First, there were ICOs, then there was DeFi, then NFTs, and now, good people … the Metaverse approaches.
What is a Metaverse, and why does - among others - Facebook and Mr. Zuckerbucks believe they’re going to be so big? Well, my enlightenment-seeking friend, I don’t have the answers to these questions. I may, however, know a couple of rather smart people who do.
First, up in what will (hopefully) be a short series of similar compare and contrast interviews, I’m going to speak to some Metaverse advocates, builders, and founders and see if we can find out what it’s all about.
Join me, if you like; First up, I’ve got the incredibly talented Mr. Zachery Li, creator of TON Loot.
Great to have you here, Zach. So, start by telling us a little about yourself, your background, and how you got to where you are today.
Hi, I’m Zackery Li. After finishing my EE and Distributed Databases master's degree at Melbourne University, I worked in the Data Warehousing and Data Mining industry for 6+ years. It was 2019 when my team and I first got involved with blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. We’ve been working on blockchain application projects and products ever since then!
We have created and operated a few crypto projects such as NFTWiki.org (a NFT consensus aggregation platform) to date, but what we really wanted to create is an innovative game-like platform in which people can contribute, consume and connect. And the term ‘metaverse’ just struck us in June this year, then a professional gaming team joined us in July, and that’s how we came to this point today.
What does the metaverse mean to you?
There have been heaps of explanation and deciphering of metaverse so far; I don’t want to re-emphasize these. But besides those, we have some of our own thoughts. Meta means, not like a pre-built game or software. The maker (or makers) only define the basic skeleton and initial rules; all the rest are developed and formed by everyone involved progressively; people can live in it, that is, one can earn remuneration based on his/her contribution. And this reward can be used inside or outside of this metaverse; naturally developing: no one can fully control it, just like the current ‘universe’ we live in.
To achieve this, we must rely on blockchain and IPFS, so that the ‘world’ is not controlled by any company or organization. Games are the best way to consolidate all the points mentioned above. Games tend to be the closest mirror/projection to human lives, not DeFi, nor NFT -- Although, DeFi and NFT could be part of the metaverse!
Tell me a little about how and why you started building a metaverse.
We’ve studied and closely followed other ‘metaverse’ projects. And then we realized that it’s probably the best time for us to ‘initiate’ ours. (Note here I used ‘initiate’ to emphasize that no one can fully own/construct the whole metaverse alone, or else it’s not a metaverse but a traditional game or software.) Therefore we started creating the skeleton of the TonLoot metaverse project in August this year. We chose FreeTon network to start with for its exceptional performance and good community support. But it could expand to other blockchains; it’s a meta-verse after all.
In your opinion, is the metaverse inevitable, or is it just another passing trending tech topic that'll lose hype?
We firmly believe that the metaverse is something inevitable. If you think this way, most of the terminologies and bizarre abbreviations in recent years could be a part of the metaverse concept. Metaverse is the one connecting the dots, e.g., VR/AR, blockchain, virtual identity, DAO, etc.
Is the metaverse a revolutionary concept, or is it something we have long been adjusting to?
As I mentioned earlier, I think metaverse is something connecting the dots of other technologies and concepts that have been emerging over the years. Therefore it’s not that revolutionary if you look at it from this perspective. The term just came out at the right time. But the whole concept is something inevitable.
What can people build in the metaverse that we can't build on the Internet, or in virtual reality today? What limitations of our current technology does the metaverse free us from?
There are games like Simlife, which have big communities and ecosystems. The problem is that all the in-game goods/currency/property only exists in the game servers. But blockchain, crypto-swapping, and NFT make self-sovereign and inter-game transactions possible. Blockchain brings self-sovereign of your virtual properties Crypto-swapping makes the inter-game transaction easy Consensus on-chain determines the value of goods/participation in the metaverse, which in turn creates the economy in and across the metaverse NFT creates tokenization and proof of ownership of nearly everything.
How are the metaverse and blockchain-related? Can we build a metaverse without blockchain technology?
I think I just answered the previous question :) Blockchain is inseparable from the metaverse. Without blockchain and related technologies, the metaverse is only a new version of another Simlife game, maybe sold for $99 on steam. BTW, steam just banned NFT-related games.
How quickly do you think the metaverse will be developed? How much can we expect metaverse tech to grow in the next 5 to 10 years?
As I said, a metaverse shouldn’t be something pre-built, full-constructed before release. It’s developed and evolved as time goes by and driven by everyone participating. Just like the universe we live in. Besides VR/AR, increased throughput of the blockchain. I think technology evolution will be driven by the actual demands of people. If there are more people joining in the crypto world and metaverse, I believe we could have many unexpected things emerging beyond what we can forecast right now. But in the 5 to 10 years’ scope, I can foresee that significant numbers of people would spend the majority of their time in metaverses, earning rewards, making friends, collaborating with others, and contributing to the ecosystem. They are connected by blockchain, by their crypto wallets, by the NFTs they own.
What are your personal hopes for YOUR metaverse?
Our TonLoot started as a massive on-chain game, which we learned and extracted heavily from Loot, Rarity, Axie, and many others and mixed with our own ideas. But we plan to make it with more diversity and variety, maybe connect with NFT arts and pfp projects or even goods/equities in the real world so that people play, contribute and earn not just for game gears/properties, but also things in other realms.
Thanks for your time! Any final words?
Welcome to the TonLoot; let the games begin!
If you want to find out more about TonLoot, well, you best visit their site. You might even recognize some of the text has a familiar feel to it (thank to Zach for letting me play a small part in this!).
As I say, I’ll be speaking to other metaverse masters soon with a little luck, so stay tuned.
This article is part of The Gaming Metaverse Writing Contest hosted by HackerNoon in partnership with The Sandbox.
Submit your #gaming-metaverse story today for your chance to win up to $2000.