registered accounts and is adding<\/a> another 350,000 new accounts each month to its online multimedia platform. Second Life has developed \u201ca robust economy where digital assets are bought and sold,\u201d said Bailenson. \u201cThe typical GDP of Second Life is about half a billion dollars each year. And, the world runs robustly without using the blockchain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCould the next iteration of the internet exist without blockchain technology?\u201d asked Tonya Evans, professor at Penn State University\u2019s Dickinson Law School. \u201cYes, it could,\u201d she told Cointelegraph. After all, distributed decentralized ledgers and cryptographically-secured assets \u2014 including smart contracts \u2014 are only one part of Web3 technology, along with AI, 3D printing, VR, augmented reality, the Internet of Things (IoT) and others. <\/p>\n

Many are thrilled at the prospect of the Metaverse with its virtual worlds that can be used to play online games, but also to train surgeons on 3D organ models and enable students to visit recreated villages in ancient Greece astonishingly brought to life.<\/p>\n

Exclude it at your peril<\/h2>\n

But, omitting blockchain technology, while doable, could still be a mistake. \u201cThe Metaverse without blockchains would likely just advance the ball for Big Tech,\u201d added Evans, and it would come at the expense of those same people left behind by Web2 \u2014 \u201cthe very people a truly decentralized web would empower.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yonatan Raz-Fridman, founder and CEO of SuperSocial \u2014 which develops games for the Metaverse \u2014 agreed that blockchain technology is not absolutely necessary. \u201cNo, you don\u2019t need blockchain to enable the Metaverse,\u201d he told Cointelegraph. There is no a priori <\/em>reason why avatars can\u2019t be created in 3D and games played with closed platforms, like Second Life\u2019s.<\/p>\n

But, Web3 is arguably a reaction against the FAMGA companies \u2014 Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon \u2014 with their privately-owned platforms, and Raz-Fridman predicted that companies like Meta will have to compromise on the matter of interoperability if they expect to participate. This means allowing avatars to freely travel from one Metaverse project to another \u2014 along with all their digital clothes and jewelry. As NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway put it<\/a> recently: <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy buy clothes if you can\u2019t wear them out of the store? Why buy a Birkin bag if you can\u2019t show it off in the Metaverse?\u201d\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Consumers are now demanding a Web3\/Metaverse more like that depicted in Neal Stephenson\u2019s 1992 novel Snow Crash<\/em>, added Raz-Fridman, \u201cwhere everyone owns their digital assets and has the freedom to bring them with them as they move from one place to another.\u201d<\/p>\n

An artist’s depiction of the Metaverse in <\/em>Snow Crash. Source: Civort<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Interestingly, novelist Stephenson himself is the co-founder of a recently launched metaverse project Lamina1, \u201cthat will use blockchain technology to build an \u2018open metaverse\u2019 \u2014 one that\u2019s open-source and decentralized,\u201d the Washington Post reported<\/a>. <\/p>\n

All about people, places and things<\/h2>\n

The Metaverse is an elusive term \u2014 various parties define it differently. Most agree, though, that it involves immersive three-dimensional virtual worlds with lots of games and role-playing. Bailenson, for his part, finds it useful to break the Metaverse down into people, places and things. In each of these areas, he sees a potential role for blockchain technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople <\/em>are avatars, the bodies we wear while immersed in the digital world,\u201d he explained to Cointelegraph. Here, blockchain technology can provide the \u201ccrypto DNA\u201d that \u201censures a one-to-one mapping of person to avatar.\u201d For example, it could be used to guarantee that an individual can\u2019t inhabit ten avatars simultaneously or enable someone else to \u201ctake my own avatar for a joy ride.\u201d Added Bailenson:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile an obvious application of blockchain will be to verify clothes and jewelry for an avatar, I have always thought the killer app here is documenting and verifying human animations.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Places, in Bailenson\u2019s conception, are set areas in a grid of a virtual world. For the Metaverse to work, a world \u201cneeds to be persistent: it is there, even when you aren\u2019t, and consistent: if you buy a plot of land one kilometer from Snoop Dog, it can\u2019t move farther away based on an arbitrary remapping of the world.\u201d Some platforms are already using blockchain technology to document these maps, he noted.<\/p>\n

Finally, the most obvious application of blockchain technology is in Bailenson\u2019s realm of things, which includes three-dimensional models, two-dimensional images, sound files \u201cor any digital asset that can be housed within a virtual world.\u201d Blockchain technology can be used to verify transactions \u201cwithout a centralized body overseeing the transaction\u201d and also ensure \u201cthat items have unique value based on the supply \u2014 one can\u2019t just make thousands of copies to counterfeit an asset.\u201d<\/p>\n

A need for interoperability?<\/h2>\n

As things stand now, major Metaverse players and\/or contenders \u2014 including Sandbox, Decentraland and the FAMGA companies \u2014 \u201coffer very little interchange between their web platforms and other platforms,\u201d Lik-Hang Lee, assistant professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, told Cointelegraph. This lack of interoperability, characteristic of Web2, is a shortcoming that needs to be addressed if the Metaverse is to reach its full potential. This includes, at a minimum, the following elements, according to Lee:<\/p>\n