撰文：Aaron
编译：@0psmeta
Metaverse, in popular terms, is to enter a virtual world parallel to the real world by wearing visual and auditory equipment, and people can perform a series of behaviors such as entertainment, social interaction, consumption, education and so on.
From the perspective of the concept of the metaverse, the metaverse is to build a permanent virtual world based on technology on the basis of the real world. . Participants in reality enter the virtual world in the form of self-created virtual identities by wearing immersive devices such as vision and hearing, and can complete all behaviors in the real world and behaviors that cannot be completed in reality. At the same time, in the virtual world, it also has a fully functioning social and economic system, a fair closed-loop economic system, and users who have continuous production content, creators can get rewards, so they have an infinite imaginative virtual space margin.
In life, the application of the Metaverse has penetrated the fields of medicine, education, history, entertainment, etc., reflecting and realizing the value captured in their respective fields.
01
In 2008, a clinical psychologist at the University of Southern California tried to use virtual reality technology (VR) to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans. In the game "Virtual Iraq" developed, the disease of daily fantasy was overcome by recreating war scenes for Iraqi post-war soldiers, and the results were positive.
02
The British Museum cooperated with Samsung in 2015 to return to the Bronze Age to watch rural landscapes by wearing Samsung Gear VR, actually experience the virtual reality world, and experience the life rituals and tools of the ancients. The National Archaeological Museum of Spain, with the VR equipment GearVR produced by Samsung, allows users to experience Spanish historical scenes more immersively, such as the caves inhabited by humans in the Paleolithic Age, the Spanish city square during the Roman Empire, the market during the Arab rule, gold Houses of the era, etc. The immersive experience better exerts social and educational functions, and makes the pursuit of knowledge more dynamic
WHO developed the medical simulation game Vulabo to expand the experience, using the metaverse to replace traditional technology to make users aware of the necessity of medical education, a relaxed and immersive experience is an effective way for education.
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American Rapper Travis Scott held a 200 million carnival concert in "Fortnite" in a virtual identity. It is recommended to feel the shock of the video alone. The brilliance of the game scene is intoxicating, and when combined with technology to optimize the visual, auditory and action experience, this surreal and magnificent event is like a dream.
VREducationHoldings (VRE), behind the virtual education and training platform ENGAGE, has announced that it will build a new product based on the concept of the Metaverse in the future - EngageOasis, which aims to become the "VR version of LinkedIn".
The combination of various fields and the metaverse realizes their respective values such as medicine, education, entertainment, etc. The above application is only a part of the metaverse, and the vision of the metaverse is not only a VR experience, but essentially a revolution in the form of next-generation Internet interaction.
The VR industry has entered an inflection point Market research firm GrandView Research predicts that between 2020 and 2030, the global VR and AR market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 42.9%, and the market size will reach $1.27 trillion. The use of VR headsets in the United States is increasing year by year. Facebook Oculus' latest VR product set off the market. OculusQuest 2 sales exceeded expectations, and RecRoom estimates that Q4 sales in 2020 will be about 2-3 million units.
The rise of metaverse concept games The VR game "Half-Life: Alyx" has been at the top of the Steam rating list since its launch, and has been praised by foreign media IGN with a full score of 10; Roblox, the prototype of the Metaverse, was listed on March 11, 2021, and achieved a strong stock price performance. After the concept of the universe was written into the prospectus, it set off a boom in the Metaverse. Whether it is the daily activity or the number of creations, the activity and the business model show the market the future development potential of the Metaverse. The blockchain game Axie generated about $670,000 in revenue in April, $3 million in May, $12.2 million in June, and $79 million in just 18 days in July. According to DelphiDigital’s forecast, Axie’s revenue in July It will reach $153 million. In fact, the revenue of the AxieInfinity protocol in July was $196 million, reaching 7.5 times the total revenue of the 2nd-10th place in the entire network, exceeding expectations.
High coverage of mobile internet The mobile Internet has achieved high coverage, and the traffic of Internet giants basically covers mobile netizens. According to CNNIC data, in December 2020, the number of Internet users in China reached 989 million, and the Internet penetration rate reached 70.4%. Among them, the number of mobile Internet users was 986 million, and the mobile Internet penetration rate reached 99.7%. According to statistics released by WeAreSocial and Hootsuite, at the beginning of 2021, the world population will be 7.83 billion. Today, 5.22 billion people around the world are using mobile phones, which is equivalent to 66.6% of the world's total population. Data from AppAnnie shows that Android phone users spend at least four hours a day looking at their phones. In January 2021, 4.66 billion people worldwide used the Internet, an increase of 316 million or 7.3% over the same period last year. The global Internet penetration rate is currently 59.5%.
Giants are betting Elon Musk wants to send humans to Mars, and Zuckerberg wants to keep us in the embodied internet. Facebook has deployed the VR field through Oculus devices, and launched Facebook Horizon as a VR social platform. Not just devices, Zuckerberg expects to transition Facebook from a social media company to a metaverse company within five years. Given that Facebook is a conglomerate of 78 different companies, the metaverse created by this force is something to look forward to.
Google deploys cloud games through Stadia, and deploys software and services through YoutubeVR; Epic Games raised $1 billion to continue to increase the code universe to promote development in areas such as Fortnite and Unreal Engine.
Nvidia has released Omniverse, a metaverse-based simulation platform that allows users to connect to the virtual world immersive. Professionals from more than 500 companies have already used the product. If you are interested, you can watch Huang Renxun's speech at the April GTC2021 GPU Technology Conference. In the declassification of the documentary released on August 12, Huang Renxun was a digital double at that time, and no one found it. It is NVIDIA's OmniverseRTX renderer, a 3D simulation and collaboration platform, that simulates a realistic and rich real world in real time. Portal:
Domestically, Tencent CEO Ma Huateng predicted the next-generation Internet interaction form, proposed the concept of full-true Internet, and invested in companies such as Epic Games, Roblox, and the launch of the Chinese version of Roblox to lay out the metaverse track, and invested part of the profit increment in 2021 in new Opportunities to increase investment in the fields of cloud, games, enterprise services and short video content; ByteDance continues to develop in artificial intelligence and algorithms, and continues to increase its investment in the game business. It has launched various game self-research plans internally and invested in UGC. The game social platform "Qiankun" and other actions accelerate the layout of the metaverse. One is another round of competition with Tencent, and the other is the expectation of the concept of the metaverse. Mihayou cooperated with Shanghai Ruijin Hospital to jointly establish the "Mihayou Joint Laboratory of Encephalopathy Center of Ruijin Hospital" to explore brain-computer interface technology and clinical applications. NetEase led the investment in the virtual character social platform. In addition to entering the social field, I believe that it is more optimistic about the future prospects of the virtual world in the metaverse.
Various leading manufacturers have begun to deploy the metaverse. As Zuckerberg said, the metaverse is the prospect of covering many companies and even the entire technology industry. It is a goal that needs to be achieved in cooperation with other companies, creators and developers. Companies in each field provide their own contributions, from infrastructure to experience, exposure, creator economy, space computing and human-computer interaction and other technological fields to cooperate and break through. Creating a metaverse will be a revolution in the form of next-generation Internet interaction.
The rights and obligations stipulated in the law are different from the rights and obligations of other social norms. It is a relationship confirmed or recognized and guaranteed by the state, which is an important feature of the law.
At present, it is the game sector that has set off the popularity of the metaverse. The immersive audio-visual experience provided by the game itself does have the potential to make it the first application of the metaverse. In addition, the metaverse prototypes "Roblox" and "Fortnite" that are currently on the market are the combination of games and social platforms. The immersive audio-visual experience provided by the game itself will first become an important carrier of metaverse design. The constructed virtual space will become the fastest entrance to the metaverse. Similarly, the popularity of such games is not without the openness and social characteristics. Therefore, games and social interaction should be the focus of the metaverse. With the advancement of technology, the market's understanding and development of the metaverse will become deeper and deeper, and more and more sectors will quickly occupy the market.
Roblox defines eight elements of the Metaverse:
Anywhere, Immersion, Low Latency, Diversity, Identity, Friends, Economic System, Civilization.
Real-time and real, flow, platform, social, interoperability, economic system, openness.
It embodies the real-time nature of the built metaverse space, and the real is to have all the forms of the real world; immersion is the flow of the heart, and it is also the biggest change in the way of human interaction, as Huang Renxun said: "In the future, we will live in the Metaverse ( Metaverse), it's going to be an environment about communication. It's three-dimensional, we can almost feel we're with each other. That's how we travel in time, travel at the speed of light, and going forward is simulating the future." VR, AR and other devices bring users a sufficiently realistic sensory experience at any time, sharing the physical environment with people all over the world, and changing the way we communicate and interact.
That is creativity, which corresponds to platform. The virtual edge of the Metaverse can be expanded infinitely, so the content can be imagined and created freely, corresponding to the references of various industries; identity and friends correspond to social relationships, and the social experience of time and space is one of the cores of the Metaverse. In the metaverse, people can participate in various activities, go wherever they want, and do whatever they want. Users can hang out with friends remotely, create art, consume art, play games and indulge in shopping, while also visiting other areas with their virtual identities.
It is the core of the blockchain intervening in the metaverse. In the metaverse, players have virtual assets, and these assets or items need to be transformed in various virtual worlds and real worlds. Blockchain technology can solve the liquidity problem of virtual assets, which can flow or transfer to others in different virtual spaces. Individuals create value through various actions in the metaverse and acquire digital assets to form an economic system, which is also the same as the economic culture in real life. The Metaverse will be available for users to create, invest in, own, lease, sell or buy services just like in the real world.
In general, from the perspective of the core value of the Metaverse and several major elements, the Metaverse needs to support high-tech technologies to interact with the virtual world. In order to achieve this goal, it needs the support of various technologies. Intelligence, blockchain, games, network computing power and virtual reality technology, etc.
Blockchain technology provides a decentralized clearing and settlement platform, and the emergence of smart contracts, DEFI, and NFT guarantees the asset rights and circulation of the Metaverse.
Provide interactive content for the Metaverse to achieve traffic aggregation (Roblox builds templates).
Infrastructure, the upgrade of 5G network guarantees the transmission rate of information
Basic equipment to bring users a more immersive experience.
Network computing power, VR, AR display equipment, artificial intelligence and other technologies as the infrastructure of the Metaverse are just needed for development. In addition to technical solutions, the blockchain brings a complete economic system, which is an essential element of the Metaverse. The specific application method is: in the virtual space of the metaverse, the interaction of participants will generate numbers, virtual assets or social relationships, etc. These substances can flow between the virtual world and the real world or in different virtual worlds. First of all, the NFT standard of the blockchain can provide the ownership and verification of items, and participants enjoy digital ownership and proof of asset rights. Secondly, blockchain technology can provide NFT transactions to solve the pain points of liquidity, and the value transfer of digital assets forms a business model, which enables the operation of the economic system of the Metaverse. That is to say, the blockchain undertakes the value transmission function. core elements in the universe.
The trend of the metaverse has begun, and the projects that are quickly out of the circle belong to the game sector that fits the development path very well, and are quickly recognized and popularized by the majority of participants. There are also more and more metaverse projects based on game development, which is due to the rapid growth of the user base and game experience accumulated by the game industry itself. The value extension in metaverse games is also one of rapid growth, for example, in Roblox, users are both consumers and creators. Axie led the market in July. The model of biological development and battle allows participants to extend the value of the entire process from consumption creation to income.
At present, the certainty of the track is very high, the trend has started, and it is still far from the real realization. There is a certain bubble in the assets with too high growth rate, and the vision is still far away.
The significance of NFT In addition to the digital innovation, NFT itself brings unique ownership and verifiable rights. Just as collectibles in reality, only real ownership can have precious attributes, and this scarcity, preciousness and other characteristics satisfy people's vanity and pride. That is to say, most people pay for vanity, not the artwork itself. Uniqueness and scarcity are the best way to satisfy vanity. The emergence of NFTs can amplify these two properties, but there are some risks at this stage.
01 Authorization problem: The minting and sale of NFTs has not been approved by the copyright owner
02 Storage problem: Uniqueness, exclusive rights, uniqueness, etc. are the characteristics of NFT. The existing NFT storage adopts the traditional centralized storage method. The developers behind the project can still participate in modification and deletion. For NFT, this is a quite fragile
03
Storage aging: Permanence is also a characteristic of NFT. Like any centralized storage problem, there is a risk of server failure in centralized storage. When the server is down, NFT will disappear, and there are problems such as bubbles and valuation. As an investment category, the more valuable thing is to reach a consensus.
However, it can be seen from the above problems that the rarity, uniqueness, and permanence of NFTs at the current stage still cannot be guaranteed, and the interests of investors cannot be guaranteed, which is a major obstacle to the development of the industry.
Decentralized storage can solve these problems conceptually. Compared with the centralized HTTP protocol, IPFS content retrieval seems to be more secure. Filecoin's design mechanism (cryptographic proof provides a persistent protocol layer) ensures the timeliness and Uniqueness, so Fil and NFT platforms that support decentralized storage functions and strive to develop storage are worthy of attention. For example, OpenSea has supported NFTs with decentralized metadata since its launch in 2017.
As the most mainstream smart contract platform, it has huge ecological applications. Although there are many limitations (TPS, gas fee, block size limit, etc.), the Ethereum community is still the hottest community to discuss technical aspects, and no matter what public chain appears, it will defend the position of immovable Ethereum. The emergence of Layer 2 and side chains makes Ethereum extremely competitive in the NFT sector, and it is still the first choice of many developers. The current NFT and Metaverse well-known projects are all developed based on Ethereum. Sidechains such as Matic and Layer2's solutions have made great contributions. In addition, the number of users, user literacy and technical atmosphere of the Ethereum community are understandable.
FLOW
The advantage lies in the innovative ability of the founding team in the NFT sector, focusing on the NFT carrying from beginning to end, and at the same time having the most popular NFT applications. In addition, innovations in public chain technology are also trustworthy. At present, the ecological construction speed of Flow is relatively slow. Pay attention to whether the team is making continuous efforts on ecological construction. If it is not in a stagnant state, waiting for more and more application projects to enter the Flow public chain is still very potential.
BSc The verification of Binance Chain on DEFI is likely to be verified again on NFT. The user base, capital and flow provided by the world's largest exchange also have absolute advantages. At the same time, Binance Chain is compatible with Ethereum EVM, and many projects choose to start deployment on Binance Chain. Coupled with the NFT platform launched by Binance, it is believed that more and more projects will enter Binance Chain.
Public Chain Network Performance Transaction Cost Token Market Cap Ether 15tps 30Gwei ETH 345.2 billion $ BSC 1000tps 5Gwei BNB $57 billion FIOW 10000tps 12Gwei FLOW $1 billion
DOT
The benevolent sees the benevolent and the wise sees the wisdom of the NFT public chain choice. In the future, the construction of the metaverse will have two branches, a centralized metaverse virtual world created by Internet giants such as Facebook and Tencent. Another decentralized network created by Web3.0. With the existence of EVM-compatible functions in the Polkadot ecosystem, RMRK's emerging NFT protocol is not limited by EVM itself, which is worthy of in-depth exploration by developers. In the future, there will be outstanding, out-of-the-circle and innovative NFTs in RMRK.
Depending on the content of the transaction, the platform involved is different.
Comprehensive trading platform: Opensea, Rarible
Digital Art: SuperRare, ArtBlocks, Makerplace
Virtual assets
The NFT of the collectible category reflects the psychological characteristics of human existence: items with scarcity and special significance have collection significance, which is supported by vanity. The top nine collectibles account for more than half of the market: CryptoPunks, Meebits, BoredApe Yacht Club, BoredApe Kennel Club, ArtBlock, Avastar, Bullson the Block, CryptoKitties, TheWicked Cranium
The first category is the production of novel, innovative and creative, using the form of clubs, reflecting the identity to meet the vanity.
Getting out of the circle is mostly "novelty and creativity": trying to do something that hasn't been done before, or creatively building on something that has already been done.
Representative project:
BoredApe Yacht Club
The "members only" system, the novelty lies in the degree of people's desire to join this club, which represents not only an avatar, but a club, social connection, community belonging, and status symbol are all BAYC can satisfy . The wave of looting caused by the celebrity effect, coupled with the use of social media celebrities, quickly went out of the circle.
The second category is for commemoration or the pursuit of faith in the heart
representative work:
CryptoPunks (Bitcoin in the NFT space)
From the earliest days, it was open to everyone, anyone could have it, and eventually it became a legendary value item. It is conceivable that in the virtual world of the metaverse, the cypherpunk avatar may represent the identity, no matter where you go, you have it. The Bugatti Veyron turns heads in general. The gradual accumulation of community consensus will gradually form a strong community.
representative work:
NBATOP SHOT
The number of users and transaction volume occupied the top three, with a strong IP effect. Fans' belief and pursuit of football stars are closely linked with traditional industries.
Investment in such NFT collectible items has become a trend, and may represent identity in the virtual world of the future Metaverse. The current popularity is high, and it is irrational to pursue high. Like the secondary market, the NFT market has a cyclical pattern, and the price changes with the changes in the market. You can consider intervening in such assets when waiting for a sharp correction. In addition, the fragmented token purchase method is a good way to participate with a low threshold and a fixed investment method, such as purchasing products that convert NFTs into ERC-20 tokens in NFTX.
Invest in NFTs such as virtual real estate in the Metaverse project, which currently includes virtual real estate in projects such as Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, Sandbox, and SomniumSpace. According to the market value ranking, the current leading project MANA, who owns the land NFT, can build and transform the corresponding virtual land. The application of this type of land can prepare for commercial applications. Enterprises will buy land to promote their business, and also use the facilities of museums and exhibition halls, and artists will display their works; build their favorite buildings to display NFT products, weekly gatherings, graduation ceremonies, Online meetings, etc. are currently the most suitable scenes for the openness and free creation of the Metaverse. If ranked in terms of sales, TheSandbox has the largest market share with a total sales of $31.5 million, followed by Decentraland with $28.78 million, and CryptoVoxels with a total sales of $10.39 million. The top three such projects have a market share of about 88%.
Such virtual asset projects with application scenarios are successful from the perspective of early NFT projects, but from the perspective of the concept of the metaverse, they are far from success. GameFi's experience tells us that the integration of the token and the project's economic mechanism is the key to the project's success.
Based on the decentralized VR platform of Ethereum, participants can freely and openly build a virtual world, not limited to anything they can think of, such as building buildings, visiting NFT art museums, concerts, conducting social activities such as conferences and gatherings, and also There are apps and games to build more interactive features.
For example, Sotheby's built a virtual headquarters and opened virtual replicas of London galleries. New York-based digital real estate investment firm RepublicRealm has bought 259 parcels of land for $910,000 to build a virtual center based on Metajuku, a shopping mall in Tokyo, Japan. We can see a lot of interest from players and businesses to explore Decentraland, companies creating meeting spaces; leasing land; advertising services, etc.
In Decentraland, MANA can be used as a medium of exchange to purchase system commodities and land in the ecosystem, such as some works in the NFT store, users can use MANA to buy; wearable devices, hats, shoes, shirts and plots can all be traded, The mechanism that MANA uses to purchase land has the greatest potential for MANA to capture value, and when purchasing LAND, token holders will also benefit from MANA token burning, as this will reduce supply and increase price. Decentraland has the fifth highest NFT sales volume with 4,700 asset owners and a minimum price of 1.13 ETH. The game mode and development direction are the elements that fully fit the metaverse. User accumulation and early advantages may become social places in the future metaverse. There will also be online stores for merchants, promotion spaces for companies, and second living spaces for individuals. Scenes.
The game is committed to building a deeply immersive virtual world in which players freely collaborate to create virtual worlds and games, focusing on creating games in virtual worlds, so Sandbox's goal is to subvert existing game makers. TheSandbox empowers creators with ownership and liquidity through NFT, and uses SAND tokens as economic rewards to encourage creators to build the entire ecosystem together. Players can use SAND tokens to build, own and monetize gaming experiences on the Ethereum blockchain.
SAND tokens are used for transactions and interactions within the ecosystem, spending SAND to play games, create characters, buy land and other assets. TheSandbox team is constantly exploring the token economy, the value experience in the ecosystem: governance tokens, pledged tokens, transaction fee sharing, foundation rewards. It can be seen that the project party takes into account the interests of creators, players, investors, and all participants in the team at the same time.
The virtual asset in TheSandbox is land (LAND). Participants buy land to build the game and provide social experience. The land generated based on the ERC-721 standard is the most important asset in the ecology. Developers can create games, make rules, charge fees or compete to earn tokens
In addition to the quality of the project itself, the number of partners TheSandbox has made the project party occupy an important position in the metaverse. Well-known partners include: FTX, BoredApe Yacht Club, DapperLabs, etc.
The blockchain version of Minecraft is a completely open free sandbox game. The social mode and experience in the game are the most attractive modes. Users build their own showrooms. Currently, the most suitable application is to cooperate with the encrypted art community to build an NFT e-commerce platform to display and sell their own NFT works. Social networking is also the most suitable way for the project, allowing users to use their imagination to create items or scenes that adapt to different modes. There are often NFT enthusiasts gathering on the project, which is described as: 3D version of Facebook, 3D version of Taobao, JD.com
The project party actively introduces various projects in the NFT sector in the land, so as long as the collectibles market continues to be attractive, there will be more and more creators and collectors entering Cryptovoxels, directly into the encrypted art of the metaverse The relatively high image in the product community, the value of high-quality IP joining and its social atmosphere, these positive phenomena will be the factors driving the price of LAND in the core collectible areas of the project.
SomniumSpace is a cross-platform virtual reality world launched in 2018. Users buy land, design various buildings and import them into the platform to create a common virtual universe. The project features support for popular 3D devices: Oculus, VIVE, STEAM, etc. The platform that the device supports the most.
AxieInfinity has achieved tremendous growth because of the complete closed-loop mechanism of the token economy, and its playtoearn mode has set off a wave of GameFi craze. The number of users and transaction volume have set an astonishing record. In addition to Axie pets, land in Axie is a rare resource and can also be used as an asset for investment. The gameplay of land also involves a complex token model. The land can be used to live in small pet Axies, and pets can give priority to collecting AXS tokens and other resources; it can also be used for various operations to earn income, such as hosting stores/markets, renting, placing beacons that summon Chimera monsters, which allows third parties The mode of developing your own game on it is more suitable for the freedom of the metaverse concept.
Virtual land is one of the essential infrastructures in the virtual world of the Metaverse. The application of each project land is becoming more and more abundant, and the price is also rising sharply. The way to get out of the circle mainly revolves around expanding the ecosystem and cooperating with well-known projects; high-quality IP joins the community. The land of most project parties has an upper limit, and the use of scarcity can quickly attract the attention of investors
In addition to the above methods of investing in the Metaverse and NFTs, high-quality game projects, NFT sports competitions, and music sectors are also worthy of attention.
For example, there are Enjin, Chiliz, Audio, etc. worthy of attention
END
That's all for this article, an overview of the metaverse and some targets. Research analysis and does not constitute investment advice.
Looking forward to sharing next time.
Founded in 2017, CoinMix Global is a venture capital fund that invests in the growth of crypto projects from seed to late stage, involving primary project incubation, secondary market quantification/derivatives.
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