The metaverse is dying. Some say it's dead. Then Apple came along.

On Monday, the tech giant unveiled its Vision Pro head-mounted display, a cutting-edge, immersive mixed reality device that Apple claims will usher in a new era of "spatial computing" all on its own.

In its 46-minute presentation, Apple didn't once use the term "metaverse. It didn't mention blockchain, nor did it delve into Vision Pro's compatibility with tokenized digital assets (NFT) - an obvious use case designed to bring virtual objects to life. Instead, it portrays the head-mounted display as a natural extension of the iPhone or Mac into the third dimension.

In Web3 circles, however, such signals don't go unnoticed. Apple can design product launches as it sees fit, but we rightly assume that the world's most valuable company is entering the metaverse.

"It's a virtual reality headset that they don't call 'virtual reality,'" Danny Greene, head of Yuga Labs, parent company of the Meebits NFT brand, told Decrypt. "It's not that different from what Meta has been building and talking about - but it's positioned differently."

When Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021 and soon invested tens of billions of dollars in metaverse infrastructure, the move was met with anger and outright hostility from many decentralized metaverse builders. web3 creators have long dreamed of developing a virtual utopia in which businesses would eventually be forced to relinquish control of their users' assets and data.

Many of these builders, who call themselves "open metaverse" advocates, see Meta's ambitions as an existential threat to a decentralized dream world. Jeff Zirlin, Web3 executive and co-founder of Axie Infinity, described the battle between open metaverse advocates and Meta as "the battle for the future of the Internet.

However, many Web3 builders this week welcomed Apple's announcement as an extremely positive development for the metaverse that looks to give much-needed legitimacy to the concept of the metaverse as a viable technological reality.

"With this product, Apple is creating a bridge to mass adoption of the metaverse," said Brian Evans, founder of Web3 venture capital studio BDE. "As digital assets become more accessible, Web3 can now become a household term."

Other open metaverse advocates have expressed similar enthusiasm.

Sebastien Borget, co-founder and COO of "The Sandbox" metaverse game, mentions, "It's 100 percent good for The Sandbox and the open metaverse."

Yemel Jardi, executive director of Decentraland, another well-known decentralized metaverse gaming platform, echoed the same sentiment.

"I think it's a boon for the industry," he said. "The open metaverse needs to be hardware-based. We want to have better hardware."

But those platforms typically oppose giants like Meta, which seeks to be the gateway guardian of the metaverse experience. The defining characteristic of an "open" metaverse is that digital assets - virtual costumes, props or data - are free to flow in and out of it, as NFTs or digital collectibles living on the blockchain. or digital collectibles, rather than any company's platform.

The flip side of this model is the current state of the game: for example, any asset you purchase in Fortnite can only exist within Fortnite. Many fear that Meta will build a similar virtual proprietary wall around its metaverse.

Apple has hinted at a willingness to allow on-chain assets to flow through apps that live on its devices, although the company has made no commitment to its yet-to-be-unveiled visionOS App Store guidelines.

After years of resistance to apps that integrate NFTs, Apple finally officially allowed trading and buying NFTs in iOS apps last fall, with one important restriction: Apple will impose a tax of up to 30 percent on any such transactions, just as it does on other types of in-app purchases.

The decision has drawn widespread condemnation in the crypto community. Apple's guidelines currently state that apps may not "use their own mechanism to unlock ...... cryptocurrencies and crypto wallets." Developers of NFT-based iOS apps must effectively abstract away the crypto element and bundle the fees into the asset price.

If Vision Pro becomes the primary means for people to access the metaverse, Apple will determine how much decentralization is allowed within this novel virtual space by controlling the apps in its visionOS app store.

For example, the rapidly deteriorating U.S. cryptocurrency regulatory environment, among many other factors, could easily force Apple's leadership to expel on-chain assets from the visionOS App Store. And Web3 builders don't have any way to fight back, at least with Vision Pro.

Some Web3 metaverse builders, like Justin Mellilo, are responding to these potential problems by ensuring that their metaverse platforms are not limited to Apple.

Mellilo is the co-founder and CEO of Monaverse, a decentralized metaverse platform and social media network. While he's excited about Apple's announcement and plans to bring Monaverse into Vision Pro, he's also wary of making his startup dependent on Apple.

"We definitely expect to continue to keep the network accessible," Mellilo said. "I think it's very important for decentralization."

But what if Apple is right? What if this week really is the dawn of the era of spatial computing?

That's where the double-edged sword of Apple's entry into the metaverse comes in. Many Web3 creators seem to be counting on Vision Pro to rekindle interest in the immersive Internet after a year of widespread metaverse disillusionment.

But the more people get excited about Apple, the more "spatial computing" becomes synonymous with "Vision Pro," just as "smartphone" is replaced by "iPhone. Just as the "iPhone" was replaced by the "smartphone," Apple will have more unfettered power to determine how decentralized this future version of the Internet is going to become.

Some advocates of the open metaverse, such as The Sandbox's Borget, believe that Vision Pro will be so mired in Web3 apps and blockchain-enabled experiences that Apple will have no choice but to embrace the technology.

He says, "[The more Web3 application scenarios] there are, the more Apple will be forced to recognize the importance of users actually owning their assets."

Borget's thoughts seem to be well communicated in cryptocurrency circles if one comes to see how people react to Vision Pro. We may need you, Apple, but you need us too. This sentiment is surely a shift from the idealistic rhetoric of the early Web3 movement - which at its core dreamed of weakening the grip of the centralized Web2 technology giants on market share and user data by creating a host of new products and projects controlled by the users themselves.

That future has not yet been fully realized, at least not on a large scale. Perhaps some compromises may have to be made in order to realize that future. Maybe you need a Vision Pro to get the public into the metaverse. And who can make a Vision Pro, except Apple.

"The power of crypto and blockchain is that it's trustless and doesn't require intermediaries," says Green of Meebits. "But when you use head-mounted VR glasses created by a centralized company that has invested 10 years of research and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in funding, there's a certain compromise."

Maybe the Web2 giants won't be destroyed by the Web3 revolution. Maybe they're just joining it for now. But the key advantage of Web3 over Web2 has always been being one step ahead. The reassuring crypto mantra was, "We're very early."

It's not early anymore. A $2.8 trillion market cap company is knocking on the door. Once you let it in, who ultimately owns the house?

The metaverse is dying. Some say it's dead. Then Apple came along.

On Monday, the tech giant unveiled its Vision Pro head-mounted display, a cutting-edge, immersive mixed reality device that Apple claims will usher in a new era of "spatial computing" all on its own.

In its 46-minute presentation, Apple didn't once use the term "metaverse. It didn't mention blockchain, nor did it delve into Vision Pro's compatibility with tokenized digital assets (NFT) - an obvious use case designed to bring virtual objects to life. Instead, it portrays the head-mounted display as a natural extension of the iPhone or Mac into the third dimension.

In Web3 circles, however, such signals don't go unnoticed. Apple can design product launches as it sees fit, but we rightly assume that the world's most valuable company is entering the metaverse.

"It's a virtual reality headset that they don't call 'virtual reality,'" Danny Greene, head of Yuga Labs, parent company of the Meebits NFT brand, told Decrypt. "It's not that different from what Meta has been building and talking about - but it's positioned differently."

When Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021 and soon invested tens of billions of dollars in metaverse infrastructure, the move was met with anger and outright hostility from many decentralized metaverse builders. web3 creators have long dreamed of developing a virtual utopia in which businesses would eventually be forced to relinquish control of their users' assets and data.

Many of these builders, who call themselves "open metaverse" advocates, see Meta's ambitions as an existential threat to a decentralized dream world. Jeff Zirlin, Web3 executive and co-founder of Axie Infinity, described the battle between open metaverse advocates and Meta as "the battle for the future of the Internet.

However, many Web3 builders this week welcomed Apple's announcement as an extremely positive development for the metaverse that looks to give much-needed legitimacy to the concept of the metaverse as a viable technological reality.

"With this product, Apple is creating a bridge to mass adoption of the metaverse," said Brian Evans, founder of Web3 venture capital studio BDE. "As digital assets become more accessible, Web3 can now become a household term."

Other open metaverse advocates have expressed similar enthusiasm.

Sebastien Borget, co-founder and COO of "The Sandbox" metaverse game, mentions, "It's 100 percent good for The Sandbox and the open metaverse."

Yemel Jardi, executive director of Decentraland, another well-known decentralized metaverse gaming platform, echoed the same sentiment.

"I think it's a boon for the industry," he said. "The open metaverse needs to be hardware-based. We want to have better hardware."

But those platforms typically oppose giants like Meta, which seeks to be the gateway guardian of the metaverse experience. The defining characteristic of an "open" metaverse is that digital assets - virtual costumes, props or data - are free to flow in and out of it, as NFTs or digital collectibles living on the blockchain. or digital collectibles, rather than any company's platform.

The flip side of this model is the current state of the game: for example, any asset you purchase in Fortnite can only exist within Fortnite. Many fear that Meta will build a similar virtual proprietary wall around its metaverse.

Apple has hinted at a willingness to allow on-chain assets to flow through apps that live on its devices, although the company has made no commitment to its yet-to-be-unveiled visionOS App Store guidelines.

After years of resistance to apps that integrate NFTs, Apple finally officially allowed trading and buying NFTs in iOS apps last fall, with one important restriction: Apple will impose a tax of up to 30 percent on any such transactions, just as it does on other types of in-app purchases.

The decision has drawn widespread condemnation in the crypto community. Apple's guidelines currently state that apps may not "use their own mechanism to unlock ...... cryptocurrencies and crypto wallets." Developers of NFT-based iOS apps must effectively abstract away the crypto element and bundle the fees into the asset price.

If Vision Pro becomes the primary means for people to access the metaverse, Apple will determine how much decentralization is allowed within this novel virtual space by controlling the apps in its visionOS app store.

For example, the rapidly deteriorating U.S. cryptocurrency regulatory environment, among many other factors, could easily force Apple's leadership to expel on-chain assets from the visionOS App Store. And Web3 builders don't have any way to fight back, at least with Vision Pro.

Some Web3 metaverse builders, like Justin Mellilo, are responding to these potential problems by ensuring that their metaverse platforms are not limited to Apple.

Mellilo is the co-founder and CEO of Monaverse, a decentralized metaverse platform and social media network. While he's excited about Apple's announcement and plans to bring Monaverse into Vision Pro, he's also wary of making his startup dependent on Apple.

"We definitely expect to continue to keep the network accessible," Mellilo said. "I think it's very important for decentralization."

But what if Apple is right? What if this week really is the dawn of the era of spatial computing?

That's where the double-edged sword of Apple's entry into the metaverse comes in. Many Web3 creators seem to be counting on Vision Pro to rekindle interest in the immersive Internet after a year of widespread metaverse disillusionment.

But the more people get excited about Apple, the more "spatial computing" becomes synonymous with "Vision Pro," just as "smartphone" is replaced by "iPhone. Just as the "iPhone" was replaced by the "smartphone," Apple will have more unfettered power to determine how decentralized this future version of the Internet is going to become.

Some advocates of the open metaverse, such as The Sandbox's Borget, believe that Vision Pro will be so mired in Web3 apps and blockchain-enabled experiences that Apple will have no choice but to embrace the technology.

He says, "[The more Web3 application scenarios] there are, the more Apple will be forced to recognize the importance of users actually owning their assets."

Borget's thoughts seem to be well communicated in cryptocurrency circles if one comes to see how people react to Vision Pro. We may need you, Apple, but you need us too. This sentiment is surely a shift from the idealistic rhetoric of the early Web3 movement - which at its core dreamed of weakening the grip of the centralized Web2 technology giants on market share and user data by creating a host of new products and projects controlled by the users themselves.

That future has not yet been fully realized, at least not on a large scale. Perhaps some compromises may have to be made in order to realize that future. Maybe you need a Vision Pro to get the public into the metaverse. And who can make a Vision Pro, except Apple.

"The power of crypto and blockchain is that it's trustless and doesn't require intermediaries," says Green of Meebits. "But when you use head-mounted VR glasses created by a centralized company that has invested 10 years of research and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in funding, there's a certain compromise."

Maybe the Web2 giants won't be destroyed by the Web3 revolution. Maybe they're just joining it for now. But the key advantage of Web3 over Web2 has always been being one step ahead. The reassuring crypto mantra was, "We're very early."

It's not early anymore. A $2.8 trillion market cap company is knocking on the door. Once you let it in, who ultimately owns the house?