Let’s study how this all can be reached.

Additional blobs

EIP-4844 is part of the Surge - another stage of Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum development roadmap. The Surge means “massive scalability increases for rollups through sharding”. If it succeeds, the layer 2 rollups on top of Ethereum mainnet will reach a milestone of 100,000 transactions per second (as for now, the limit capacity of Arbitrum One - one of the major EVM-compatible optimistic rollups, is described as around 40,000 TPS).

In the EIP-4844 reduced gas fees will be ensured by the optimized organization of data. Its basic principle rests upon a new type of transaction - a transaction holding at least 2 “blobs” - ”binary large objects”, or additional data fields, each equalling 0,125 MB (0.25 MB per block). Blobs are strings of bytes encrypted with a new type of encryption - the homomorphic Kate-Zaverucha-Goldberg (KZG) commitment scheme. This scheme maps polynomials into elliptic curve points (you can read Vitalik’s description of that here - goes with a “Trigger warning: math” disclaimer 🙂). But it’s notable that the KZG commitments will hash to the versioned hashes (the versioned hashes were chosen to ensure forward compatibility with future changes).

The power of blobs is that they’ll help to get the growing block burden off the mainnet. While processing the updated blocks with blobs, the validators will just need to publish the blobs sidecars and ensure they are available. The blob transactions won’t be automatically broadcasted to the other nodes, but simply announced (with the “NewPooledTransactionHashes” messages). They will be accessible through a manual request (“GetPooledTransactions”). The data in blobs can be deleted from the mainnet within a few weeks, but will still be available through the Data Availability Sampling, which verifies the availability of data with only a fraction of that. This is opposed to storing all the data on-chain forever (“calldata”).

Although this is not a full analogy, the blobs scheme is sometimes compared to the customs - where partial checking of the goods helps the officers assume that everything is correct.

To reach it, in 2022 the Ethereum Foundation announced a “Trusted Setup” ceremony (i.e. the Proto-Danksharding Ceremony, or the KZG Ceremony), and created a special Sequencer for it. The first contribution period of the KZG Summoning Ceremony was launched on the 13th of January, and it is to last for 2 months (until the 13th of March, 2023). Its participants are holders of an Ethereum address with at least 4 transactions on the mainnet conducted as of the 13th of January, 2023. It will be followed by the second period - aka the Special contribution period, with bespoke implementations and a unique entropy generation.

During the KZG Summoning Ceremony each participant has to share a “secret” and make some random movements with his cursor to color the mandala on screen. A “secret” from each participant is mixed with the ones shared by other participants, all by computations run on his computer. It is then included into a “structured reference string”. Creating the string is required to make the new KZG commitments work. As of Friday, the 3rd of February 2023, the number of the KZG Ceremony participants has exceeded 32,000. As soon as the KZG scheme is complete and tested, it’ll be deployed.

So, as the blobs will be forward compatible with the help of Data Availability Sampling, they’ll cut the pressure on the blockchain and shrink the gas fees. The scheme of calculating gas fees for blobs will also be different. It will follow a special pricing mechanism similar to EIP-1559 (fixed-per-block network fee that is burned and dynamically expands/contracts block sizes to deal with transient congestion). Ideally, with this scheme, the gas fees on the mainnet will be reduced even greater than what the options by the L2 zero-knowledge rollups are capable of (to say nothing about the optimistic L2 rollups).  

A long way to come

EIP-4844 is being referred to as a “stop-gap” option, that’ll lower the burden off the main net transactions and, surely enough, help the layer 2 rollups scale. It will still lag behind the target of sharding - that of adding an extra 16GB to the block. But it’s a big step towards it.

So far, the Ethereum blockchain has already made another big step - the Merge, by changing the high-energy consuming mechanism of Proof-of-Work to a far more rational Proof-of-Stake. The other parts are the Scourge, Purge, Splurge.  But the high gas fees are still a problem hindering the scalability of Ethereum.

The release date of EIP-4844 is somewhere in the 3rd quarter of 2023. At first it was announced to pair with the much anticipated Ethereum Shanghai hard fork (that will finally allow ETH to be withdrawn from the mainnet staking contract). Yet due to the need to double-check everything, the Shanghai upgrade will be launched in March 2023 without EIP-4844.

More is less?

EIP-4844 is the forerunner of the true Danksharding, where a new class of actors will be added - the block builders, in the framework of a proposer/builder separation principle. Again, in EIP-4844 the data within a blob will not be executed on the Ethereum Virtual Machine, and the EVM will have access only to a commitment to the blob itself.

That’s why it can be argued that launching the EIP-4844 and the forthcoming Danksharding are somewhat disputable.

This is all about validators - the ones who have staked their ETHs to run the nodes. Figuratively, if we view the pieces of data in the block (transactions) as airline passengers, placing more seats on board the aircraft must require either more fuel for the engines  (i.e. an increased pressure on the Ethereum blockchain validators - and it’ll get harder for them to handle the torrent of data), or other engines accessible for every passenger on demand (the request for data inside the blob to be downloaded to the mainnet with the Data Availability Sampling). It is supposed that the blobs will be used mostly by rollups.

Adding these new milti-numeral “engines” will be somewhat like a squared decentralization. As the data may be deleted from the execution layer within about 30 days, the historical data will be stored somewhere else. It is supposed that the pieces of history will be stored in additional space. For instance, in rollups and other application-specific protocols, or by various data services like API providers, in third-party indexing protocols, or even in BitTorrent, etc. It is also said that the data will be kept in the blockchain snapshots. In fact, if this approach succeeds, no one will be able to instantly check all the transactions in one single computer, and no one will have a full stake.

Figuratively, the main problem of the forthcoming sharding is adding a new “layer” of trust - right there, where less is more. Adding shards - kind of separate networks with nodes attached - may reduce the overall security of the network. And, as some members of the crypto community argue, could make the shards vulnerable for attackers.

Also, by adding large enough extra space to the block, in future the decentralization model of Ethereum may be challenged, as in decades this work will be too tough for each and every validator. The future will show if the “proposer/builder separation” solution (to help individual validators avoid processing 32 MB of data in one slot) will be a lasting solution.

Since 2020 crypto natives have been testing out two promising EVM-compatible rollups - Arbitrum and Optimism. These are the most hyped “optimistic” rollups conceived to ease the problem of beating gas fees (i.e. price-per-unit transaction costs) in the Ethereum mainnet.

The soaring gas price of Ethereum blockchain has been a growing headache all-too familiar to users due to increasing activity in the network. For now, no one can bet the bottom dollar that the anticipated merge with the beacon chain is tackling the gas issue for sure. That’s why different teams, like Offchain Labs, race to bring a solution to scale the Ethereum mainnet. The Offchain Labs project Arbitrum is only in beta, but has already become a partner chain for Uniswap, SushiSwap and Chainlink to name a few. Arbitrum has also partnered with Reddit to create a rollup network to reward its users. Optimism is currently being tested on platforms such as Uniswap and Synthetics, Lyra, and wallets like Rainbow and Metamask. Optimism is also a MakerDAO partner to create a Dai Bridge to quickly withdraw DAI and other tokens to the mainnet.

Arbitrum has already experienced a shutdown: as it uses a system for queuing transactions – the Sequencer, a recent attempt to decentralize it resulted in a 45-minute network crash in mid-September. Still, by October, $2 billion had been bridged to Arbitrum due to the NYAN cat token boom.

How does a rollup work?

A rollup is a special type of an add-on network that combines best features of sidechains and Layer 2 networks. Rollups conduct transactions with mainnet assets right outside the main blockchain - on sidechains in a custodial mode, uploading them back to the Layer 1 in batches. Take Optimism, which is run on the Optimistic Virtual Machine (OVM) on the Layer 2 of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM L2). OVM ensures almost the same possibilities for implementing smart contracts as those on the Ethereum mainnet.

Using rollups is merely as cheap as hanging out on sidechains. Low gas price is reached through compressing piles of transactions into batches. Downloading one batch to Layer 1 is priced equivalent to one transaction in the main network, so the transaction fee within the rollup figuratively tends toward zero compared to mainnet. You only pay for the Ethereum network gas twice – when getting your assets off, and then, if you do need it, back on the Ethereum network again through a bridge. The rollup chain isn’t that overloaded or may be using shards in future, so the transactions per second (TPS) rate may increase. For example, Optimism’s TPS reaches several hundred-thousands.

It seems natural. Using rollup technology feels like booking a plane to split the cost between multiple cheap seat tickets. Everyone’s happy: all passengers get their transfer, and no one overpays. And the high gas fee paid to get onto the rollup is somewhat like a taxi drive to the airport.

For example, you could be paying about $50-equivalent in ETH both for a $70 or a $70,000 transaction on Layer 1. But in a rollup you’d place your $70-worth transaction into a batch, sharing the gas price with other users, making the cost-per-unit for a person less than $5.

The gas price in Optimism now is just 0.015 gwei.

But does it take the burden off our shoulders safely? In short, yes, it does. Firstly, it uses the mainnet consensus. Secondly, the rollup approach decreases the price of gas and maintains a high rate of transactions per second (TPS). Furthermore, lower gas prices make it cost-effective to use complex applications, such as highly encrypted privacy services, that would normally consume more gas. Ultimately, this stimulates the growth of reliability.

What’s an optimistic rollup? Are there any other types of rollups?

In optimistic rollups (ORUs) transactions security is guaranteed by verifying data via special validating smart contracts on the mainnet. These are manager-contracts that can play back to the state at any moment in the past.

ORUs save computing power as they process calculations only when funds are returned to the mainnet using a “fraud-proof” mechanism. ORUs do not check each transaction and upload them to the mainnet with a presumption of legality. Transferring funds to the mainnet requires time to be verified by validators (called the Grace period or Challenge period).

In case a fraudulent transaction batched with the fair ones, the validators won’t let the block pass. In this situation a validator should issue a challenge for the system to enter the Dispute Resolution Mode. When the manager contract plays the state back, the fraud is no longer a threat to the users’ finances.

Going back to the traveling analogy, occurring frauded transactions in an optimistic rollup is more like a multi-day boat trip with a passenger who’s about to commit a crime aboard or has got a latent covid period. At first, all the passengers get on board, with their passports checked at the port customs. But as the crime happens or covid symptoms pop up, everyone gets either under suspicion or quarantined, and no one’s free move through the customs of the place of destination (i.e. the whole batch of transactions containing a frauded one has no chance to be uploaded to the mainnet).

Any network user who has installed the appropriate verification application, and also deposited a certain amount of ETH, can become a validator. If a validator tries to act dishonestly, the deposited money will be slashed. The system is highly reliable, because to block an illegitimate transaction, a challenge issued by a single validator is enough.

The network also protects itself from spamming with irrelevant challenges. Any validator that indicates a non-existent error is also subjected to slashing. Therefore, it is beneficial for everyone to be extremely honest and accurate.

Returning the assets to the mainnet requires a final verification during an asset freeze period. For now, its length is randomized. That’s why there’s already an emerging market for buying rights for assets being currently verified. These projects are called liquidity exits (check Сonnext and Hop). The rights may be purchased by liquidity providers for a small fee, in case of an urgent need to have the money on the mainnet.

As for now, Arbitrum surely outperforms Optimism in validating transactions before uploading data to the mainnet. When a dispute is identified, Arbitrum uses an “interactive proving” mechanism that narrows the field of verification, eliminating the need to verify the entire transaction chain. Thus, the marginal value of a contract placed on Arbitrum compared to that on Ethereum increases (as Arbitrum puts it – with no limit).

Other types of rollups, like ZK-Rollups (Zero-Knowledge Rollups or ZRUs), Validium and Plasma included, store data off-chain or use other methods of processing calculations, like the ZK SNARK.

The marvelous advantage of ORUs is that there’s no need to switch to another blockchain. Another one’s the ability to broaden the developer tools handset and to use any token to mainnet base assets. Also, ORUs do not require the processing of DeFi protocols and wallets, and they can execute smart contracts and transfer ERC-20 tokens at hundreds of TPS.

The disadvantage of ORUs is the price of withdrawing to the mainnet, which is higher than the gas price in the Ethereum network. The main disadvantage of Optimism right now is the withdrawal time.

We believe that these remaining issues shall be addressed soon. And we anticipate tokens launch and for now we’re off to do some swapping to get lucky for possible airdrops.

(Written on September 03, 2021)

Searching for an alternative to Salvadoran Colòn

On September 7, 2021, the Decreto N 57 - a law known as “Ley Bitcoin” - will come into force in El Salvador to finally recognize the Bitcoin (BTC) as an official means of payment on a par with the US dollar. The law was adopted on June 8 by a majority vote of the Parliament of El Salvador, which supported the initiative of the crypto-bullish president Nayib Bukele. The act allows for an unprecedented scale of adoption of the BTC in a country. As it comes into force, it will be legal to use BTC in routine life situations like buying food in a supermarket, paying taxes, or getting salaries.

To support the initiative the Salvadoran government is even launching a state-owned crypto wallet called Chivo, although any other wallet would also do. For opening an account in the Chivo app every adult Salvadoran is receiving an “airdrop” - an amount of BTC worth 30 USD. It’s not the first time El Salvador’s swapping to a new payment means. In 2001-2004 El Salvador switched to the US dollar, abandoning the national currency Colòn due to unchecked inflation. But linking the economy to the dollar has brought the country not only price stability, but also problems with flexibility of the economic infrastructure. Anyway, the BTC move is not that radical. It is stated that the use of bitcoins is fully voluntary and won’t be accompanied by a forced conversion of assets or a compulsory transfer of salaries and pensions - as it happened when switching the country to the USD.

Is this a timely decision? Why should the people of El Salvador want to use Bitcoin?

Nayib Bukele did have his reasons to push the BTC decision through. The major one was the aim to add flexibility to the economy. By now, El Salvador’s short of banking infrastructure like branch offices of banks, ATMs and modern Internet banking. Recognizing that this hinders the internal movement of funds in El Salvador, he’s also aware that such things won’t appear at a snap of a finger.

Fortunately enough, cryptocurrency requires little physical infrastructure. To create an account and conduct payments, one just needs a personal device connected to the Internet and a basic skill. Moreover, those who’re new to crypto, are supposed to familiarize themselves easily by using the same national wallet Chivo and sharing user’s tips.

Moreover, Bukele did consider a major economic habit of the population – that of using the USD. The Chivo public wallet supports both BTC and USD, as well as fast conversion between them. For those who prefer cash, it will be possible to withdraw dollars at one of the 200 Chivo ATMs (placing ATMs is not as expensive as opening bank branches).

He also wanted to tackle the high fees for cross-border money transfers. It’s no secret that a significant part of the population of El Salvador works abroad and sends their salaries back home. Sometimes they face double-digit commission percentages for such transfers.

Finally, Bukele believes that the adoption of BTC may bring a new source of economic growth. El Salvador is a small Central American country in need of foreign money (for now, its GDP is about $27 bln, which is almost 3 times less than that of neighboring Guatemala and 17 times less than that of Venezuela). Its leading export items are the simplest types of knitwear, plastic and sugar, and are lacking in added value. Perhaps El Salvador hopes to become a point of attraction for American businesses using cryptocurrencies.

The Salvadoran government is even trying to catch up with the hyped eco-friendly agenda by setting up the Proof-of-Work consensus mining at the expense of electricity received from the activity of volcanoes. Doubtful, but sounds great.

An experience to scale?

The introduction of Bitcoin at the country level follows a smaller-scale experience within a 3-thousand populated Pacific coast village of El Zonte. El Zonte's has been nicknamed the “Bitcoin Beach” as it has been running an experiment to introduce crypto in everyday life since 2019. To make it possible, its population has been getting BTC payments for small yet constant public labor activities and receiving BTC donations as assistance in Covid-19 times.

The El Zonte experience revealed some pros and cons of using BTC.

PROs:

• Acceleration of money transfers and reduced role of hardly accessible banking infrastructure.

• Lower transaction fees.

CONs:

• The speed is still low. The Bitcoin network (if the Layer 2 Lightning Network isn’t being used) suits well to transfer salaries back home, yet still can’t handle rapid everyday transactions, like a payment at a supermarket.

• BTC’s volatility makes it neither handy nor trustful. And as all prices are converted into dollars, the BTC can’t break through the wall of serving an actual token for the USD to turn into a real means of payment.

How can El Salvador plan to deal with these disadvantages?

The Government of El Salvador plans to solve the issue of transaction speed by using a Layer 2 Lightning Network (LN). Most likely, Chivo will be using this solution to scale the Bitcoin payment network, and the Strike app for Layer 2 transactions is already available. Yet this decision also has flaws that can’t be managed.

Still a “no”. Why the Lightning Network is not a solution

It’s complex even for experienced users of digital currencies, to say nothing of the non-crypto-savvy users. The Lightning Network was introduced back in 2015 and gained support at the initial stage, but now it’s faded. That’s why we’ll hardly contemplate a surge in the activity of Salvadorans, most of whom are even barely familiar with online banking.

It also has problems with routing, scaling and throughput. Until 2021, the LN capacity (i.e. liquidity) had been considered the main obstacle to its actual use. Transactions could fail due to a combination of routing problems and the lack of sufficient quantity of Satoshi on the network nodes. In such cases users frequently had to send their transaction several times.

There was a kind of optimistic trend in the Lightning Network capacity on the eve of September 7. But to maintain the speed and efficiency, large market participants are required to provide liquidity simultaneously and continuously. While the summer growth illustrated that this is generally possible, it is surely not set to last. The growth of the LN network may stop soon due to the lack of economic motivation (incentives) for maintaining nodes on it.

The routing issue is even more fundamental. A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tried to offer a solution – the Spider routing scheme, but it apparently didn’t tackle the pressing issues. To increase the capacity of the LN, it would be necessary to get more lasting and successful wallets on the LN.

Volatility and trust in Bitcoin

The volatility of Bitcoin makes it virtually impossible to set prices in it, as this would lead either to the risk of losing money or to the loss of customers’ trust.

An entrepreneur cannot tolerate the risks of slippage caused by the exchange rate difference, which for BTC is often around +-10% per day. By setting higher prices for products denominated in BTC, he would simply risk losing customers. And if he sets prices in dollars and gets payments from the BTC-wallets at the current exchange rate with instant conversion, he puts at risk the payers’ assets. And right in the opposite, fluctuations in the value of BTC could lead to queues for expensive products at the next jump in the exchange rate.

The problem extends even wider - to storing money in Bitcoins. In El Salvador, where over 22% of the population lives below the poverty line, it’s hard to convince people to keep their basic savings and money for current expenses in a currency that can lose 30% of its value in a month.

Could El Salvador consider any alternatives to BTC?

In our opinion, surely yes.

Take the xDai, which is an Ethereum-compatible network with an eponymous native token which is a stable coin pegged to USD. This network uses the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) which makes it attractive for developers. Using such a network could solve most of the mentioned BTC problems in adopting a crypto currency in a poor country.

• Compare the speed: it’s about 5 transactions per second for BTC and 70 for xDai.

• Check the volatility: it’s no longer a headache, as the xDai’s pegged to USD. -The cost of transactions is low. Regardless of the network load, the native xDai token is always equal to 1 USD, so the transaction cannot be expensive by definition (it’s on average equal to 0.00008 USD). This makes it possible to be used in routine payments.

• The issue of trust is settled in xDai. The value of an xDai token always corresponds to that of a Dai token 1:1, and it cannot be released without collateral. The xDai chain uses a reliable dual token model, with the presence of a multi-chain staking and utility/governance STAKE token coined to protect the protocol (as it supports the Proof-of-Stake consensus). Staking allows block producers (validators and their delegates) to ensure the consensus on transactions. They’re incentivized for honest block production, and, as they’re also rewarded in xDai, this boosts the xDai tokenomics even more.

What’s for El Salvador and BTC? Hopefully, the Salvadoran government may bump into this article and estimate the issues. For now, let’s lean back and have fun monitoring the news on the Salvadoran economy.

** **

As he wonders if this should be changed in places so dear to world architecture yet lacking in funds, a 3D model of Buenos Aires springs up in his mind. Every building here is both detailed and squeaky brand new, and apartments may be sold and resold like NFTs for assets. This gives him a clue on his future research topic: what if he abandons the almost set choice to study the history of architectural styles, and picks the digital architecture for metaverses? Will this be a right investment of his youth? Transferring imperfect physical worlds into boundless 3D-reality seems natural, although the idea itself is limited by both software and hardware, as even Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is still striving to bring the metaverse concept into life.

Allocating funds for “metaverses” (which now are only separate digital spaces with no clear perspective to merge) has been much of a trend for companies in 2022. According to a report by Strategic Market Research (URL), in 2022 the world's metaverse market showed a double digit growth (almost 40%), reaching $47.48 bln. The 2030 forecast is also promising - for it to be doubling annually, to finally hit $678.8 bln. The concept’s also getting attention from institutions: the World Economic Forum is now considering adopting a global policy on the metaverse. To do this, not only major market players like Decentraland or Facebook, but also Web3 projects like Shiba Inu, are invited (URL). And by the way, Shiba Inu is now working to release a beta of its platform Shibarium - a layer-2 network on top of the Shiba Inu blockchain, conceived as a space to build a metaverse (as well as to expand the Shiba Inu ecosystem with its decentralized applications - dApps, and NFTs, used with lower transaction costs). On top of that, in January 2023 world’s first public metaverse was officially launched in Seoul (URL).

Isn’t it a hype bubble to pop? Or could it be the right choice for companies pursuing a solid share of the future market, and a way for institutions to stay cutting edge? 

One doesn’t exclude the other, as long as we mind the ultimate purpose of such a move. For the time being there’s still much to explore about metaverses, so the hype will last, ascending or staying within a scope of sinusoid. Yet when the dust settles, the approach must end up as a tool that solves real problems. 

A tool to sell more?

For now, various metaverses are being increasingly used by companies as a means to sell. Consider getting a new pair of digital Nikes for your Roblox Nikeland avatar, or investing into digital or even physical objects sold for the ERC-20 tokens MANA as NFTs in Decentraland. Today such digital stuff is still viewed as a long-time investment. But the longer the NFT world’s history, the less the overall sense of novelty and harder to pick an item to skyrocket among the pastiche of variants.

** **Tokenizing physical objects to be sold through metaverse marketplaces may attract a more constant attention as long as buyers are satisfied with the conditions - safety, currency (which is usually a crypto), and has a way to show off the unique purchase. Thus, not only digital marketplacing connects the future of metaverse to the trust in cryptocurrencies and the platforms’ safety, but also makes it a vogue. And as trends change, one can’t say if metaverse is to become a classic. 

Simple tokenizing to ensure the originality of a product is great but not enough. It must be spiced up with emotions. For now, creating exquisite pieces like the utterly delicious Louis Vuitton anniversary game with little avatar Vivienne seems rather an ad hoc than a pattern break. And although in the coming years sales companies will be getting a share of their revenue due to digital purchases pushed through metaverses, in a while it’ll be dull. 

A more tangible way to use the metaverse as an approach is by expanding the use of augmented reality (AR). The Louis Vuitton Digital Nomades collaboration feels like a step in the right way, yet it is too expensive and a bit boring. 

Still, let us not underestimate the power of habit. With the bullishness of metaversing, brands are using this space to nurture loyal customers. If today a middle-income mother of three kids may not get curious enough to surf through a collection of NFTs applicable inside a metaverse, her teen kids are already embracing the concept, as it’s full of peers and dopamine. They spend hours in virtual gaming and wish for a new pair of Nikes for their Roblox Nikeland avatar as a birthday present. And they’ll be easily taking on new stuff in web3 as it’s released later on.

Industrial metaverse to advance 

While releases about entertainment and art, like Waves Ducks (URL) or Roblox Championships (URL), seem ridiculous for those who use computers mostly for Office and messengers, the metaverse tech's getting serious attention from industrial whales. In an industrial metaverse there’s no problem with privacy among the peer users, which is raised in connection to the “Metaverse-as-a-Service” (MaaS - solutions to digitize companies’ working process) or addiction - the scourge of gamified metaverses. 

On the contrary, it’s a boon of support in taking decisions, traceability, transparency and predictability, all brought by 3D-digital twins assisted with the augmented reality (AR). The increasingly digitized product manufacturing process allows to integrate operators into a new generation of Human Cyber–Physical System (URL). Simply put, using this is going to reduce production costs while bringing the decision making to its best. The data is getting more precise and easily accessible, being combined in 3D. That’s why in a November 2022 report by Molex (URL) the industrial metaverse was referred to as a "productivity force multiplier”.

That’s why one might doubt the usefulness of fitting another AR luxurious sofa into the apartment, but none would argue the benefit of a super-precise AR image displayed on the tablet, uncovering the inner side of an aircraft engine. The easily accessible exact data on the conditions of its components, delivered by the RFID tags, will support the quality of the production or repair, meaning the economic benefit and saving people’s lives.

As coined by Siemens - a pioneer in creating, using and selling AR tools to other industrial companies - it shifts production to a new level of automation, from Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) to Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM). For example, the Siemens “Digital Mockup and Virtual/Augmented Reality” is supposed to immerse the design teams into high-level digital prototypes. Another example of industrial AR is Safran’s Diota augmented reality tool which reduces the time of the maintenance and repair of turbines.

AR tools for industry are part of broader industrial solutions - digital factories. Sound examples of those include a partnership by Siemens and NVIDIA aimed to game change the industrial production by creating the production metaverse (URL), or the virtual factory by BMW (URL) - nowadays the fullest implementation of the industry 4.0. As a whole, a decent digital copy of production, with the Internet of Things and AR goes in line with the industry's long-desired automation. 

And here one should mind that “metaverse” means a tool for the human-centric industry transformation, so it is merely a high-tech aid to produce better. In the case of MaaS or digital marketplaces, the positive effect is far less undeniable.

Other beneficiaries of metaverse

Surely enough, the industrial metaverse is not only about civil production, as the military use of metaverse is not limited to the sphere of production. The metaverse technologies are to be tested (and, probably, enjoyed) by the military: take the Pentagon’s Joint Warfighting Concept, that’s living through its third iteration (URL), or the “loyal wingman drone" Ghost Bat by Boeing. Also applicable is the freshly released partnership by NVIDIA and the F-35 fighter jet integrator Lockheed Martin, aimed to create a virtual replica of Earth (URL): along with weather monitoring, this digital twin might be a helpful tool for intelligence. 

Some concepts of metaverse might be brain-bursting even for the tech savvies, leaving the Siemens industrial metaverse to look conservative. Take Elon Musk's idea of "Metaverse Space Fabric" - a metaverse based on the high-speed satellite internet Starlink integrated with the Neuralink implantable brain–computer interfaces (URL). By now it feels more like another Musks's marketing attack. Still, this is a challenge to accept. When the 18th century French ophthalmologist Jacques Davies was making the world's first cataract extraction surgery, who believed in the possibility of a lens replacement surgery? 

Healthcare metaverse approach is awesome anyway. A more resultative medicine may be achieved by redesigning the interaction between patient and doctor, and the way health data is obtained, stored and processed. Examples of this are a project by Thumbay Group - a Metaverse Hospital in the UAE, Alder Hay Children’s Hospital in the UK, or an  “experience zone” of Indian Yashoda Hospital within the Decentraland Metaverse. As it grows more sophisticated, using such infrastructure will help patients subjectively - by reducing anxiety, and in an objective way - by the advantage of turning the physical health data into a personal big data, thus by personalizing treatment.

A decade away from now, the UBA graduate Alex may be lucky enough to make it into Zaha Hadid Architects as a metaverse architect, with an expensive medical insurance package including a metaverse hospital in it. His job may make him rich, and the tailored medical approach may save his life from a timely discovered cancer. By this time he will probably have invested in some digital art and have even failed once or twice, but got the overall experience to rule his digital assets. Meanwhile, his research papers will be tokenized and turned into soulbound tokens no one could fake.

No matter where the metaverse technology evolves, it'll be taking place. The popping bubbles will bear more elaborate projects. And, as usual, some will be using them to gain more health and money, while the others - just to get new shots of dopamine.