The MUA DAO X Ethereum Towers AMA was held on August 4th at the official MUA DAO discord (https://discord.gg/mua-dao). The theme of the special session is "When mArchitect Enters Ethereum Towers ". MUA DAO invited Shane, COO of Ethereum Towers/Ethereum Worlds, to share details about our collaboration with each other.

The Following is the Content of AMA

Candice （Co-founder of MUA DAO）:
Special day! Today is the Chinese Valentine's Day. Welcome everyone to our AMA session. MUA DAO is a community whose mission is to create the largest virtual reality guild of architects, providing a large number of builders for the metaverse. Today, we are pleased to invite them from Ethereum Towers, a community centered vertical mega-structure consisting over 4,000 recent owned apartments and a variety of commune areas, to share with us about their project. So before our AMA, hey Shane, will you please introduce yourself and Ethereum Towers? Please?

Shane:
Yeah, thank you so much for having us today, Candice. Welcome everyone. Thank you guys so much for tuning it to today's AMA as Candice kindly pointed out my name is Shane. I go buy Dadcipher, and go by many different names according to my kids. Anyways, I'm with Ethereum Towers. We are an upcoming metaverse project. We are building in VR first, more specifically, oculus, and Ethereum Towers. This is going to be sort of like the first major development in our upcoming metaverse called Ethereum Worlds.

So stay tuned. It's gonna be a fun conversation here today with Candice and everyone.

Candice:
Awesome. So I have few questions about your project. And maybe after our AMA session, we can have some time for the Q&A session for our community. First, I would like to learn, so what is the Ethereum Worlds you just mentioned?

Shane:
Yeah, that's a probably the best kicking-off question, right? What is the Ethereum Worlds? Ethereum Worlds will be sort of our metaphors. And within sort of Ethereum Worlds, we're gonna have, obviously our genesis, a collection which is Ethereum Towers, which is sort of the vertical mega structure, as I think you so eloquently put. If the worlds begin to expand once Ethereum Towers is all ready to rock and roll and we have everything fine tuned, we're gonna have plenty of different sort of what we're causing the worlds surrounding Ethereum Towers.

So they'll be different sort of environmental bios like island resort type, feels maybe like a mountaintop retreat, sort of feeling I’ve been begging and pleading with our development team to get into something like outer space or world um, because I would love to see something where we could then potentially have like low gravity.

But once again, that's all future. Ethereum Towers is kind of the main thing that we're focusing on right now, which is sort of the apartment owned residence.

Candice:
Awesome. So I think definitely the creativity of our community can maybe in the future can help Ethereum Worlds create more maybe content. Yeah, you just mentioned about Ethereum Towers is the main building of the apartment? Is that right? Yeah.

Shane:
So we had kind of a different take on metaverses because obviously up until this point, anyways, everything has been such like huge, sprawling pieces of land. If you look at all the other metaverses and what ends up happening is a lot of investors get in on it or, potential investors, and they don't really do anything with the space that. It's all potential investments for the future.

So they don't really know how to build anything on it. They don't really know what they're supposed to do with it. So it just kind of is bare. And what ends up happening then is the entire metaverse looks a little bit off. You go through huge spots where there's nothing really going on with the Ethereum Towers.

Everything's kind of hidden away behind sort of potential doors. So the towers themselves are almost like a utopian sort of feel to it. It's very beautiful. And then within your apartment, you can do with it, whatever you want. And these are obviously NFTs that act as sort of access to the apartment itself.

And within there you can build walls. You can build it almost like your or maybe like the apartment that you lived in when you were 15 or 25 or 30 years old, whatever it happens to be or maybe you want to turn it into like a yoga studio or a podcast room or a fitness center. We have a number of different people that wanna kind of take their apartments and kind of build something special within it.

And when it comes to Ethereum Towers and those various apartments, we have three different sort of styles, we have standard departments which are approximately about 1,900 square feet.

We have luxury apartments and they are too located on each floors from floors 1 to 99, which are approximately I think about 4,000, maybe about 5,000 square feet and then we actually have penthouses and there's only 32 of those. There's eight located on floors 100 and floors 101. So eight per floor. We have two different towers and at that point, they're substantially bigger. They're actually multiple floors there. There's kind of like two-story. And when you you can actually overlook sort of your downstairs from the topic to your penthouse. So, yeah, it's obviously very fun. We're trying to make it as customized well as humanly possible within sort of your space. So it really is your own.

And then from there you can leave it open to the public, so everybody can potentially hop into your apartment and do with. Come check it out. You'll have like a friend or a clan system as well built into place. So if let's say they're a close friend of you, they're allowed to come into your apartment. Or if they're, let's say part of your guild, of your clan, at that point it'll open up the apartments for you.

And then finally, if you want as well, you can completely close it down and kind of just make that particular apartment your very own. And that's your safe place or your safe place that you like to hang up with them. 

Candice:
Yeah, I love this idea especially the yoga studio part because I love the gym and I love the yoga. So there that part is quite interesting and probably in the future MUA DAO can have or may be a part of your apartment maybe for our guild and also the thing behind the door in the room is quite interesting. I can’t wait. So where will Ethereum Worlds be launched?

Shane:
When is it gonna launch? And that's a very good question. So I for all those, I guess, are a part of our Discord or Twitter. I strongly encourage you to do that hop on there, because it kind of explains a lot of this sort of stuff.

Where are we gonna be launching? What's gonna all be included. So our social media is all Ethereum Towers, discord.gg/Ethereum Towers, all that sort of fun stuff. But for today, we're gonna be launching towards the end of this upcoming here, 2022. We're gonna be launching.

We just finish up our prototype phase. And actually, on our Twitter, you can actually see me demonstrating our prototype phase where I kind of like walk you through the basic navigation of Ethereum Towers. I kind of walk you around sort of the entire residential floor. So what it looks like on floor 99, what sort of the views look as you look outside.

And then finally, I take you into an apart where I begin to like place walls and kind of explain what's going on within here. For the next major prototype, I guess, what we're moving towards is item placement and NFT showcasing. So that's actually scheduled to be done this week. And then from there next week, I'm hoping that I'm gonna be able to record a video.

That showcase is the same thing where I up in there plays like a sofa or maybe an NFT on the wall, or some different sort of wall textures because right now, the wall textures themselves are all extremely plain Jane. On top that as well, there's one in there that looks like a crash test then.

But it’s your place where I can maybe even like post what the prototype is and stuff like that Candice just said, people kind of like to check it out whenever they want.

Candice:
Sure definitely we post in our community afterwards because for sure we definitely will share with that. Yeah, and also good luck for the NFT showcase launch in the next week. Yeah. I will let the Owen check if the video can be shared in our channel, and we can maybe share the video afterward. Yeah, so maybe we can continue our AMA session and to make Owen track whether we can share the video or not.

Shane:
That sounds amazing. I just actually posted in our Telegram.

Candice:
Perfect. Awesome. Probably maybe we can move to the next section. May I know? So why are architects hired to design and build Ethereum Towers? 

Shane:
That's actually a very good question. So for all those that haven't checked out a project, and once again, feel free doing it at your own sort of pace, we did actually start off a sort of it's a little bit of a different project.

So at the very beginning, way back in September of last year, we started off that sort of like a freeman project that was gonna be almost like a loot style project. And if you weren't in NFTs at that point, don't worry. You're still relatively like you're still extremely early in front of the space itself.

But way back in September of last year, everything was like very loot-style. So it just meant like you kind of dreamt up what it was gonna be. However, Ethereum Towers blew up very quickly. After day one, the Discord went from like 10 to like 150 people. Day two went from like 150 to like 300 people.

It just grew exponentially. And we very quickly realized you have something major here, and we have like an architectural student that was like, hey, can I help like conceptualize what Ethereum Towers could look like?

And then we had somebody else that was like, hey, what I would love to potentially have you folks use my space within Decentraland or Sandbox, because you own relatively big parcels of land and both to help build sort of what Ethereum Towers could look like.

Over time, obviously, our next big thing was gonna be, okay, how do we continue to add value? And we then decided, let's turn it off with the architecture. The architectural student was fantastic. However, like everything else, his real life and obviously being a student, he just didn't have the time to actually build it. We hired an architecture firm out of Scotland. It's called the RM visuals.

They did a fantastic job. We sat down with them, we went over to like create like moodboards and pictures, posts and stuff like that. And then they came back to us with sort of this design, and we're blown away with what they came up with. Then from there, when it came to the metaverse itself, Decentraland and Sandbox, all of them up to date, didn't have the poly count that we were looking for, because we want something to look a little more realistic.

The other big thing is, within being a metaverse, we wanted to feel a lot more ingrained, or you feel much more involved in sort of the environment. So having it like VR ready, was like one of the main things that we heard from our communities. So none of them were potentially VRA and then the final piece to it is they all have height restrictions.

And when you have a hundred one floor earth, makes it virtually impossible. And I think Decentraland can only go up with 16 stories. And I think Sandbox can only go up about 32 stories. So we ran into a big issue. So then from there, we actually decided then to look at different sort of gaming studios to help us. And we found a number of different ones that we're interested. One put together our initial sort of like technical requirements, documentation, and there’s a group that worked with like Fortnight and a whole bunch of different sort of epic games.

Then from there, after we finished up our technical requirements, we hired a company called Unity Developers. They're based on the UK; they are oculus approved. There's only approximately about 100 of them in the world that are oculus approved, I guess, might have approved now, helped us build it. They've built like 100 plus VR games. They're the ones that are currently right now developing it. And then we have a whole gambit of people that are helping with sort of the modeling as well as acid production.

So I think believe today, anyways, we released or broadcast where we kind of discuss a lot of its information regarding use, asset design and modeling, but we have a whole bunch of the assets.

Candice:
Yeah, then that's quite exciting. Maybe you did a lot in the Ethereum Worlds. So I think we definitely share the same value because I think metaverse is not just selling the land, just selling apartment, but also to create the content, also create more maybe events in the space. So I think this is maybe value added in the future for the metaverse. 

Shane:
That's just it, like I think a lot of people are thinking so short term when it comes to metaverses. Exactly, I think like we just began to scratch the surface of metaverses. Let me describe it that way.

I think as metaverse continue to grow and grow, there's gonna be a huge disruption when it comes to things like social media, for example, versus potentially hopping into Twitter or Discord to go to sort of your traditional Twitter spaces or something like this where it's a Discord AMA you're gonna go into your metaverse because you wanna be fully dressed up this sort of your potential character. You wanna feel like you're almost in a room with everyone.

And that's what Ethereum Towers is trying to achieve. We're a little bit different for most, because we're not necessarily focusing exclusively on the gamefication of sort of the environment itself. We're really promoting sort of that social experience, that SocialFi. During covid, everybody felt so disconnected, everybody felt so far away. Sure you could hop on like a Google call, or Google meet, or Zoom call whatever it was. And kind of meet up with people that way. But when you're able to put on something like an oculus headset, I don't know what it is. Maybe you just feel a little bit more connected, a little bit closer to an individual, because they're can look around, and they almost feel like they're right next to you. So that's kind of like we're aiming for.

Candice:
Yeah, I total agree with that because everyone needs to connect with others and definitely VR creates more power to empower the content and also the social events. And also you just mentioned about the maybe low precision for Decentraland, because they are not similar with the real reality. It's more like the game.

So the community for MUA DAO is also try to explore more in terms of a higher precision in the metaverse. Probably you can maybe check the Discovery page. So some architects or we can create the content in their Mirrors in just seem like the reality. So probably definitely the architects in MUA DAO can help Ethereum Towers to create more content in the future. 

Shane:
I think we have this discussion, did we, Candice? I think as we continue to grow and grow and grow, number one, we want to put out a product that is not completely buggy. I don't know how many people in here are gamers, but we don't want to run before we walk.

So to speak, I don't know if anybody understands my reference, but we don't want to be pushing out a bunch of content before everything is locked in. We have sort of the core mechanics all built. But as we continue to grow in 2023, there's gonna be huge opportunities. Then as we begin to look at other worlds, as we begin to develop the land surrounding of Ethereum Towers, I have personally myself, huge ambitions to have like a massive amphitheater or a stadium that is super close to Ethereum Towers that we could then host concerts.

And I'll never say that we'll be able to replicate the feeling of being in a concert and having sort of that tension in the air as the musician is getting closer to actually speak.

But it'll become much more of like a story, storytelling, mission. And who knows? Like maybe we can get some artists behind the scenes that will do some meet and greets with people say hi to them. And who knows. But all of this stuff, we wanna, number one, make sure that the core product works really well before we extend.

And then from there, as we continue to extend, they'll be massive opportunities, not only in sort of what the exterior and what the environment looks like, but hopefully sometime in the near future, anyways.

We want to release that. So user generate content. People create their own avartar variables or stuff that you can potentially end up build for the apartments, whether that be for furniture, et cetera. But that requires a lot more moderation. It is still the Internet. And when people get on the Internet, they can sometimes do some pretty wild things. That is something that we wanna do on a roadmap. It's just a little bit further on.

Candice:
Yeah, sure. We definitely consider this interesting content together. So I think the most of the audience are architects. So they are quite familiar with how to build the continents, also some events in the reality and also in the metaverse.

Probably we can move on to next question. So I'm thinking about what are the architects working on in? Just maybe just mentioned about that. So maybe would you please introduce the token in Ethereum Towers? I think it's called the TWR is that right?

Shane:
Yeah, it's called the tower token. Shortened up to TWR but the entire Ethereum Worlds ecosystem will be powered by sort of the ERC-20 token named TOWER. This is the utility token that will be used for a variety of different sort of transactions within sort of the ecosystem. Would that be apartment to NFTs; would that be partly purchasing in-world assets, avatar assets.

As we continue to grow like transportation assets, all that sort of fun stuff is going to be powered using that REC-20 token. We were hoping to launch it at the beginning of summer. However, nobody has been in crypto, the beginning of summer as turned out to be less than ideal for token launches.

So we have nine different VCs that have backed us. And every single one of them told us, if you put out your TOWER token at the beginning of summer, you're gonna run into all sorts of issues because people are just trying to recoup their losses from ETH.

So we put a stop on that. It can be released sometime later this year. And what if you guys have any sort of like questions surrounding the Tower token and what sort of like utility it offers feel free jump into our Discord? Gave me a DM, I'm always happy to answer sort of questions. And I know a lot of people always ask like, where is it gonna be potentially hosted on? So the main token itself will be launched on Ethereum blockchain, but there will be a secondary chain. It's gonna be Polygon. Most likely, it is gonna be Polygon. That holders can then swap. Because at the end of the day, we don't want people to have to pay $10 and gas for a $5 couch and something similar to that.

Candice:

Yeah, for sure, especially due to maybe the quiet market, probably it may be the best choice is to wait, right? 

Shane:
It's been a rough summer for NFTs and tokens.

So we're hopeful towards into this year, things start to brighten up a little bit. I at this point, it will need to be released because our entire world kinda revolves around it and will be released towards in this year as well.

So it's gonna be hopefully something that really takes off. People actually enjoy. Obviously, we're trying to build as much utility into it as humanly possible. So stay tuned.

Candice:
Sure. So we definitely can put more maybe utility for the token to wait for this launch. Right? And also so I'm quite curious about the apartment just mentioned so how many apartments are available now? So are they the same one?

Shane:
Right now? We have three different types of apartments, so we have standard departments and standard departments, as I kind of mentioned beforehand. There's 20 of them per floor and its floors, 1 through 99 that have standard departments, then there's two luxuries on each of those floors as well. Then finally there's 32 pent houses and those are located on the top two floors, so floors 100 and floors 101 in each tower.

Now, the one big thing that I do like to mention the penthouses themselves, we have sold seven of them. I think we have another one on reserve right now for 25 per penthouse. And to say the least they are our crown jewel. They will be our crown jewel of the entire Ethereum Worlds ecosystem. They're the biggest, they're the ones that earn the most TOWER token. I think we're calling it engaged-and-earn. So if you own an apartment, you'll actually earn TOWER tokens that will then be able to be used in future towards different apartment assets or kind of whatever you want with it.

Candice:
So probably this is all from me. So I will leave few minutes for their questions in our community. Anyone who likes to ask Shane about Ethereum Towers, would you please maybe just raise your hand? Just let me know. I will always invite you into our channel to speak, to ask the question.

Shane:
Yeah, I guess what we're doing this, I do want to shout out your community because I saw some of the artwork that and some of the designs that came in from you guys’ last contest regarding. I think it was like a bar or some sort of like the nightclub setup and blew my socks off the one, that kind of look like the bottle. I believe it was a bottle, the hand holding the bottle. Those people that was unbelievable. It was unbelievable and I was blown away.

Candice:
Thank you, Shane, because it is built on the Decentraland, probably for the next competition, we would like to collaborate with other platforms to create more content, more related to the reality, but also use the creativity into that platform. So probably we can wait for more amazing works coming out for MUA DAO.

Shane:
I would love to see what you folks could come up with. And this will be a conversation. That could take an offline convo, but it'd be amazing to see.

Candice:
Thank you. I see there are five members. Raise your hand. So first I will ask my crew to invite Marucu, how are you doing? Hello.

Candice:
Yeah, what can you say?

mArchitect Maruko:

Okay, why you choose a more realistic style that can be easily being witnessed in real world, but not to chose a more unrealistic style.

Shane:
Good question. I think everybody's trying to replicate something almost identical. You look at something like Sandbox, or it almost has sort of that minecraft deal. I think we wanted to be different.

Everybody has sort of that crypto voxel look, besides maybe Decentraland. We almost wanted to do interpreted realism. I believe there's sort of the term that we're going for interpreted realism. It's easy to potentially build in sort of like Unity. So we're using sort of like Unity Developers to help us build the entire environment.

As I mentioned before, we're not sure your traditional like Gamefication metaverse. If you actually come into our Discord, I think our average age is like 40 +. Everybody has a couple of kids; everybody just once like sit there, chitchat with you. Obviously, we will have some gaming pieces that are built into it just to keep people like happy.

They wanna hop in there, and go like punch something and have like a boxing area, some sort of like wellness area. There will be a handful of different sort of mini gains, but our main focus is gonna be much more. I'm sort of that SocialFi aspect.

mArchitect Maruko:
That makes sense.

Shane:
Thank you on that.

Candice:
Yeah, next I will invite Leon. Are you online now? Hello.

mArchitect Leon:
Can anyone hear me?

Shane:
Yes, how are you doing Leon?

mArchitect Leon:
First of all, it's very exciting to hear about your project, your metaverse.

Actually, I also come from architecture background, but also like VR. I was part of VR researching when I worked as an analyst in London for quite a while. And then I started my own studio. I'm kind of quite familiar with the VR process.

My question is because as you said, you run your metaverse VR process.

I'm just wondering what's your design process like?

Do you actually design VR? Or you're designing more like traditional architectural modeling process, and then put it into VR and checking everything, and kind of making sure that it looks good in VR?

So I’m just curious about your design process.

Shane:

That's actually a really good question, Leon. So our designers obviously put together sort of the initial modeling, and they did insert their additional architectural work from there. Obviously, the poll we count is like a million and a half, right? It's just impossible to get on something like oculus, because for all those that are unfamiliar with oculus, it’s sort of headset and the GPU in it is like the size of your finger now. So it would never be able to handle 1 million plus poly count.

Then what we do is we have a handful of different sort of modelers that then take that particular file itself. I think they're called FBX files. I could be wrong. I have served our CPO all this sort of behind the scenes, and all the smart information, but then they take it and they downscale it so that it will fit within the environment itself. And this was done for every single floor, the exterior, the building itself.

So I hope that answers your question, Leon. So it takes from sort of the architectural work, then from there are modelers and downscale it into like three DS I believe they are called three DS files.

mArchitect Leon:
Okay, cool. And you said you're basing your metaverse on the Unity engine. Not done on real. Yeah?

Shane:
Yeah, we're building on Unity just purely because number one adding onto existing Ethereum Worlds becomes extremely easy on Unity. So that's the main reason why I think during our research, Unity became abundantly clear. That's probably the best way to start.

Candice:
Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Leon for your question.

And also next, I will invite Greyson. Can you hear me now?

Shane:
Hey.

Candice:
Greyson.

Shane:
I don't know if his mike is working.

Candice:
We can hear you Greyson. And probably I can invite the next one Marsko, and probably maybe Greyson you can wait for the next direction. Marsko. Are you here? 

mArchitect Marsko:
I’m very happy that you have this AMA. And I want to have some questions to ask. So, my major is interior design. So I'm actually very happy to know this project, because right now, basically all of those worlds pay more attention on how to build up architects and buildings. But in this project, I think we pay more as much on the interior part. So my question would be like, which kind of social activities are available to residents and visitors. And also in the future how we add value, introduce apartments and rooms, for example, will we have more as to create more or more tokens or wall papers or something like that? 

Shane:

Yeah, that's actually a fantastic question, Marsko.

So let's start off on the first little bit there that you kind of mentioned, or what are you able to do within your apartment? So speaking to a number of our different sort of community members, everybody has a different idea.

I'm gonna be honest with you. You talk to ten different residents, you're gonna get ten different answers. So some people want to turn it into like an NFT gallery. We have a number of like big name artists that own a spot within Ethereum Towers.

They own an apartment till what they want to do with that space is turn it into like an NFT gallery, perfectly fine, extremely straightforward, extremely easy to do, right? You're just gonna be putting frames on the wall.

And then from there, as matching back your different sort of NFTs, I just showcase it, speaking to a number of them, too. I said like this way, you can potentially meet up with individuals within sort of the metaverse itself. You can explain sort of your mood that you had when you were creating this piece of art. You can explain what's so significant about this particular artwork that really speaks to you and who knows maybe end up making sales that way.

Other people that you speak to, they want to just turn it into like a hangout spot. So they're able to then bring all their friends. So they're chitchat, et cetera. Other people, I've heard yoga studio, another big one. We actually have a quite a few big name musicians in Ethereum Towers. They don't necessarily want to use it for hosting concerts or anything.

But what they wanna do is they wanted to turn it into like fan meet-and-greet spots. You could potentially end up paying TOWER tokens to enter into their apartment and have then meet and greet that way. Then it removes all the barriers of where you live, where they live.

What they have to look like when they are meeting up with these people, they don't have to worry about additional security, anything along those lines. They can just throw on their oculus headset. They can sit down. They can have conversations with these various huge fans that are interested in chit chatting with them prior to maybe an upcoming concert or something along those lines, right?

But it opens the door for a lot of that stuff. Then there's a number of different sort of like groups that are interested in using it as sort of like a social hangout spot. So this happens quite a bit like Sandbox in Decentraland, but it becomes like a clubhouse, sort of environment. However, within sort of our clubhouse, it just feels a little bit different, right? They find a little peace there. How do we continue to add value to it? So I I've spoken to actually a number of potential investors that want to use their space and rent it up.

So versus using Google Meet or something like that, they can rent out their apartments to various corporations or groups where they can then turn their apartments through their penthouses or their luxury apartments into almost like corporate spaces where you can then host meetings and it'll be obviously extremely well designed. It'll be extremely high-end. And people will feel like they're a little more involved into itself, even though people might be on completely opposite sides. Does that make sense?

mArchitect Marsko:
Do you have different avatars like Decentraland? 

Shane:

Yeah, so we're actually right now working with a vendor called Ready Player Me. They do all the animation reading. You can actually go to I believe it's Ethereum Towers.ReadyPlayerMe.com and it'll allow you to actually create your very own avatar. There's a number of different sort of features that you can associate back to it. It looks pretty cool. 

mArchitect Marsko:

Also beside all of those apartments, will the token be furniture or other things like work papers, furniture, etc.?

Shane:

Sorry, what was that? You went a little robotic? 

mArchitect Marsko:

So my question would be, if I'm going to create different items in this room, are they gonna come as different tokens as NFTs.

Shane:

Good question. So obviously, when it comes to token, like, I guess different NFTs, what we're actually going to do is we're gonna actually have different sort of like packages put together. There'll be, if you like, super exclusive, like individual items that we want to sell. But for the most part, nobody wants to fill up their NFT wallet with a sofa, a chair, a fridge, just stove, a dishwasher, six different dining rooms, chairs, a dining table. Side table, bed…They don't want like fifteen, twenty different things to actually represent each individual token. So what we're doing is we're actually putting together like from like tier levels for packages.

So package one might be extremely like plain Jane sort of tables, chairs, sofa side, table, all that sort of fun stuff. Tier two might be a little more, nicer stuff that you find at sort of like your local furniture store.

And then tier three is sort of like the high-end furniture and be like gold plates and all that sort of fun stuff that makes it like really, really nice.

But we're gonna have sort of these packages represent a list of 15 items versus having to purchase individual items.

mArchitect Marsko:

That would be a good idea, different tiers. That would be my questions. And thank you. 

Shane:

I really enjoyed your questions Marsko. They were actually really fantastic. Very few people actually mentioned stuff like this. So shout out to you. That was well done that. Thank you.

Candice:
Thanks, Marsko. Due to time constraints, we will leave two more questions. So Greyson, maybe can you tell us your questions?

mArchitect Greyson:

Hi Shane, good morning there. Sorry for the technical issue, because long time no AMA, but they really got me on. Yeah, so I really got two questions.

The first one concerning what you just introduce. I was pretty much curious about the topic of the realism that you talked about. Do you know there are quite a lot of design institute or design communities like RIBA, like AMA like MUA for certain. And I was curious about all the Ethereum Towers gonna really collaborate with this kind of creators, community, or ecology building in the future.

** And also, the second question is about what is the vision towards Ethereum Towers?**

Shane:
Yeah, so let's start off with your first question. How are we gonna collaborate with a lot of these different sort of like DAOs and groups and organizations that are kind of like popping up that are doing a lot of sort of the design work. And obviously we're flushing out a lot of details as they come in. We do have probably almost a different DAO or different design group that reaches out to us like once a week. So it's betting the really good ones.

Now, as I mentioned to Candice earlier, the stuff that I saw from you guys, Decentraland built, blew me away so that right there in itself, is a huge first step for us. As we continue to grow and grow and grow, I would love to be able to go to Candice as well as the rest of people within the the MUA DAO and ask, hey, we'll put together a bounty price. We'll give you guys x amount. You guys come up with the coolest design for an amphitheater and just see what you folks come up with.

And then from there, obviously provide guys with the exact details in terms of poly count size, all that behind the same stuff. So that that way, we're ensuring that we actually fall in line.

And then from there, the artists themselves would be credited with it, and they'd be paid out for the actual building itself, very similar to what we did for some sort of like traditional business. But to say the least you guys from the work that I saw in Decentraland built was utterly amazing. So shout out to you, folks.

And then remind me on the second question. 

mArchitect Greyson:

My second question concerning vision to Ethereum Towers and also have an additional one addressing this realism topic. Like, do you think we're gonna pose some sort of limitation to the creators’ imagination for the use of the space in the metavers if we really like put the sort of realism thing into these kind of products. And also don't forget about the vision topic.

Shane:
I'll definitely touch on the vision. Let's start off with the interpreted realism. So that is what we're actually calling our further design, because at the end of the day with it being developed on oculus first, and then we do have like a WebGL component for all those that don't want to buy an oculus. So maybe they get really sick on that.

For the ocular part, believe me, I'm the same way, so don't worry where we are gonna have sort of a WebGL component. I can only spend like maybe 45 minutes on sort of oculus before I'm tapping out. But anyways, so the interpreted realism allows us to, I guess, take it a step beyond sort of like the crypto box, the boxy look, doesn't really actually have like a lot of different textures etcetera applied to it. You can still get very good graphics from interpreted realism. It is kind of like what we're calling it. It's very similar to something like Sims. In terms like the look and feel of it, you're able to walk around in the environment, see what's going on. It still looks very nice. Now, in terms of our vision, obviously, as we continue to grow, we want to become sort of the go-to metaverse when it comes to the social experience.

Now, as I mentioned beforehand, everybody has different ideas for metaverses. A lot of people are banking on gamefication of various metaverses. For myself, personally, I think that metaverses will disrupt a lot of the social experience, the the social media as people want to be able to sort of take that next step beyond, potentially like logging onto Twitter, listening to Spaces. I think that our Space is almost like, maybe like the Instagram, is probably the best way of putting it, of the metaverses. We're gonna be very picturesque. We're gonna be very beautiful. There'll still be some games, don't get me wrong. I know people still want some games, but for the most part, we do want to have sort of a very professional, very nice, very utopian feel to it. So our vision itself will be continued to grow into being one of the, I guess, disruptors in the metaverse industry, where we focus much more in my community and much more on, I guess, more of that social experience.

So people feel a lot more connected to our universe and to their surrounding people within the universe itself.

mArchitect Greyson:
I think that's so much for my question. And maybe I know we are free to grab a coffee for more.

Shane:
You can meet down at like maybe the lobby. So this is actually one thing that we haven't even touched on yet and you have actually brought it up. Great and so fantastic. The bottom two floors or the bottom six floors of Ethereum Towers is actually going to be communal space. And the communal space will actually be a mixture of like a wellness center, sort of like a cinema, whole bunch of different sort of areas where residents can kind of congregate and chats, and they don't necessarily need to be in their apartments as well as retail space.

There will be a number of different sort of potential retailers that'll be located within Ethereum Towers where people can go into their store. They can go check out what's on sale, not only NFTs, but also be able to purchase sub IRL so once again, that's coming in 2023.

So stay tuned for that.

mArchitect Greyson:
Cool, can't wait to see the Ethereum Towers developing.

Thank you, Candice, for hosting this AMA. And thank you, Owen. 

Candice:
And also we have one last question. I’ll invite the CZP are you here? Can you hear me?

Shane:
I'm gonna turn you up a little bit here. CZP go ahead, try talking again. So I can hear you.

mArchitect CZP:

Okay. We saw Ethereum Towers just a moment ago. I think it's an excellent project, which reminds me of a project in China called Tower. Have you ever heard of it? 

Shane:

I've never heard of it. No. 

mArchitect CZP:

But this project is more for the companies. Then my question is, what do you think of the operating models of Ethereum Towers? And how is it different from the other project? 

Shane:

That's a very good question. Obviously we different from a number of different metaverses. I think everybody kind is trying to find their own little niche within sort of the metaverse worlds. For us, anyways, how we differ. We, as I mentioned beforehand, we're not so much focus on gamefication. We're much more focused on bringing individuals together in sort of one communal. You feel like it's so much more. The other thing as well, that like a lot of people need to understand, is some of the biggest games in the world are games like Sims.

And Sims is in particular, where you're an individual; you're designing your house. You're kind of like picking all the different sort of furniture; you're kind of doing sort of your normal everyday life stuff, almost like a second life.

In that regard, it is extremely popular. And it's because people want to have sort of something different from their own life. They want to be able to log into a different world where it's completely free and clear of their normal everyday problems.

So having Ethereum Towers being up to put on a headset and almost feel like you're ingrained in the world. Once again, I'll never make it out to being something like Ready Player Me, where you're in a completely different world. But it does feel unbelievable. Once you hop inside there being able to look around on your oculus, it has a certain layer of amazingness if that's even a word, but being able to like hop around to different areas. And as we continue to grow and grow and grow and have different other worlds that people will be able to explore, whether that be sort of, as I mentioned, that island escape, the mountain retreat, I want to do a jungle area as well. Having all those different spaces where you can go and explore. There'll be so much that you'll be able to do, and so many new people that you'll be able to meet in sort of the world itself that I'm hoping that really adds a lot of value to Ethereum Worlds and Ethereum Towers system, in general.

mArchitect CZP:

Thanks.

Candice:
Awesome. So thanks, CZP for your question. Yeah. Thank you everyone for today’s amazing AMA session. And definitely thanks, Shane, about all the amazing sharing about Ethereum Towers.

Shane:
Can I jump in for 1 second? Because I do want you folks to know Candice has been amazing. You guys should all be extremely excited to have her on board. She's awesome. We had a good chat before this. And we're actually gonna give away one apartment, Candice. You decide how you want to give away that one apartment.

All right. And then on top of that as well, our next batch of apartments are gonna be released, probably sometime over the next month or so. At that point, I'm gonna let Candice handle how she wants to give away access list, spots to that as well. But Candice, thank you very much. You've been an absolute pleasure to work with.

Candice:
Thanks, Shane. Also, I shall thank you for sharing the apartment and also the pass for our community and thank you for your generosity. That's all for today's AMA session and thank you all for today's sharing. That's all for this AMA and maybe see you next time. Bye. Everyone, have a good night.

Shane:
Bye.

Candice:
Bye bye and have a good day, Shane.

Shane:
You too. Bye bye.

The MUA DAO X Ethereum Towers AMA was held on August 4th at the official MUA DAO discord (https://discord.gg/mua-dao). The theme of the special session is "When mArchitect Enters Ethereum Towers ". MUA DAO invited Shane, COO of Ethereum Towers/Ethereum Worlds, to share details about our collaboration with each other.

The Following is the Content of AMA

Candice （Co-founder of MUA DAO）:
Special day! Today is the Chinese Valentine's Day. Welcome everyone to our AMA session. MUA DAO is a community whose mission is to create the largest virtual reality guild of architects, providing a large number of builders for the metaverse. Today, we are pleased to invite them from Ethereum Towers, a community centered vertical mega-structure consisting over 4,000 recent owned apartments and a variety of commune areas, to share with us about their project. So before our AMA, hey Shane, will you please introduce yourself and Ethereum Towers? Please?

Shane:
Yeah, thank you so much for having us today, Candice. Welcome everyone. Thank you guys so much for tuning it to today's AMA as Candice kindly pointed out my name is Shane. I go buy Dadcipher, and go by many different names according to my kids. Anyways, I'm with Ethereum Towers. We are an upcoming metaverse project. We are building in VR first, more specifically, oculus, and Ethereum Towers. This is going to be sort of like the first major development in our upcoming metaverse called Ethereum Worlds.

So stay tuned. It's gonna be a fun conversation here today with Candice and everyone.

Candice:
Awesome. So I have few questions about your project. And maybe after our AMA session, we can have some time for the Q&A session for our community. First, I would like to learn, so what is the Ethereum Worlds you just mentioned?

Shane:
Yeah, that's a probably the best kicking-off question, right? What is the Ethereum Worlds? Ethereum Worlds will be sort of our metaphors. And within sort of Ethereum Worlds, we're gonna have, obviously our genesis, a collection which is Ethereum Towers, which is sort of the vertical mega structure, as I think you so eloquently put. If the worlds begin to expand once Ethereum Towers is all ready to rock and roll and we have everything fine tuned, we're gonna have plenty of different sort of what we're causing the worlds surrounding Ethereum Towers.

So they'll be different sort of environmental bios like island resort type, feels maybe like a mountaintop retreat, sort of feeling I’ve been begging and pleading with our development team to get into something like outer space or world um, because I would love to see something where we could then potentially have like low gravity.

But once again, that's all future. Ethereum Towers is kind of the main thing that we're focusing on right now, which is sort of the apartment owned residence.

Candice:
Awesome. So I think definitely the creativity of our community can maybe in the future can help Ethereum Worlds create more maybe content. Yeah, you just mentioned about Ethereum Towers is the main building of the apartment? Is that right? Yeah.

Shane:
So we had kind of a different take on metaverses because obviously up until this point, anyways, everything has been such like huge, sprawling pieces of land. If you look at all the other metaverses and what ends up happening is a lot of investors get in on it or, potential investors, and they don't really do anything with the space that. It's all potential investments for the future.

So they don't really know how to build anything on it. They don't really know what they're supposed to do with it. So it just kind of is bare. And what ends up happening then is the entire metaverse looks a little bit off. You go through huge spots where there's nothing really going on with the Ethereum Towers.

Everything's kind of hidden away behind sort of potential doors. So the towers themselves are almost like a utopian sort of feel to it. It's very beautiful. And then within your apartment, you can do with it, whatever you want. And these are obviously NFTs that act as sort of access to the apartment itself.

And within there you can build walls. You can build it almost like your or maybe like the apartment that you lived in when you were 15 or 25 or 30 years old, whatever it happens to be or maybe you want to turn it into like a yoga studio or a podcast room or a fitness center. We have a number of different people that wanna kind of take their apartments and kind of build something special within it.

And when it comes to Ethereum Towers and those various apartments, we have three different sort of styles, we have standard departments which are approximately about 1,900 square feet.

We have luxury apartments and they are too located on each floors from floors 1 to 99, which are approximately I think about 4,000, maybe about 5,000 square feet and then we actually have penthouses and there's only 32 of those. There's eight located on floors 100 and floors 101. So eight per floor. We have two different towers and at that point, they're substantially bigger. They're actually multiple floors there. There's kind of like two-story. And when you you can actually overlook sort of your downstairs from the topic to your penthouse. So, yeah, it's obviously very fun. We're trying to make it as customized well as humanly possible within sort of your space. So it really is your own.

And then from there you can leave it open to the public, so everybody can potentially hop into your apartment and do with. Come check it out. You'll have like a friend or a clan system as well built into place. So if let's say they're a close friend of you, they're allowed to come into your apartment. Or if they're, let's say part of your guild, of your clan, at that point it'll open up the apartments for you.

And then finally, if you want as well, you can completely close it down and kind of just make that particular apartment your very own. And that's your safe place or your safe place that you like to hang up with them. 

Candice:
Yeah, I love this idea especially the yoga studio part because I love the gym and I love the yoga. So there that part is quite interesting and probably in the future MUA DAO can have or may be a part of your apartment maybe for our guild and also the thing behind the door in the room is quite interesting. I can’t wait. So where will Ethereum Worlds be launched?

Shane:
When is it gonna launch? And that's a very good question. So I for all those, I guess, are a part of our Discord or Twitter. I strongly encourage you to do that hop on there, because it kind of explains a lot of this sort of stuff.

Where are we gonna be launching? What's gonna all be included. So our social media is all Ethereum Towers, discord.gg/Ethereum Towers, all that sort of fun stuff. But for today, we're gonna be launching towards the end of this upcoming here, 2022. We're gonna be launching.

We just finish up our prototype phase. And actually, on our Twitter, you can actually see me demonstrating our prototype phase where I kind of like walk you through the basic navigation of Ethereum Towers. I kind of walk you around sort of the entire residential floor. So what it looks like on floor 99, what sort of the views look as you look outside.

And then finally, I take you into an apart where I begin to like place walls and kind of explain what's going on within here. For the next major prototype, I guess, what we're moving towards is item placement and NFT showcasing. So that's actually scheduled to be done this week. And then from there next week, I'm hoping that I'm gonna be able to record a video.

That showcase is the same thing where I up in there plays like a sofa or maybe an NFT on the wall, or some different sort of wall textures because right now, the wall textures themselves are all extremely plain Jane. On top that as well, there's one in there that looks like a crash test then.

But it’s your place where I can maybe even like post what the prototype is and stuff like that Candice just said, people kind of like to check it out whenever they want.

Candice:
Sure definitely we post in our community afterwards because for sure we definitely will share with that. Yeah, and also good luck for the NFT showcase launch in the next week. Yeah. I will let the Owen check if the video can be shared in our channel, and we can maybe share the video afterward. Yeah, so maybe we can continue our AMA session and to make Owen track whether we can share the video or not.

Shane:
That sounds amazing. I just actually posted in our Telegram.

Candice:
Perfect. Awesome. Probably maybe we can move to the next section. May I know? So why are architects hired to design and build Ethereum Towers? 

Shane:
That's actually a very good question. So for all those that haven't checked out a project, and once again, feel free doing it at your own sort of pace, we did actually start off a sort of it's a little bit of a different project.

So at the very beginning, way back in September of last year, we started off that sort of like a freeman project that was gonna be almost like a loot style project. And if you weren't in NFTs at that point, don't worry. You're still relatively like you're still extremely early in front of the space itself.

But way back in September of last year, everything was like very loot-style. So it just meant like you kind of dreamt up what it was gonna be. However, Ethereum Towers blew up very quickly. After day one, the Discord went from like 10 to like 150 people. Day two went from like 150 to like 300 people.

It just grew exponentially. And we very quickly realized you have something major here, and we have like an architectural student that was like, hey, can I help like conceptualize what Ethereum Towers could look like?

And then we had somebody else that was like, hey, what I would love to potentially have you folks use my space within Decentraland or Sandbox, because you own relatively big parcels of land and both to help build sort of what Ethereum Towers could look like.

Over time, obviously, our next big thing was gonna be, okay, how do we continue to add value? And we then decided, let's turn it off with the architecture. The architectural student was fantastic. However, like everything else, his real life and obviously being a student, he just didn't have the time to actually build it. We hired an architecture firm out of Scotland. It's called the RM visuals.

They did a fantastic job. We sat down with them, we went over to like create like moodboards and pictures, posts and stuff like that. And then they came back to us with sort of this design, and we're blown away with what they came up with. Then from there, when it came to the metaverse itself, Decentraland and Sandbox, all of them up to date, didn't have the poly count that we were looking for, because we want something to look a little more realistic.

The other big thing is, within being a metaverse, we wanted to feel a lot more ingrained, or you feel much more involved in sort of the environment. So having it like VR ready, was like one of the main things that we heard from our communities. So none of them were potentially VRA and then the final piece to it is they all have height restrictions.

And when you have a hundred one floor earth, makes it virtually impossible. And I think Decentraland can only go up with 16 stories. And I think Sandbox can only go up about 32 stories. So we ran into a big issue. So then from there, we actually decided then to look at different sort of gaming studios to help us. And we found a number of different ones that we're interested. One put together our initial sort of like technical requirements, documentation, and there’s a group that worked with like Fortnight and a whole bunch of different sort of epic games.

Then from there, after we finished up our technical requirements, we hired a company called Unity Developers. They're based on the UK; they are oculus approved. There's only approximately about 100 of them in the world that are oculus approved, I guess, might have approved now, helped us build it. They've built like 100 plus VR games. They're the ones that are currently right now developing it. And then we have a whole gambit of people that are helping with sort of the modeling as well as acid production.

So I think believe today, anyways, we released or broadcast where we kind of discuss a lot of its information regarding use, asset design and modeling, but we have a whole bunch of the assets.

Candice:
Yeah, then that's quite exciting. Maybe you did a lot in the Ethereum Worlds. So I think we definitely share the same value because I think metaverse is not just selling the land, just selling apartment, but also to create the content, also create more maybe events in the space. So I think this is maybe value added in the future for the metaverse. 

Shane:
That's just it, like I think a lot of people are thinking so short term when it comes to metaverses. Exactly, I think like we just began to scratch the surface of metaverses. Let me describe it that way.

I think as metaverse continue to grow and grow, there's gonna be a huge disruption when it comes to things like social media, for example, versus potentially hopping into Twitter or Discord to go to sort of your traditional Twitter spaces or something like this where it's a Discord AMA you're gonna go into your metaverse because you wanna be fully dressed up this sort of your potential character. You wanna feel like you're almost in a room with everyone.

And that's what Ethereum Towers is trying to achieve. We're a little bit different for most, because we're not necessarily focusing exclusively on the gamefication of sort of the environment itself. We're really promoting sort of that social experience, that SocialFi. During covid, everybody felt so disconnected, everybody felt so far away. Sure you could hop on like a Google call, or Google meet, or Zoom call whatever it was. And kind of meet up with people that way. But when you're able to put on something like an oculus headset, I don't know what it is. Maybe you just feel a little bit more connected, a little bit closer to an individual, because they're can look around, and they almost feel like they're right next to you. So that's kind of like we're aiming for.

Candice:
Yeah, I total agree with that because everyone needs to connect with others and definitely VR creates more power to empower the content and also the social events. And also you just mentioned about the maybe low precision for Decentraland, because they are not similar with the real reality. It's more like the game.

So the community for MUA DAO is also try to explore more in terms of a higher precision in the metaverse. Probably you can maybe check the Discovery page. So some architects or we can create the content in their Mirrors in just seem like the reality. So probably definitely the architects in MUA DAO can help Ethereum Towers to create more content in the future. 

Shane:
I think we have this discussion, did we, Candice? I think as we continue to grow and grow and grow, number one, we want to put out a product that is not completely buggy. I don't know how many people in here are gamers, but we don't want to run before we walk.

So to speak, I don't know if anybody understands my reference, but we don't want to be pushing out a bunch of content before everything is locked in. We have sort of the core mechanics all built. But as we continue to grow in 2023, there's gonna be huge opportunities. Then as we begin to look at other worlds, as we begin to develop the land surrounding of Ethereum Towers, I have personally myself, huge ambitions to have like a massive amphitheater or a stadium that is super close to Ethereum Towers that we could then host concerts.

And I'll never say that we'll be able to replicate the feeling of being in a concert and having sort of that tension in the air as the musician is getting closer to actually speak.

But it'll become much more of like a story, storytelling, mission. And who knows? Like maybe we can get some artists behind the scenes that will do some meet and greets with people say hi to them. And who knows. But all of this stuff, we wanna, number one, make sure that the core product works really well before we extend.

And then from there, as we continue to extend, they'll be massive opportunities, not only in sort of what the exterior and what the environment looks like, but hopefully sometime in the near future, anyways.

We want to release that. So user generate content. People create their own avartar variables or stuff that you can potentially end up build for the apartments, whether that be for furniture, et cetera. But that requires a lot more moderation. It is still the Internet. And when people get on the Internet, they can sometimes do some pretty wild things. That is something that we wanna do on a roadmap. It's just a little bit further on.

Candice:
Yeah, sure. We definitely consider this interesting content together. So I think the most of the audience are architects. So they are quite familiar with how to build the continents, also some events in the reality and also in the metaverse.

Probably we can move on to next question. So I'm thinking about what are the architects working on in? Just maybe just mentioned about that. So maybe would you please introduce the token in Ethereum Towers? I think it's called the TWR is that right?

Shane:
Yeah, it's called the tower token. Shortened up to TWR but the entire Ethereum Worlds ecosystem will be powered by sort of the ERC-20 token named TOWER. This is the utility token that will be used for a variety of different sort of transactions within sort of the ecosystem. Would that be apartment to NFTs; would that be partly purchasing in-world assets, avatar assets.

As we continue to grow like transportation assets, all that sort of fun stuff is going to be powered using that REC-20 token. We were hoping to launch it at the beginning of summer. However, nobody has been in crypto, the beginning of summer as turned out to be less than ideal for token launches.

So we have nine different VCs that have backed us. And every single one of them told us, if you put out your TOWER token at the beginning of summer, you're gonna run into all sorts of issues because people are just trying to recoup their losses from ETH.

So we put a stop on that. It can be released sometime later this year. And what if you guys have any sort of like questions surrounding the Tower token and what sort of like utility it offers feel free jump into our Discord? Gave me a DM, I'm always happy to answer sort of questions. And I know a lot of people always ask like, where is it gonna be potentially hosted on? So the main token itself will be launched on Ethereum blockchain, but there will be a secondary chain. It's gonna be Polygon. Most likely, it is gonna be Polygon. That holders can then swap. Because at the end of the day, we don't want people to have to pay $10 and gas for a $5 couch and something similar to that.

Candice:

Yeah, for sure, especially due to maybe the quiet market, probably it may be the best choice is to wait, right? 

Shane:
It's been a rough summer for NFTs and tokens.

So we're hopeful towards into this year, things start to brighten up a little bit. I at this point, it will need to be released because our entire world kinda revolves around it and will be released towards in this year as well.

So it's gonna be hopefully something that really takes off. People actually enjoy. Obviously, we're trying to build as much utility into it as humanly possible. So stay tuned.

Candice:
Sure. So we definitely can put more maybe utility for the token to wait for this launch. Right? And also so I'm quite curious about the apartment just mentioned so how many apartments are available now? So are they the same one?

Shane:
Right now? We have three different types of apartments, so we have standard departments and standard departments, as I kind of mentioned beforehand. There's 20 of them per floor and its floors, 1 through 99 that have standard departments, then there's two luxuries on each of those floors as well. Then finally there's 32 pent houses and those are located on the top two floors, so floors 100 and floors 101 in each tower.

Now, the one big thing that I do like to mention the penthouses themselves, we have sold seven of them. I think we have another one on reserve right now for 25 per penthouse. And to say the least they are our crown jewel. They will be our crown jewel of the entire Ethereum Worlds ecosystem. They're the biggest, they're the ones that earn the most TOWER token. I think we're calling it engaged-and-earn. So if you own an apartment, you'll actually earn TOWER tokens that will then be able to be used in future towards different apartment assets or kind of whatever you want with it.

Candice:
So probably this is all from me. So I will leave few minutes for their questions in our community. Anyone who likes to ask Shane about Ethereum Towers, would you please maybe just raise your hand? Just let me know. I will always invite you into our channel to speak, to ask the question.

Shane:
Yeah, I guess what we're doing this, I do want to shout out your community because I saw some of the artwork that and some of the designs that came in from you guys’ last contest regarding. I think it was like a bar or some sort of like the nightclub setup and blew my socks off the one, that kind of look like the bottle. I believe it was a bottle, the hand holding the bottle. Those people that was unbelievable. It was unbelievable and I was blown away.

Candice:
Thank you, Shane, because it is built on the Decentraland, probably for the next competition, we would like to collaborate with other platforms to create more content, more related to the reality, but also use the creativity into that platform. So probably we can wait for more amazing works coming out for MUA DAO.

Shane:
I would love to see what you folks could come up with. And this will be a conversation. That could take an offline convo, but it'd be amazing to see.

Candice:
Thank you. I see there are five members. Raise your hand. So first I will ask my crew to invite Marucu, how are you doing? Hello.

Candice:
Yeah, what can you say?

mArchitect Maruko:

Okay, why you choose a more realistic style that can be easily being witnessed in real world, but not to chose a more unrealistic style.

Shane:
Good question. I think everybody's trying to replicate something almost identical. You look at something like Sandbox, or it almost has sort of that minecraft deal. I think we wanted to be different.

Everybody has sort of that crypto voxel look, besides maybe Decentraland. We almost wanted to do interpreted realism. I believe there's sort of the term that we're going for interpreted realism. It's easy to potentially build in sort of like Unity. So we're using sort of like Unity Developers to help us build the entire environment.

As I mentioned before, we're not sure your traditional like Gamefication metaverse. If you actually come into our Discord, I think our average age is like 40 +. Everybody has a couple of kids; everybody just once like sit there, chitchat with you. Obviously, we will have some gaming pieces that are built into it just to keep people like happy.

They wanna hop in there, and go like punch something and have like a boxing area, some sort of like wellness area. There will be a handful of different sort of mini gains, but our main focus is gonna be much more. I'm sort of that SocialFi aspect.

mArchitect Maruko:
That makes sense.

Shane:
Thank you on that.

Candice:
Yeah, next I will invite Leon. Are you online now? Hello.

mArchitect Leon:
Can anyone hear me?

Shane:
Yes, how are you doing Leon?

mArchitect Leon:
First of all, it's very exciting to hear about your project, your metaverse.

Actually, I also come from architecture background, but also like VR. I was part of VR researching when I worked as an analyst in London for quite a while. And then I started my own studio. I'm kind of quite familiar with the VR process.

My question is because as you said, you run your metaverse VR process.

I'm just wondering what's your design process like?

Do you actually design VR? Or you're designing more like traditional architectural modeling process, and then put it into VR and checking everything, and kind of making sure that it looks good in VR?

So I’m just curious about your design process.

Shane:

That's actually a really good question, Leon. So our designers obviously put together sort of the initial modeling, and they did insert their additional architectural work from there. Obviously, the poll we count is like a million and a half, right? It's just impossible to get on something like oculus, because for all those that are unfamiliar with oculus, it’s sort of headset and the GPU in it is like the size of your finger now. So it would never be able to handle 1 million plus poly count.

Then what we do is we have a handful of different sort of modelers that then take that particular file itself. I think they're called FBX files. I could be wrong. I have served our CPO all this sort of behind the scenes, and all the smart information, but then they take it and they downscale it so that it will fit within the environment itself. And this was done for every single floor, the exterior, the building itself.

So I hope that answers your question, Leon. So it takes from sort of the architectural work, then from there are modelers and downscale it into like three DS I believe they are called three DS files.

mArchitect Leon:
Okay, cool. And you said you're basing your metaverse on the Unity engine. Not done on real. Yeah?

Shane:
Yeah, we're building on Unity just purely because number one adding onto existing Ethereum Worlds becomes extremely easy on Unity. So that's the main reason why I think during our research, Unity became abundantly clear. That's probably the best way to start.

Candice:
Cool. Awesome. Thanks, Leon for your question.

And also next, I will invite Greyson. Can you hear me now?

Shane:
Hey.

Candice:
Greyson.

Shane:
I don't know if his mike is working.

Candice:
We can hear you Greyson. And probably I can invite the next one Marsko, and probably maybe Greyson you can wait for the next direction. Marsko. Are you here? 

mArchitect Marsko:
I’m very happy that you have this AMA. And I want to have some questions to ask. So, my major is interior design. So I'm actually very happy to know this project, because right now, basically all of those worlds pay more attention on how to build up architects and buildings. But in this project, I think we pay more as much on the interior part. So my question would be like, which kind of social activities are available to residents and visitors. And also in the future how we add value, introduce apartments and rooms, for example, will we have more as to create more or more tokens or wall papers or something like that? 

Shane:

Yeah, that's actually a fantastic question, Marsko.

So let's start off on the first little bit there that you kind of mentioned, or what are you able to do within your apartment? So speaking to a number of our different sort of community members, everybody has a different idea.

I'm gonna be honest with you. You talk to ten different residents, you're gonna get ten different answers. So some people want to turn it into like an NFT gallery. We have a number of like big name artists that own a spot within Ethereum Towers.

They own an apartment till what they want to do with that space is turn it into like an NFT gallery, perfectly fine, extremely straightforward, extremely easy to do, right? You're just gonna be putting frames on the wall.

And then from there, as matching back your different sort of NFTs, I just showcase it, speaking to a number of them, too. I said like this way, you can potentially meet up with individuals within sort of the metaverse itself. You can explain sort of your mood that you had when you were creating this piece of art. You can explain what's so significant about this particular artwork that really speaks to you and who knows maybe end up making sales that way.

Other people that you speak to, they want to just turn it into like a hangout spot. So they're able to then bring all their friends. So they're chitchat, et cetera. Other people, I've heard yoga studio, another big one. We actually have a quite a few big name musicians in Ethereum Towers. They don't necessarily want to use it for hosting concerts or anything.

But what they wanna do is they wanted to turn it into like fan meet-and-greet spots. You could potentially end up paying TOWER tokens to enter into their apartment and have then meet and greet that way. Then it removes all the barriers of where you live, where they live.

What they have to look like when they are meeting up with these people, they don't have to worry about additional security, anything along those lines. They can just throw on their oculus headset. They can sit down. They can have conversations with these various huge fans that are interested in chit chatting with them prior to maybe an upcoming concert or something along those lines, right?

But it opens the door for a lot of that stuff. Then there's a number of different sort of like groups that are interested in using it as sort of like a social hangout spot. So this happens quite a bit like Sandbox in Decentraland, but it becomes like a clubhouse, sort of environment. However, within sort of our clubhouse, it just feels a little bit different, right? They find a little peace there. How do we continue to add value to it? So I I've spoken to actually a number of potential investors that want to use their space and rent it up.

So versus using Google Meet or something like that, they can rent out their apartments to various corporations or groups where they can then turn their apartments through their penthouses or their luxury apartments into almost like corporate spaces where you can then host meetings and it'll be obviously extremely well designed. It'll be extremely high-end. And people will feel like they're a little more involved into itself, even though people might be on completely opposite sides. Does that make sense?

mArchitect Marsko:
Do you have different avatars like Decentraland? 

Shane:

Yeah, so we're actually right now working with a vendor called Ready Player Me. They do all the animation reading. You can actually go to I believe it's Ethereum Towers.ReadyPlayerMe.com and it'll allow you to actually create your very own avatar. There's a number of different sort of features that you can associate back to it. It looks pretty cool. 

mArchitect Marsko:

Also beside all of those apartments, will the token be furniture or other things like work papers, furniture, etc.?

Shane:

Sorry, what was that? You went a little robotic? 

mArchitect Marsko:

So my question would be, if I'm going to create different items in this room, are they gonna come as different tokens as NFTs.

Shane:

Good question. So obviously, when it comes to token, like, I guess different NFTs, what we're actually going to do is we're gonna actually have different sort of like packages put together. There'll be, if you like, super exclusive, like individual items that we want to sell. But for the most part, nobody wants to fill up their NFT wallet with a sofa, a chair, a fridge, just stove, a dishwasher, six different dining rooms, chairs, a dining table. Side table, bed…They don't want like fifteen, twenty different things to actually represent each individual token. So what we're doing is we're actually putting together like from like tier levels for packages.

So package one might be extremely like plain Jane sort of tables, chairs, sofa side, table, all that sort of fun stuff. Tier two might be a little more, nicer stuff that you find at sort of like your local furniture store.

And then tier three is sort of like the high-end furniture and be like gold plates and all that sort of fun stuff that makes it like really, really nice.

But we're gonna have sort of these packages represent a list of 15 items versus having to purchase individual items.

mArchitect Marsko:

That would be a good idea, different tiers. That would be my questions. And thank you. 

Shane:

I really enjoyed your questions Marsko. They were actually really fantastic. Very few people actually mentioned stuff like this. So shout out to you. That was well done that. Thank you.

Candice:
Thanks, Marsko. Due to time constraints, we will leave two more questions. So Greyson, maybe can you tell us your questions?

mArchitect Greyson:

Hi Shane, good morning there. Sorry for the technical issue, because long time no AMA, but they really got me on. Yeah, so I really got two questions.

The first one concerning what you just introduce. I was pretty much curious about the topic of the realism that you talked about. Do you know there are quite a lot of design institute or design communities like RIBA, like AMA like MUA for certain. And I was curious about all the Ethereum Towers gonna really collaborate with this kind of creators, community, or ecology building in the future.

** And also, the second question is about what is the vision towards Ethereum Towers?**

Shane:
Yeah, so let's start off with your first question. How are we gonna collaborate with a lot of these different sort of like DAOs and groups and organizations that are kind of like popping up that are doing a lot of sort of the design work. And obviously we're flushing out a lot of details as they come in. We do have probably almost a different DAO or different design group that reaches out to us like once a week. So it's betting the really good ones.

Now, as I mentioned to Candice earlier, the stuff that I saw from you guys, Decentraland built, blew me away so that right there in itself, is a huge first step for us. As we continue to grow and grow and grow, I would love to be able to go to Candice as well as the rest of people within the the MUA DAO and ask, hey, we'll put together a bounty price. We'll give you guys x amount. You guys come up with the coolest design for an amphitheater and just see what you folks come up with.

And then from there, obviously provide guys with the exact details in terms of poly count size, all that behind the same stuff. So that that way, we're ensuring that we actually fall in line.

And then from there, the artists themselves would be credited with it, and they'd be paid out for the actual building itself, very similar to what we did for some sort of like traditional business. But to say the least you guys from the work that I saw in Decentraland built was utterly amazing. So shout out to you, folks.

And then remind me on the second question. 

mArchitect Greyson:

My second question concerning vision to Ethereum Towers and also have an additional one addressing this realism topic. Like, do you think we're gonna pose some sort of limitation to the creators’ imagination for the use of the space in the metavers if we really like put the sort of realism thing into these kind of products. And also don't forget about the vision topic.

Shane:
I'll definitely touch on the vision. Let's start off with the interpreted realism. So that is what we're actually calling our further design, because at the end of the day with it being developed on oculus first, and then we do have like a WebGL component for all those that don't want to buy an oculus. So maybe they get really sick on that.

For the ocular part, believe me, I'm the same way, so don't worry where we are gonna have sort of a WebGL component. I can only spend like maybe 45 minutes on sort of oculus before I'm tapping out. But anyways, so the interpreted realism allows us to, I guess, take it a step beyond sort of like the crypto box, the boxy look, doesn't really actually have like a lot of different textures etcetera applied to it. You can still get very good graphics from interpreted realism. It is kind of like what we're calling it. It's very similar to something like Sims. In terms like the look and feel of it, you're able to walk around in the environment, see what's going on. It still looks very nice. Now, in terms of our vision, obviously, as we continue to grow, we want to become sort of the go-to metaverse when it comes to the social experience.

Now, as I mentioned beforehand, everybody has different ideas for metaverses. A lot of people are banking on gamefication of various metaverses. For myself, personally, I think that metaverses will disrupt a lot of the social experience, the the social media as people want to be able to sort of take that next step beyond, potentially like logging onto Twitter, listening to Spaces. I think that our Space is almost like, maybe like the Instagram, is probably the best way of putting it, of the metaverses. We're gonna be very picturesque. We're gonna be very beautiful. There'll still be some games, don't get me wrong. I know people still want some games, but for the most part, we do want to have sort of a very professional, very nice, very utopian feel to it. So our vision itself will be continued to grow into being one of the, I guess, disruptors in the metaverse industry, where we focus much more in my community and much more on, I guess, more of that social experience.

So people feel a lot more connected to our universe and to their surrounding people within the universe itself.

mArchitect Greyson:
I think that's so much for my question. And maybe I know we are free to grab a coffee for more.

Shane:
You can meet down at like maybe the lobby. So this is actually one thing that we haven't even touched on yet and you have actually brought it up. Great and so fantastic. The bottom two floors or the bottom six floors of Ethereum Towers is actually going to be communal space. And the communal space will actually be a mixture of like a wellness center, sort of like a cinema, whole bunch of different sort of areas where residents can kind of congregate and chats, and they don't necessarily need to be in their apartments as well as retail space.

There will be a number of different sort of potential retailers that'll be located within Ethereum Towers where people can go into their store. They can go check out what's on sale, not only NFTs, but also be able to purchase sub IRL so once again, that's coming in 2023.

So stay tuned for that.

mArchitect Greyson:
Cool, can't wait to see the Ethereum Towers developing.

Thank you, Candice, for hosting this AMA. And thank you, Owen. 

Candice:
And also we have one last question. I’ll invite the CZP are you here? Can you hear me?

Shane:
I'm gonna turn you up a little bit here. CZP go ahead, try talking again. So I can hear you.

mArchitect CZP:

Okay. We saw Ethereum Towers just a moment ago. I think it's an excellent project, which reminds me of a project in China called Tower. Have you ever heard of it? 

Shane:

I've never heard of it. No. 

mArchitect CZP:

But this project is more for the companies. Then my question is, what do you think of the operating models of Ethereum Towers? And how is it different from the other project? 

Shane:

That's a very good question. Obviously we different from a number of different metaverses. I think everybody kind is trying to find their own little niche within sort of the metaverse worlds. For us, anyways, how we differ. We, as I mentioned beforehand, we're not so much focus on gamefication. We're much more focused on bringing individuals together in sort of one communal. You feel like it's so much more. The other thing as well, that like a lot of people need to understand, is some of the biggest games in the world are games like Sims.

And Sims is in particular, where you're an individual; you're designing your house. You're kind of like picking all the different sort of furniture; you're kind of doing sort of your normal everyday life stuff, almost like a second life.

In that regard, it is extremely popular. And it's because people want to have sort of something different from their own life. They want to be able to log into a different world where it's completely free and clear of their normal everyday problems.

So having Ethereum Towers being up to put on a headset and almost feel like you're ingrained in the world. Once again, I'll never make it out to being something like Ready Player Me, where you're in a completely different world. But it does feel unbelievable. Once you hop inside there being able to look around on your oculus, it has a certain layer of amazingness if that's even a word, but being able to like hop around to different areas. And as we continue to grow and grow and grow and have different other worlds that people will be able to explore, whether that be sort of, as I mentioned, that island escape, the mountain retreat, I want to do a jungle area as well. Having all those different spaces where you can go and explore. There'll be so much that you'll be able to do, and so many new people that you'll be able to meet in sort of the world itself that I'm hoping that really adds a lot of value to Ethereum Worlds and Ethereum Towers system, in general.

mArchitect CZP:

Thanks.

Candice:
Awesome. So thanks, CZP for your question. Yeah. Thank you everyone for today’s amazing AMA session. And definitely thanks, Shane, about all the amazing sharing about Ethereum Towers.

Shane:
Can I jump in for 1 second? Because I do want you folks to know Candice has been amazing. You guys should all be extremely excited to have her on board. She's awesome. We had a good chat before this. And we're actually gonna give away one apartment, Candice. You decide how you want to give away that one apartment.

All right. And then on top of that as well, our next batch of apartments are gonna be released, probably sometime over the next month or so. At that point, I'm gonna let Candice handle how she wants to give away access list, spots to that as well. But Candice, thank you very much. You've been an absolute pleasure to work with.

Candice:
Thanks, Shane. Also, I shall thank you for sharing the apartment and also the pass for our community and thank you for your generosity. That's all for today's AMA session and thank you all for today's sharing. That's all for this AMA and maybe see you next time. Bye. Everyone, have a good night.

Shane:
Bye.

Candice:
Bye bye and have a good day, Shane.

Shane:
You too. Bye bye.