Recently, the NFT market has been rather eye-catching in many places: Dubai Police officially launched the NFT on April 3rd, becoming the first police department in the world to create its own digital assets; Britain announced plans to mint its own NFT as it looks to “lead the way in crypto” on April 4th; PeckShield statistics show that 11 BAYC series NFT have been stolen in the last nine days, including the phishing attack on the BAYC#3738 that Jay Chou suffered from…
The development and fluctuations of NFT market inevitably involve its most promising application place — the metasverse. The metaverse has attracted much attention since its birth. Some supporters believe that it will be the ecosystem of the future world which have highly developed in science and technology and the ideal space to overturn the traditional society and even innovate the thinking way of human. However, those who disagree see it as a bubble blew by the capital or a gimmick loaded with NFT hype… This article tries to analyze the characteristics and performance of the future metaverse and the trap metaverse respectively from some aspects.
1.Distribution of Metaverse in the Current Market
If we use one sentence to summarize the current distribution of the Metaverse track at home and abroad, it can be: American and Western technology giants are the main promoters of the metaverse while other countries and regions have also carried out early research and exploration. Moreover, Internet giants in China build the metaverse in the way of “buy, buy, buy”, and continue to increase their chips on this track.
American technology companies believe that in the next 10 to 20 years, the metaverse will become a new growth point for the digital economy and a highly strategic competitive field. It may provide a more convenient and feasible digital ecological evolution model, triggering a new round of shuffles of the global technology industry.
Facebook believes that the metaverse is an excellent way to upgrade social networks. It not only changed its name to Meta to express its determination to enter the metaverse but also set up a “Reality Lab” to dedicate to the technology research and development of both virtual reality and improvement in real devices. Relying on the world’s leading artificial intelligence technology, NVIDIA is vigorously exploring ways to apply artificial intelligence computing to the metaverse. OmniverseAvatar, a new avatar platform launched by NVIDIA last year, is a viable platform for the creation and incubation of the metaverse. Roblox explores the metaverse from the perspective of business models, hoping that through technological innovation and user guidance, a large number of innovators on the platform will create an innovation space that can continuously develop and expand…
In China, the top Internet giants, headed by Tencent, ByteDance and Ali, all have more or less ventured into the metaverse.
In 2019, Tencent and Roblox reached a strategic partnership to create Roblox China Holding Company to publish and operate a localized version of Roblox. In March 2021, Roblox introduced the concept of “metaverse” into the prospectus for the first time. On the first day of listing on the New York Stock Exchange, it closed up 54.4% with its valuation increasing from US$4 billion to US$45 billion. If the cooperation with Roblox is Tencent’s unexpected stretch for the metaverse, it is a intentional and precise arrangement that Tencent acquired the game company Black Shark Technology at a price of 2.6 billion yuan in January 2022 — the major technology business of Black Shark, after it’s acquired, shifted from games to VR equipment and is committed to providing an entry to VR hardware for Tencent.
On July 29, 2021, the 19th China Digital Entertainment Industry Conference launched the “China metaverse Industry Development Forum” for the first time, and then at the end of August, ByteDance acquired Pico for 5 billion yuan, thus entering the VR game and obtaining the pass into the metaverse.
Ali’s layout of the metaverse even has a longer history. As early as 2016, Ali participated in the C round and D round funding of AR unicorn MagicalLeap. The C round was led by Ali Group with an investment of 793.5 million US dollars. In 2021, even though Ali’s stock price had fallen and its market value had decreased by 2.8 trillion yuan, it still registered and established the metaverse game brand “Mr. Yunjing” to further develop the game field of the metaverse. In addition, it also applied for registration of trademarks such as “Ali Yuan Universe” and “Taobao Yuan Universe”.
In 2022, Ali further continues to run wildly on the road to the metaverse. Just recently, Nreal, a well-known domestic consumer-grade AR glasses manufacturer, completed a C+ round funding of US$60 million (about 380 million yuan) which is just invested by Ali. Moreover, Ali also announced that it would launch augmented reality glasses for virtual conferences this year, from which we can see how meticulous and intensive the plans it made in metaverse is.
With the intensive deployment of technology giants, governments of various countries have increasingly put the planning and development of the metaverse on the agenda. South Korea established the “metaverse Alliance” led by the government and including more than 200 companies and institutions. Japan released a report on the possibility of the metaverse, and the Saudi government announced that it would invest 6.4 billion US dollars in a number of metaverse innovation companies to explore for new economic growth… Many cities in China have also established metaverse’s economic pilots and innovative industrial parks.
Why can the metaverse, which has appeared frequently only for just a few years, have such magic power, attracting so many capital groups one after another? What technologies is it based on and what are its characteristics?
2.The Core Technology of the Metaverse
The metaverse is a super complex of various top technologies which are integrated into a complete ecological closed loop and used to draw the blueprint of a brand-new next-generation Internet and digital ecology.
In conclusion, artificial intelligence and digital twin technology provide physical products, processes and virtual copies for content production in the metaverse; blockchain technology provides storage, confirmation and authentication mechanism functions; the integration of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and cloud storage technology processes massive amounts of data for the metaverse; 5G, 6G or even 7G network ensures timely traffic, high-speed and high-quality experience without delays; a series of augmented reality technologies, including 3D rendering, extended reality, brain-computer interface, robotics, wearable devices, builds the overall experience of the metaverse…
Combining the above-mentioned top technologies, no matter in social, business, entertainment, or creativity, the user experience and business model of the metaverse will be greatly optimized compared to the current digital space. In the future, these technologies will not only be absorbed by the Metaverse but will also continue to promote the innovation of Metaverse technologies in different ways.
3.Core Features of the metaverse
Regarding the core features of the metaverse, there are many versions so far, but the major core ones are always the following listed:
The first one is decentralization. One of the basic technologies of the metaverse is blockchain technology. As a consensus mechanism, the fundamental feature of blockchain is decentralization — no organization or individuals can control or tamper with information of the entire chain, and all participants get a consensus based on trust in technology and rules. Decentralization ensures that everyone in the metaverse is the holder of their own identity and information and basically eliminates the control and monopoly of traditional Internet giants over user data.
The second is the strengthening of virtual socializing. Existing social networks can provide real-time virtual socializing by text, voice and video that breaks the restriction of distance and environment while the metaverse must contain an enhanced version of virtual socializing, aiming to use devices such as virtual reality and augmented reality to create a virtual platform for users to retrieve data and display holographic images at any time. As shown in Ready Player One, users can even experience near-real touch and smell in the metaverse with devices such as artificial skin and digital scents.
The third is the integration of reality. The metaverse is not a pure virtual space but a digital twin space in which reality and virtuality can blend and mirror each other. In order to enhance the user’s sense of immersion, metaverse projects the digital space into the real world and then casts the real world into the virtual space, thus breaking the boundary between the virtual and the real and allowing the citizens of the metaverse to enjoy a freer, opener and more inclusive world in which individuals can highly develop.
The fourth one is the continuous evolution. The blockchain can confirm the rights of all data and intellectual property, and then the information, data and assets after confirmation can be permanently stored in theory, thus breaking the limitations of old technology and human lifespan and building an ultimate digital ecosystem with a stable development and continuous evolution of content. It also means that the metaverse is persistent: it will never reset and can neither be paused nor go for an end.
In addition, the metaverse has more detailed features, such as high interoperability of data and values, a content created by users and permanently owned by users, digital assets which can be invested by either individuals or enterprises, fully functioning economy, etc.
Based on these characteristics, the metaverse is bound to be a virtual-real world that contains not only all the values of the real world but also more convenience, more innovation and infinite development space. It will realize the deep integration of people, society and digital and provide every ordinary citizen with a new space for value sharing and digital creative dividends.
4.The Ecological Applications of Metaverse, as the Future
The metaverse is in line with the development direction of the digital economy, and the covid-19 has accelerated the development of digitalization and informatization in various countries. Research shows that metaverse’s having its own financial tools are conducive to obtaining more data resources from the real world and improving the operational efficiency of the digital economy. More importantly, the highly open and inclusive digital space of the metaverse can find application scenes (such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc.) for many new technologies, promote the innovation of technology and business models and the formation of a complete value chain.
At present, the technology and industrial mode of metaverse are not yet fully mature and established but there are still good attempts and practical scenes in some fields, such as games, education, tourism, finance, etc. The following are two simple examples from games and education.
1) Metaverse Games
GameFi (blockchain game) is recognized as one of the practical scene in the metaverse as it covers various empowerments, provides social and office applications and creates an immersive experience. Many GameFi projects have jumped out of the traditional Internet field and combined blockchain technology and cloud computing with more innovative business modes to move towards the future of the metaverse.
Roblox, the world’s largest multiplayer online game creation platform, and the Sandbox, a decentralized platform for virtual real estate carrying industry brands are two typical game projects which are currently well-known. Due to space limitations, we will not go into details here.
It is worth noting that the metaverse game platforms like Mr. Yunjing and PUGG are constantly increasing their R&D investment and trying industrial alliances. How to attract more people to invest in the construction of the metaverse and the practice of jumping out of the business circle in the future? It may be worthier of looking forward to.
2) Edu-metaverse
The Edu-metaverse can be understood as the integration of cloud-based smart education. Teachers and students participate in the classroom as digital identities and use VR equipment to reshape the presentation of teaching contents. Students can not only “immerse” themselves in knowledge but also interact with teachers and classmates in virtual teaching places.
When talking about the application of the metaverse, economist Zhu Jiaming said that the biggest potential field for it is actually education. The Edu-metaverse is not only the necessity of the technological revolution, but also the necessity of the development of online education during the period of Covid-19.
Now there are already Edu-metaverse projects in Korean universities — Gather.town, a metaverse platform with many teaching functions. Students can create virtual images by themselves and also participate in teaching activities in various virtual teaching scenes in Gather.town.
Although the metaverse has great potential in both economy and technologies and it is likely to become the mainstream development mode of the future digital ecology, it is also accompanied by high security and political risks. Therefore, when discussing about the metaverse as the future, we still need to examine the opportunities and limitations it contains with a neutral and rational perspective.
5.The Traps in Metaverse
The more the potential metaverse contains and the more it is favored by capitals, the easier it is to be manipulated and used by people with ulterior motives. How can we identify those deceptions from traders who only bluffs with the conception of metaverse and avoid being used by them as a tool for profiteering? First of all, we must improve the ability to identify and judge metaverse projects or services.
It is important to be clear about what a metaverse project can never be.
1) The metaverse is not a virtual space or virtual reality. Different from the cyberspace which can be regarded as a virtual space, is an operational economy, the metaverse is a digital space that mirrors the real world and has a value in the real world.
2) The metaverse is not a virtual person. There will be multiple characters who come from the real world in the metaverse.
3) The metaverse is not a game. The game is just one scene in the metaverse and a way to enter metaverse but not the essence or the whole picture of the metaverse. The metaverse will continue to evolve with people’s life, but games cannot keep pace with life all the time, let alone be sustainable.
4) The metaverse is not a new app store. It is definitely not a place where people can only buy some APPs, DAPPs or other services. It should be a platform that makes people’s work and life more convenient and a highly inclusive and open space that can help people create things of value and enjoy the result.
The above points can help us see through the small tricks about the metaverse to a certain extent. Furthermore, if we want to find a truly valuable metaverse project, we need to see how the project works under the current technical level and know its situation.
First, we should observe whether the data and value of the project have complete and unimpeded interoperability. Secondly, we need to see whether its content is created by participating users and whether the value is permanently owned by the users. Thirdly, we ought to understand who owns the management rights of community rules and what rules and processes its community is based on to achieve its operation and governance. What’s more, whether it is a project or a service, we can see if it takes the most of the advantages of the metaverse’s own financial tools.
To sum up, the metaverse era may have quietly come near while we still need to be sober, rational and cautious in the process of rushing to this future.
