The metaverse is probably one of the biggest trends not only in the crypto industry, but in the whole IT world too. The number of projects in the promising segment is growing, and they offer more and more ways both to have a good time and profit.
But let's talk about things one by one. Let's start with the answer to the main question: what is the metaverse in simple words?
About the metaverse in simple words
Basically, metaverse is a combination in one giant virtual world of all that is in your Internet: online stores, games, cyber ranges, concert stages, exchanges, museums and so on and so forth. Of course, Broex Wallet can also open a nice digital cryptocurrency exchange office and become a part of the metaverse.
To fully experience the atmosphere of the virtual world, we recommend using an AR/VR headset. However, you can also do with the familiar display of your laptop or smartphone.
The metaverse is just beginning its journey, and it is still a long way from what has been described. But the industry has no shortage of games with elements of metaverse - they are called metagames for simplicity. Examples we've heard of include Decentraland, The Sandbox, Axie Infinity, Bloktopia, and others. More about these and other projects we are going to talk about today.
A cool feature of these projects - a wide range of opportunities for interaction between the players: in addition to the usual quests or arena matches, you can engage in improvement of the virtual home and establish the production of digital objects, conduct concerts, dress up your digital copy, have a pet, go to the store of some famous brand, and so on down the list. In short, an advanced version of MMORPG.
By the way, it is precisely MMO, which trace their history back to the emergence of the 90's cult "Ultima", and are the ancestors of metaverse. And the prototype of what we see now in The Sandbox or Decentraland - Second Life - appeared back in 2003. It's cool, but you can play both already legendary MMOs - Ultima and Second Life - even now.
More recent metaverses built on blockchain have a bunch of cool perks:
- In-game currency that can be freely exchanged for rubles or dollars;
- the ability to exchange game items and lands for the same rubles or dollars - the NFT technology is used for this;
- The ability to rent houses, items and characters - now they do not gather dust in the inventory idly;
- the ability to conduct your own events, create mini-games, craft items, create digital art - and sell it all. That's the combination of creativity and making money;
- the ability to "vote with tokens" in support of one or another decision on the development of the project. Indeed, gaming crypto is not only about money, but also about voting rights.
As you have already understood, the word "opportunity" here could be repeated a dozen more times, but we have covered the main points.
The opportunities of the new market attracted large corporations quite quickly. Meta, Microsoft, Apple, all of these guys are investing in metaverses. The story of how Facebook changed its signage to Meta is probably known to anyone who at least occasionally opens the news somewhere on Google. Well, Microsoft has gone straight from words - and signs - to action, buying Activision Blizzard as part of its metaverse development strategy. Buying Blizzard cost Bill Gates $69 billion. In exchange for that money, Microsoft gets oodles of talented specialists and a long list of recognizable franchises: Crash Bandicoot, Candy Crush, Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Call of Duty, Sekiro, Tony Hawk and many others. There are so many of them that the list alone would make a separate article.
The keen interest of corporations is obvious - the market is extremely promising, which means that the earlier a company occupies its niche, the greater the future profits. The same is true for the average investor: the earlier you invest in a promising project, the more you get in the end. Analysts are already estimating the size of the future market. Thus, according to Morgan Stanley, metaverses will expand to $ 8 trillion. To give you an idea of the scale, the entire global gold reserve is estimated at about the same amount. Goldman Sachs calls for a similar figure - from $ 2 to $ 12 trillion. By comparison, one of the top blockchain-based metaverse, Decentraland, is now valued at $4 billion. If you've calculated how many extra zeros such a coin can yield, we have more good news: you can buy the Decentraland token - MANA - in a few clicks on Broex.
Well, it's time to have a closer look at young and ambitious projects. Let's go!
Decentraland/The Sandbox
Yep, we put these guys together under the same heading cause they're almost like twin brothers. Well, or like the characters in a popular Indian movie of the past. Admittedly, we got away without the story of the baby swap, folk dances, and colorful saris. Well, your loss.
Let's sort it out:
Gameplay. Both Decentraland and The Sandbox are open worlds with vast potential. Here you can:
- hold concerts;
- set up stores and offices;
- create your own games;
- build a virtual residence and chill on weekends without moving away from the monitor.
Although officials are usually suspicious of anything to do with cryptocurrency and blockchain, metaverses are clearly to their liking. The government of Barbados bought a virtual plot in Decentraland, and is building the world's first digital embassy there.
In general, the participation of distinguished guests sheds light on the real possibilities of the two largest metavers:
- Atari - building a casino in Decentraland;
- Warner Music - building an amusement park and concert stage in The Sandbox;
- Snoop Dogg - is building an exact replica of his estate in The Sandbox, where he is chilling in forays;
- Sotheby's - opened a gallery museum in Decentraland.
As you can see, along with quests - yeah, that option is also provided - you can also grow culturally.
Tokenomics. Both projects have native tokens: MANA for Decentraland and SAND for The Sandbox. It can be used to buy and sell rare digital items, purchase or rent a home, pay for entrance tickets to concerts or their game worlds. The opportunities to make money here aren't limited to selling NFTs. Tokens from both metaverses represent full-fledged cryptocurrency, which can be purchased or cashed in on top platforms. Broex is among them.
Another plus for cryptocurrency holders - they are able to participate in votes on project development or contribute their ideas for discussion.
What is it built on? Both projects are part of the Ethereum ecosystem, the largest in the market. And that's additional opportunities to make money: NFTs can be put up in one of the many auctions, and tokens can be sent to pools for interest somewhere on Uniswap.
Bloktopia
Bloktopia captivates with its unusual sci-fi setting: all the action takes place in a giant skyscraper divided into 21 levels. If you are a fan of Foundation, you will definitely like this idea. Perhaps the only drawback is that there is no Three-Face Emperor.
The Three-Face Emperor. Cleon the Twelfth. Or the Thirteenth. Or even the Fourteenth - it's hard to distinguish between the heirs to the throne when they're all clones...
It all looks like the typical metropolises of the future seen somewhere in "Ghost in the Shell," "Carbon Verde," or any other randomly titled sci-fi. But that's not even the point - we'll tell you about it in a moment.
Gameplay. Bloktopia offers everyone four basic activities:
- play;
- create;
- earn;
- learn.
Of course, Bloktopia has an important focus on learning. Specifically, learning by users how blockchain works. And that makes sense: Where better to understand how blockchain works than in a real blockchain environment?
Tokenomics. The basic coin of all levels is BLOK. It can be used for settlements within Blocktopia, reselling it on exchanges, in land rentals. Here everything is the same as with SAND or MANA. But there is another nice thing: ads. Well, yeah, advertising can be nice, especially if it brings in additional revenue.
The developers' solution looks really cool. As you know, any metropolis of the future is hard to imagine without all those screens, on which every now and then flashes advertising brands. It flashes on the screens of virtual houses in Bloktopia too - and it's quite real. Animoca Brands, TED, KuCoin and Lamborghini are advertised here. Part of the money earned from the shows goes to the token holders.
But even that's not where the startup stops: tools are available for users - those who have plots - to equip and spruce up the advertising space in their own properties.
What's it built on? Bloktopia is part of the Polygon platform (MATIC), which in turn is part of the Ethereum ecosystem. So, yeah, kind of matryoshka. The idea behind Polygon is to make transactions for services within Ethereum faster and cheaper. By the way, Polygon has its own cryptocurrency - it is, as you guessed, called MATIC. This coin is invariably at the top of the largest currencies, and buying MATIC with a Broex card is a matter of a couple of clicks.
Axie Infinity/MOMOverse
Here we've cheated once again, combining two similar projects - Axie Infinity and MOMOverse. You probably know Axie Infinity under the name MOMOX. You don't? Well, you will now.
Gameplay. Axie and MOMOverse are the same Pokémon, only with adaptations for cryptocurrency and metaverse. About Axie and how to apply Broex here is in our other glorious article.
Everything in both games revolves around a wild virtual beast. The wild beast must be captured, trained, equipped, put into battle, and resold. Then repeat it.
A fierce battle between savage beasts in Axie Infinity
It wouldn't be a metaverse if it were limited to pokémon battles, though. Lands play an important role here. As with Decentraland/The Sandbox, players can set up the lands to produce rare items or run their own mini-games.
Tokenomics. As you have already guessed, these metagames have their own tokens. They are used just like everywhere else: calculations, staking and earning on pools, participating in votes, walking in anticipation of rate increases. And as you guessed again, here we will write that it is a matter of a few clicks to buy quickly and cheaply Axie Infinity (AXS) with Broex.
What's it built on? With Axie it's simple: it's built on Ethereum, which we've already talked about in detail. MOMOverse is part of the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem. Right, from that Binance exchange. BSC is one of the largest and fastest growing ecosystems. Its main thing is performance, speed and low fees. Okay, those are the three main points.
BSC also has its own cryptocurrency, Binance Coin, which many people know simply as BNB. You can buy it not only on Binance. And not just on PancakeSwap. That's right, it's on Broex!
Pavia
Pavia is the first and so far the only metaverse for the Cardano ecosystem (ADA). Let us tell the curious: Pavia is a town in Lombardy in northern Italy. It's where the mathematician Gerolamo Cardano was born, the one after whom the entire Cardano ecosystem is named. For those who are even more curious: ADA is after Ada Lovelace, the female mathematician and idol of millions of programmers.
But the Easter eggs don't end there, either. The guy on the right is not just a game character, but Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano
Gameplay. Overall, Pavia is almost an exact replica of The Sandbox and Decentraland - with lands, virtual concerts, and avatars. Related to the latter is one of Pavia's cool features - thanks to the startup's partnership with readyplayer.me, gamers are able to transfer their avatars to 700 third-party games and apps. That's right, the third party - the ones outside the Pavia metaverse.
Tokenomics. Everything is foreseen here too: Pavia has a PAVIA token, which can be used in game calculations, participate with it in voting or simply trade on one of the Cardano exchanges.
What's it built on? Pavia is built on Cardano, one of Ethereum's main competitors. Cardano, as an ambitious project is supposed to be, aims to become better and bigger than Ethereum. The platform has its own coin - ADA - it is indeed at the top not far from ETH. It is of course in Broex lists - as well as other top assets.
The bottom line
Metaverse is a trend which is of interest to everyone: gamers, traders, corporations, artists, architects, game designers, musicians.
The first to pick up the baton were representatives of the crypto industry: Decentraland and The Sandbox are probably the largest and most recognizable metaverses in the whole Internet.
All the top corporations are also moving in this direction:
Microsoft - bought Activision Blizzard Studios (the one that gave the world Warcraft, Call of Duty and Overwatch) for $69 billion to develop the metaverse;
Apple - working on an augmented reality device (the one that provides the full metaverse experience) and investing in the direction, if Tim Cook is to be believed;
Meta - has dropped its former Facebook brand to emphasize its commitment to the new direction. Mark Zuckerberg's corporation is also the owner of Oculus, the company that makes the best virtual reality headset.
Ironically, the virtual world appeals to its real-world use cases. We've already talked about a park from Warner, billboards with KuCoin, and the Sotheby's Museum.
The market of digital worlds is getting high marks from leading banking experts. Morgan Stanley reckons - the total valuation of metaverses will reach $8 trillion. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs names figures of up to $ 12 trillion.
This direction looks very promising and useful. But most importantly, you can join it now - at an early stage. AXS, MANA and other top tokens - buy the best assets easily with Broex!
