The Fight for an Open Metaverse

Has anyone else had that feeling lately? The creeping troubling feeling that the internet is being used against us? It’s a disturbing thought. One of the greatest inventions of the century, designed as an open platform for creativity and communication, is now being wielded by a small number of global corporations, hungry for your data and your dollars.

It’s not a new feeling. Anyone involved in the Web 3.0 movement has always had reservations about the current iteration of the internet. But until very recently, the tools to break the tyrannous hold of the tech giants existed only as whiteboard sketches and passionate discussion.

Enter the age of the Metaverse.

Decentralised, trustless, community-owned and secure, the Metaverse has fast presented itself as the very real solution to realising a better internet.

Here’s everything you need to know about the what, how and why of the Metaverse:

What is the Metaverse?

The Metaverse is the next evolution of the internet and the digital economy. It’s not one thing, but rather, it’s many things grounded in two principles:

- An immersive internet experience: The internet as it is, operates within many interconnected but separate siloes. The Metaverse removes the boundaries between the major categories we currently engage with e.g finance, gaming, social media, commerce. This creates a single experience that encompasses all the current features of the internet.

-Ownership: The Metaverse is defined by users having control over their assets, their data and their transactions. Using open-source code with open standards gives ownership back to users and control back to communities. It’s a tug away from the mega-corporations that currently control almost all of the digital tangible value in our lives. In the Metaverse, users own their content, identity, data, avatar and any intelligence that sits behind processes and can take them between applications at will.

How is the Metaverse linked to Web 3.0 and blockchain?

Web 3.0, also known as the decentralised web, is a new iteration of the internet based on blockchain technology. It envisions an internet where people have control over their own data and exciting creative content is open and available to everyone using a decentralised, community-driven system.

As we delve deeper into making the Metaverse a reality, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the Metaverse is the natural UX of Web 3.0. It offers an appealing, gamified and tangible way for people to interact with a decentralised, blockchain-powered internet.

If it’s so community-driven how come Mark Zuckerberg is all over Metaverse?

The Metaverse offers a blend of the newest technologies alongside a much-needed return to community-driven communication, creativity and fun. In essence, it is the death knell of big tech’s exclusive ownership of value on the internet. So naturally, all of the giants are clamouring desperately to own the Metaverse before the revolution totally undermines them.

Rather than pursuing an open, decentralised Metaverse, big tech is looking to simply expand their own tightly controlled assets, locking everyone into their offering and charging what they like for it.

What is the ‘Open Metaverse’?

With big tech already crawling all over the concept of the Metaverse, the communities actually pursuing an open-source movement have had to specifically define their niche. The open metaverse (or the true Metaverse) is the genuine article, not to be confused with organisations like Meta who are simply making a walled garden extension of Facebook.

What’s a blockchain bridge and why are they important to Metaverse?

A blockchain bridge, often known as a token bridge, is a connection that allows the transfer of tokens and/or arbitrary data from one blockchain to another. What this means in practice is that 2 or more blockchains with different core protocols can interact with each other and interoperate securely and quickly. The bridges rely on one chain proving ownership of a token (or numerous tokens), they then relay this information to other connected blockchains, which can then be used to perform actions on another chain.

This is groundbreaking for Web3. It is the realisation of a technology that will allow a network of connected blockchains, each offering their own strength or speciality and all working together in a totally secure, decentralised state. Essentially it enables an internet that doesn’t require the ownership of centralised servers that are controlled by a single person or entity. Instead, data is stored on a network of decentralised blockchains which are anonymous, secure and community-driven.

Bridging technology allows the open-Metaverse true scope. Metaverse content can now exist across multiple blockchains, utilising features from each to give their communities excellent experiences and the ultimate decentralised freedom. For example, chains with low gas fees act as a Layer 2 solution on top of bigger chains to increase scalability and efficiency.

How does the Metaverse relate to NFTs?

NFTs are the ownership primitive of the metaverse protocol. They provide a decentralised and authenticated certificate of ownership over a unique digital asset. Utilising blockchain technology, NFTs prove that a specific account or wallet has ownership over a specific piece of digital media.

This is essential for a multi-blockchain spanning metaverse. NFTs mean that users can move provably owned items through different apps, games and online experiences seamlessly, without requiring third-party verification.

For example: on a centralised system you can buy a digital avatar in a game, but its value is only held within that game. While you can theoretically transfer game assets between games, on a centralised system your ownership of that asset is determined exclusively by the company that created the game. For another game to verify your avatar they need access to the original companies database and then be able to trust that the company is distributing the assets in a fair way. Basically, without NFTs for self-custodial ownership, digital assets will become vendor locked-in.

On a decentralised blockchain system using NFTs, everything is connected to your external wallet which can be read and verified by multiple connected blockchains. As long as all the apps and games you wish to interact with run on the same blockchain, or are connected by blockchain bridges, then everyone accepts the same truth as to who owns what. This means that assets purchased in one game are easily transferrable between games as everyone can verify that the asset is owned by the wallet using them.

How is CENNZnet helping to drive the Metaverse?

In case you can’t tell, we are stoked about the development of the Metaverse and Web 3.0. Our focus has always been about enabling easy onboarding of users to web3 technology. CENNZnet has been optimized to allow developers to build user-friendly applications that can merge the user experience boundaries and allow people to own their own content, identity and data.

Web 3.0 is built into the core of our network. Each of the CENNZnet runtime modules has been designed with deep integrations to each other so that developers can build seamless metaverse experiences that blend gaming, art, identity, social, finance and commerce features.

Looking to learn more about the Metaverse and how to get involved? Join our Discord channel to start your open Metaverse revolution.

First Published here