We spoke with some of the leading Metaverse founders to discover their secret sauce for Web3.
Featuring
Co-founder of The Sandbox Sebastien Borget, Idan Zuckerman, and the head of Unique Network’s metaverse growth are some of the people who have worked on the Sandbox project.
It’s Irina Karagyuar, the chief marketing officer of Univers, who talks to us today.
He is Peter Nguyen, one of the co-founders of the company Alien Worlds.
Sarojini McKenna, one of the co-founders of Immersys, says this: „It’s a lot of fun to be a part of
In Zilliqa, Daniel Knott is the person in charge of the metaverse and the NFT of the company.
Sandra H and Paddy Carroll, who is the co-founder and the chief marketing officer of Bloktopia, were at the event together.
Sand dues
The Sandbox has become a big player in the Metaverse, and it looks like it jumped to the top of the list right away.
It started out as a company that made mobile games. Sebastien Borget, one of the co-founders, says that The Sandbox worked on that for eight years before focusing on blockchain for four more.
If you were in the right place at the right time, it would have worked out.
In the past, we’ve been bad and good.
I don’t think we invented anything.
The ingredients were there, and we were able to put them together in a way that made sense, had value, and was useful.
People now talk about how to make this kind of entertainment better, he says.
“We started with gaming but we are open to any kind of entertainment and want to bring in more culture, more lifestyle, more immersion and more socialization in ways not seen before.”
There are a lot of metaverses in Web 3. Magazine talked to some of the most well-known founders to get unique insights into how these new digital worlds came to be.
It’s not every day that someone gets to make a new land, or that people are excited enough to join them.
Progressive decentralization
The Sandbox, like many of the Web3 projects being built, is being run by a single person right now, but its economy is being spread out through NFTs.
Progressive decentralization is what Borget calls it.
Big brands like Paris Hilton and Snoop Dog have bought land in Sandbox’s virtual world, which shows that this is a big business.
In the secondary market, Sandbox’s land base is worth close to $1.5 billion. The SAND token has a market value of $3.3 billion and is the 37th most valuable cryptocurrency in the world, according to CoinMarketCap. This makes it the 37th most valuable cryptocurrency.
Last month, JP Morgan released a report on metaverses. It said that the Metaverse will most likely become a part of every industry in the next few years, with a market opportunity of $1 trillion a year.
There aren’t a lot of specifics in this report, but it says that the only way up is up.
Since that report came out, JPMorgan has opened a branch in Decentraland, and this week, HSBC did the same thing, too.
Borget says the right time is now.
The only way is Upland
Upland is an NFT metaverse that is based on the real world. Users can buy, sell, and trade virtual properties just like real-life ones, and they can do so in the same way.
People talk about „Upland“ as a way of blurring the lines between the real world and the digital world.
The Metaverse has a lot of room for fantasy worlds. Upland, on the other hand, wants to make a real-world experience that is mapped to the real world and delivered through a mobile-first mindset,“ says Idan Zuckerman, a co-founder of the company.
As soon as he was asked which part of reality he would leave behind, Zuckerman said right away: „Wars.“
He had a very clear picture of what he wanted to do from the start, and he says it’s important to think about how new technology will affect the world in the long run.
People who live in Upland’s domain name end in dot.me, which means „metaverse,“ so he says this:
„We got our ideas from the very first idea of NFTs.“
A year ago, Zuckerman and his team looked into the ERC-721 contract, which is also known as an NFT standard on Ethereum. „We also looked into the early products that used it for early blockchain games,“ he says.
“We realized what this could mean for the future of digital economies and digital ownership. Web3, even before the term was coined as the future, has been the DNA since the beginning of the Upland operation.”
Web3?
„Web3“ is a „decentralized, consensus-based, and token economy-based model,“ says Irina Karagyuar, the head of metaverse at the top Polkadot NFT platform, Unique Network. Web2 is a „centralized platform-oriented model,“ like Facebook, Spotify, YouTube and Google.
The Metaverse, for example, will make the problems we already have even worse if we don’t change the way we do things on the Web2. If we don’t change how we do things, any new development will make them even worse.
Karagyuar says that „Web3 is adding real value to the Metaverse because it will make it possible for businesses to stay afloat and for trust to return.“
„All we need to do is teach people so we get things right.“
Upland is more than just land for Zuckerman. He wants to make it more useful.
For him, Upland should become one of the world’s most sustainable digital economies, which is why he wants to see brands and start-ups move into it.
Upland has shops called Metaventures, which are run by players. These shops give small businesses and micro-entrepreneurs the chance to come up with new ways to make money.
Zuckerman thinks that the most important thing in any digital economy is having a group of people who work together.
People who work for Univers, a metaverse network that wants to connect all of the metaverses, agree with this.
“Community is extremely important to Univers because we are a project built for the people, by the people. We want our ecosystem to benefit every type of user. Therefore, nurturing a passionate community interested in the evolution of Univers is crucial. We want community feedback. We want users to explore their own creativity and add to the project. We want to connect all of these amazing virtual experiences and give people a place to dream while they build meaningful relationships.”
Without a community, then there is no Metaverse.
Communities and competition
Sarojini McKenna: „It’s all about the DAO,“ she says. She’s talking about decentralized autonomous groups.
Co-founder: Alien Worlds, which has seven planets built on the WAX blockchain, is one of his projects.
Strategy and governance are helping Alien Worlds get people to adopt the game in large groups.
Children don’t even know they’re eating extra shredded vegetables when they eat their food.
They also don’t know that they are building something bigger than just mining Trilium on a planet far, far away, but they are building it anyway!
One of the most popular games on WAX, PancakeSwap, has been around for two years. It’s also one of the most popular decentralized apps in the world, according to DappRadar (https://dappradar.com/rankings).
Alien Worlds lets people earn Trilium by mining on the six planets in the game with different tools and rewards.
She doesn’t care about the fact that Trilium can also be cashed out. There are many videos on YouTube that show you how to do this.
The goal isn’t just to get Trilium. It’s to get it and put it on a planet that you want to visit.
The six planets are vying for a small amount of a valuable thing.
There are more users and more Trilium staked when the planet is bigger and there is more Trilium in the world. This causes the price of Trilium to go up every day.
From there, the planets can get more money and more power over their planet.
The codebase and game rules will be changed over time by people who follow each of the planets, but right now they can’t.
Starter templates are passed down in the same way that the Ten Commandments were passed down, with certain permission thresholds in place at the start.
People will be able to change the rules over time.
„We always want people to work together, make friends, and then rule the world.“
When the government comes to the six planets, we want players to run events with people who have the same goals as them.
McKenna says this could lead to the real management of a planet.
The bridge is all mine
Also, Alien Worlds said that it had built a bridge to Minecraft, which is a popular game with more than 100 million users.
Players who don’t use blockchain technology will be able to join the WAX platform quickly thanks to this feature. They will also be able to earn cryptocurrency, in this case Trilium, for completing tasks.
This was a risky idea, because the worlds of gamers and blockchain play-to-earn aren’t as connected as one might think from the outside.
For one thing, P2E games are all about making money by doing the same things over and over again or by playing cards.
Gamers like to play games that have complicated stories, but there are also a lot of shoot ‚em ups that are popular.
This one is on the WAX blockchain, too. It’s a P2P game that lets people trade goods with each other.
Immersys was founded by Daniel Knott. At first, he called it Immersys a Multiverse.
Our metaverse wasn’t just a single thing. It was a whole ecosystem of things.
The Metaverse is made up of a lot of different places.
Each level of the Metaverse is represented by a piece of technology from the future. Decentralization and non-fungible tokens are just a small part of the whole thing.
We call ourselves an ecosystem because Immersys is focused on developing technology that can be used on many different levels of the Metaverse, like augmented reality and virtual reality, so we want to make that happen.
He thinks land sales are important, but he thinks the community is even more important than that.
It’s all about where you build. Until all metaverses are connected, you’ll want to build in a world that has a lot of people who are willing to help each other.
A place where you can be sure that you’re not just the product, but also the person who made it.
Knott is also a big part of the Metaverse, with most of his money in crypto.
He wants to leave his fiat behind, but he doesn’t want to.
I’ve already moved to the Metaverse when I was asked about moving there when I was younger.
Metaverservice
It’s called a „metaverse as a service,“ or „MaaS,“ and it’s the first time that a layer-1 blockchain has been used to make a platform for this kind of thing.
This XR metaverse platform was released in January. It is very immersive and has a lot of games built in.
A big part of her job is to make cities for businesses, partners, and people to live in. She tries to keep tech growing and make them better.
The project wants to make the real world and the Metaverse work together.
There must be a mix of real-world elements and a wide range of ideas in order for the Metaverse to work.
As a result, our goal with Metapolis is to bring together the two, not only when it comes to designing the look of your city or dome, but also how you can use these elements together to make your experience all around more immersive.
NFTs can be on display in your real house, but you can scan a QR code to get to your Metapolis dome where you can keep looking through your gallery of NFTs.
Metapolis wants to have all the „earns,“ like play-to-earn and learn-to-earn, as well as move-to-earn, which is another way to connect the real world and the virtual world.
Move to earn is what we’re doing when it comes to wearables and how they can be used in the real world to level up avatars, get rewards, and unlock features. We’re going into more detail.
Is H going to move into the Metaverse? She says: „I already work on Metapolis Standard Time.“
Yes, the rumours are true. Zilliqa will be hitting up #Miami to host an exclusive, early-access event for Metapolis!! ?
Watch https://t.co/qrrcJtb7Dh later this week to find out how you can be a part of it. ? pic.twitter.com/p9i3sDvmK9
— Zilliqa (@zilliqa) March 23, 2022
Bloktopia
Bloktopia is a new metaverse that came out in the last year. It is based in the United Kingdom.
Bloktopia is a metaverse platform that looks like a skyscraper with 21 floors. Users can buy specific spaces on the floorplan with the platform’s cryptocurrency token, BLOK.
I think that a Metaverse is the next step in the evolution of the internet. It’s also a virtual world and a virtual world.
In the real world, you should be able to do anything.
It should be all about social connections, but not be limited by where you live.
Something that claims to be a Metaverse is not doing that, so I think it is not one.
?ROADMAP RELEASED!?
Check out the Bloktopia roadmap for 2022 here ?https://t.co/XmG0ohnsbD#Roadmap #VR #Metaverse #BLOK pic.twitter.com/Vhj0tCvyJa
— Bloktopia (@bloktopia) March 28, 2022
Brands are important to the skyscraper metaverse in Blocktopia.
Brands help people know who they are.
They keep the Metaverse interesting and relevant to visitors, and they allow for commercialization, which keeps the Metaverse going.
“The mission for our metaverse is to contain everything that anyone will ever need to know about Cryptocurrency and NFTs. We need brands in there, right from exchanges, blockchains, NFT projects and even other metaverses. We have attracted major brands in the crypto space like Binance, Solana and Animoca Brands, along with global influencers like Jake Paul who have opened retail spaces, shops or offices in our digital skyscraper.”
Nguyen, the founder of Univers, agrees that brands are important in the space.
Because these brands are integrated into the Metaverse, this is a great idea. The Metaverse allows brands to create entirely new and limitless experiences, while their customers can still enjoy their favorite brands because of the freedom blockchain gives them.
Already, we’ve seen some fashion bands start making NFTs for some of their most sought-after clothes.
AR lets people see how the clothes look on their bodies before they buy them, so they can make sure they like them before they buy them.
@Univers_network is excited to announce our strategic partnership with @NakamotoGames !
Head over to Medium to learn more about our incredible partnership:https://t.co/uhFqddvtHN#Metaverse #blockchain #cryptocurrency pic.twitter.com/CoTFpRvzSb
— Univers (@Univers_network) March 26, 2022
Nguyen says that if the clothes come with NFTs, people can show that the clothes are real and get a lot of other benefits, like private shows, talks, or early access to new products.
People who buy things in the Metaverse can have a better experience because the brands can reach new people and build up the Metaverse’s reputation and growth.
„It’s a win-win situation where brands benefit from the technology, freedom, and ever-growing audience of the Metaverse, while also getting real-world utility, new audiences, and bright new minds to keep developing it,“ he says.
Connecting the worlds
How can we connect the metaverses? This is like going to another country but without the carbon footprint.
It’s not a Metaverse, but a network of Metaverse things.
In Nguyen’s words, this is because the Metaverse is a single place where all virtual experiences live together and are part of the greater whole.
Our goal is to change the way people talk about the Metaverse so that more people understand that we are all important parts of the Metaverse and that we are more powerful when we work together.
It’s called Univers and it’s the network for the Metaverse.
We are the thread that connects all of these amazing projects and makes them more useful, interoperable, and connected.
Like Upworld, Univers tries to include real-world elements in a way that is thought of as not only important but also important and natural.
“We regard the Metaverse as an extension of our reality. The infinite possibilities of the Metaverse inspire user creativity, while the real world elements are what make the Metaverse truly innovative. By including real world elements, we learn more about our real world and how to actively improve it. The more we embrace the Metaverse as an extension of our reality, the more we can use it to develop real world solutions and expand upon its utility in our everyday lives.”
Most founders think they’re already down the rabbit hole and living in their own part of the Metaverse.
To say what Carroll from Bloktopia would say: „Come join me.“
