Metaversal is a Bankless newsletter for weekly level-ups on NFTs, virtual worlds, & collectibles

Dear Bankless Nation,

With Facebook’s latest earnings call indicating the social media giant is going all in on the metaverse, those of us building and using the underground metaverse today have a huge wake-up call on our hands. 

By underground I mean an open, user- and community-driven virtual universe as compared to something like Facebook’s presumable conception of the Metaverse™, which would undoubtedly be gated, siloed, and beholden ultimately to Mark Zuckerberg’s final decisions, so no real metaverse at all.

RYAN SΞAN ADAMS - rsa.eth 🦇🔊 @RyanSAdams

Ethereum will be the property rights system of the Metaverse Unless you want to bend the knee to Facebook

1:33 PM ∙ Jul 26, 2021

---

296Likes24Retweets

All that said, Ethereum’s constellation of virtual world projects aren’t the only meaningful projects in the underground metaverse, yet this constellation’s shared and neutral economic infrastructure — Ethereum, NFTs, etc. — offer interoperability possibilities that are among our best bets to connect the wider metaverse ourselves and stave off Facebook’s centralized dominance. 

Accordingly, I think the name of the game now is racing to interconnect metagalaxies via Ethereum before Facebook achieves too much metaversal power. Allow me to explain 👇

-WMP

🙏 Sponsor: Immutable X — Scaling Ethereum and NFTs!

Connecting Metagalaxies 🌠

Someone I love to follow for all things metaverse (and I recommend you doing the same!) is Jin, an extremely knowledgeable VR/AR specialist currently building out the Webaverse project. 

This weekend when Jin tweeted out a repository jam-packed with awesome metaverse resources, I wasted no time in going down the rabbit hole and surfed through many of the links for a couple hours. 

Tim Sweeney @TimSweeneyEpic

Very interesting list of Metaverse resources and projects:

jin @dankvr

@AeonixAeon @TimSweeneyEpic @Dusanwriter @Scobleizer Hi folks, I have this link + many others coming from the metaverse underground listed in this repo. Cheers! https://t.co/A3DDJYyXwp

4:47 PM ∙ Jul 25, 2021

---

463Likes49Retweets

I eventually stumbled back to the original thread and found a presentation titled “Solipsis: A Decentralized Architecture for Virtual Environments.” Prepared by a group of researchers back in 2008, the introductory section (drafted by metaverse pioneer Will Burns) offers a most insightful framing of the metaverse, namely that it’s fundamentally composed of content, metaworlds, and metagalaxies. 

William M. Peaster 🦇🔊 @WPeaster

🌍 Virtual world = single VR space (e.g. Fortnite) 🌠 Metagalaxy = an interconnected group of VR worlds (e.g. Cryptovoxels, Decentraland, Somnium Space, Webaverse) 🌌 Metaverse = the universe of metagalaxies, one day with browsers/UI capable for easily surfing it to and fro

10:02 PM ∙ Jul 26, 2021

---

16Likes1Retweet

So that clicks, we can readily understand Ethereum-based VR projects like Cryptovoxels, Decentraland, and so forth being part of the same “metagalaxy.” But what’s next? How do we move from disparate metagalaxies to an interconnected web of metagalaxies, i.e. the metaverse?

Well in the aforementioned presentation’s intro, Will Burns said that for the metaverse to come to life would require a “set of protocols to provide interoperability.” 

Almost 15 years later as Ethereum and NFTs are blossoming and opening up new rails for digital ownership, it seems clear to me these technologies are such economic and cultural interoperability protocols, ones that can help interconnect metagalaxies in ways that have never been possible before. 

My grand point with all this? We now have the 21st-century tools we need to build up a true metaverse, a metaverse by and for the people and outside of the direct control of corporate behemoths like Facebook. 

As Ethereum and NFTs are neutral technologies, the faster we can expand them to other metagalaxies to foster interconnectivity, the better chances we have at resisting Facebook’s invasion and seriously empowering metaversal users and communities for decades to come!  

stani.eth 👻 =(⬤_⬤)= 👻 🦇🔊 @StaniKulechov

Instead of Facebook building the gated metaverse - lets just build an open source metaverse that is owned and governed by its users

theverge.comMark Zuckerberg is betting Facebook’s future on the metaverseThe Facebook CEO talks to Casey Newton about why he is putting his company’s resources toward the “metaverse,” a future that imagines an internet that combines physical, augmented, and virtual realities.

6:59 AM ∙ Jul 28, 2021

---

1,586Likes209Retweets

Action steps

• 🐪 Read Jin’s The Street Messengers post, which centers on “what the ancient Silk Road teaches us about connecting the metaverse.”

Subscribe to Bankless. $22 per mo. Includes archive access, Inner Circle & Badge.

🙏Thanks to our sponsor

IMMUTABLE X

Build an app in < 2 hours with gas-free NFTs on Immutable X, Ethereum’s Layer-2 scaling solution.

Immutable X is Ethereum’s first Layer-2 scaling solution for NFTs. Instantly scale your NFT application with instant trade confirmation, massive scalability (9,000 TPS+), zero gas fees -- without compromising user custody. Developed on top of StarkWare’s bleeding edge zero-knowledge rollup technology, our protocol ensures developers can level up and build a mainstream NFT game, dapp or marketplace in days, not months.

👉 Learn how to build with Immutable X here.

👉 Visit Immutable’s contact form and apply to build.

Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here.