Multiverse: An Explosion of Metaverse Platforms
As the concept of the metaverse is rapidly growing, various multiverse platforms are emerging. According to incomplete statistics, more than $3 billion in active investments are in Metaverse-related companies and projects in the first five months of 2022 alone ( closing date May 22).
As the concept of the metaverse is rapidly growing, various multiverse platforms are emerging. According to incomplete statistics, more than $3 billion in active investments are in Metaverse-related companies and projects in the first five months of 2022 alone ( closing date May 22). (Data sources: Cointelegraph [1], Coindesk [2], Blockchain Daily [3])
Among them, the gaming company Epic Games announced it has raised $2 billion to build its metaverse this year. In the same month, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) launched a $600 million fund for gaming startups that focuses on metaverse games. In addition to these two large investments, more than 30 other metaverse companies have raised a total of over $400 million in funding since the start of the year.
It’s worth noting that in May, the first integrated metaverse gamified platform raised $10 million in a funding round led by Susquehanna International Group, one of the earliest and largest investors in ByteDance.
The emergence of the Multiverse
Blockchain technology is gradually improving, creating an integral condition for the establishment of metaverse platforms and the influx of users. Ethereum offers a network and infrastructure which accounts for a large percentage of users and TVL. Arbitrum, Polygon, and other Layer 2 chainz have to rely on Ethereum for security. As well Ethereum compatible developer Aurora, BSC, and other public chains have further strengthened the application to the Ethereum empire ecosystem. In general, there is almost a “monopoly” situation in the areas of functional infrastructure.
In contrast, the metaverse platform on which it is built is hardly a monopoly. The platforms are direct to users, different metaverse platforms have their irreplaceable characteristics and the differentiated needs of users can support multiple metaverse platforms. For example, people will attend meetings and work at GatherTown, which supports cameras and shared screens and visit fashion runway shows at the delicate visual platform Decentraland after work, or have a blockchain gaming experience at the Sandbox platform.
A pool of different metaverse spaces is Multi-Verse. For example, so many takeaway apps have washed out of the market and have lasted a few market leaders. However, the restaurants which are direct to customers and fulfill differentiated flavors always exist in harmony. The Multiverse is the current situation and the inevitable future situation.
The new problem of Multiverse
With the emergence of Multi-verse, users have encountered a new problem - Digital assets in different metaverse platforms are not interconnected. Users’ carefully crafted avatars cannot be used on another platform, inconsistent identities will lead to issues like limited social interaction and single experience. While assets such as clothing, building, and land purchased by users at a great cost can not be transferred, making it difficult to reflect the value of the assets.
Abstract
This paper mainly analyzes the current situation of mainstream metaverse platforms such as Sandbox and Decentraland, analyzes the emergence of Multi-Verse and the new problems it brings and introduces the Cross metaverse Bridge proposed by DigiFun.
Mainstream Metaverse Platforms
Decentraland
Decentraland, a metaverse platform running on Ethereum and Polygon, has leaped to become one of the most popular metaverse platforms in the world since it was officially opened to everyone in 2020.
In Decentraland, users can build their avatars, socialize, shop, play games, trade virtual real estate, browse art collections, and more. In Decentraland’s marketplace, users can use its token MANA to purchase avatars, virtual fashions, wearables, and even domain names within Decentraland.
Most of these virtual items are made by unofficial creators in Decentraland, a concept that has attracted many content creators and extended the platform’s appeal to the hipster and fashion sectors.
According to the New York Times [4], in November 2021, Tokens.com, a blockchain technology company focused on NFT and metaverse properties, purchased a bunch of virtual land in Decentraland’s Fashion Street Estate for about $2.5 million, with plans to develop it into the metaverse’s “Fifth Avenue”. Company executives believe Tokens.com will soon reap the benefits of leasing and advertising from the resident brands.
Based on this, Decentraland hosted Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW) in March this year, being the world’s largest and completely digital fashion week, it attracted more than 70 international brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Etro, Jacob & Co, and NFT giant FEWOCiOUS.
According to data published by Decentraland, the platform attracted over 108,000 visitors during Fashion Week, and wearables generated nearly $80,000 in sales.
Many brands began buying and leasing land in Decentraland as a way to layout and sell their products in the metaverse. luxury brands such as Dolce & Gabbana and Etro opened stores that debuted during fashion week, and luxury retailer Selfridges launched a flagship store during fashion week that included an exclusive NFT art gallery for visitors.
In addition, many brands are allowing visitors to purchase digital, physical goods and NFTs from virtual stores and cryptocurrencies directly linked to the platform through a digital wallet.
E-commerce brand Cider is one of them, the brand launched its retail space during Fashion Week and hosted a fashion show where visitors could purchase wearable. In April, digital fashion brand Republique opened an accessories store in Decentraland’s Fashion District, where users can also browse and purchase its products. The brand is also one of Decentraland’s regular tenants.
In addition to Fashion Week, Decentraland also hosts occasional social events such as the Metaverse festival and Art Week, covering music, culture, hipster, and other fields. In 2022, the platform will launch new features that will allow users to personalize their avatars, such as using Bored Ape as an avatar and even customizing their emojis.
According to its current CTO Esteban Ordano, the platform expanded by 3,300% between 2020 and 2021 and now has more than 800,000 registered users. Its market cap also peaked at $12 billion.
As of press time, Decentraland’s total market cap remains stable at around $2 billion. (Data from CoinMarketCap, as of 2022.5.22)[6]
The Sandbox
The Sandbox is a meta-verse gaming platform and also a gamified virtual world (LAND). Currently, it is also one of the mainstream metaverse platforms.
Similar to Decentraland, players can also buy and sell land here. The difference is that The Sandbox has a significant voxel style, is relatively simple to build, and does not require 3D modeling or mapping.
However, content creation in The Sandbox is much stricter, and only whitelisted artists can create assets in The Sandbox, such as buildings and in-game items, which also need to be officially reviewed after creation.
Although more restrictive, owners can use these assets to build diverse experiences, including music hosting, fashion events, design competitions, and even benefiting from the games they created themselves.
With the goal of “Play to Earn”, The Sandbox leverages SAND to enable a range of tokenized gaming features, including purchases, rewards, and asset creation, giving it a strong in-game economy.
The Sandbox has secured over 60 partnerships to develop a range of business verticals, including gaming, music, entertainment, fashion, and lifestyle. Well-known IPs such as Smurfs and Shaun the sheep, brands like Adidas and Deadmau5, several game studios represented by Dapper Labs, and investors such as Square Enix (Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider).
According to The Sandbox’s Q1 2022 summary report[7], its overall trend continued to grow in the first quarter and it now has over 2 million registered users. And The Sandbox’s ambitions don’t stop there, as it aspires to become one of the largest experiential entertainment platforms.
CryptoVoxels (renamed Voxels on May 3, 2022)
Crypto Voxels is also a metaverse platform running on Ethereum and Polygon that allows players to buy and sell land and build stores, art galleries, music studios, and anything that you can imagine.
Compared to the previous two platforms, Crypto Voxel is the least restrictive. It has no mint fees and anyone can create 3D assets on the platform without reviews. It has even set up a free space for users to build to provide maximum convenience to creators and is also available for VR devices.
Its gameplay is very intuitive and similar to Minecraft. players start by placing blocks and gradually add text, images, GIFs, audio files, etc. Players can purchase tokens of COLR to add color to the building.
Currently, Cryptovoxel has not received any commercial investment and the team is committed to pioneering new features and improving the game experience.
Cryptovoxel has attracted a large number of artists, including painters, graphic designers, 3D modelling experts, digital artists, and creators of all types, joined by many practitioners such as individual and institutional collectors and curators.
Here, people are often struck by the highly stylized and aesthetically pleasing virtual architecture. The installations, buildings, and venues are changed from time to time according to the needs of the builders, and exhibitions of various forms are held almost daily.
According to MetaCat [8], Cryptovoxels ranks fifth in parcel sales and total parcel sales in 2021 and 2022 (as of May).
Later this year, Cryptovoxels will launch a new renamed website. The move is far from a mere name change; it means the platform will move to attract a broader audience.
With the rapid growth of metaverse platforms, the metaverse is gaining more attention from mainstream brands, companies, and industries. Previously, Crypto Voxels' primary users were people familiar with cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, but now it plans to expand its users to a mainstream audience.
As founder Ben Nolan explains, “Crypto Voxels was founded on April 1, 2018, before NFT became mainstream. We are proud to have launched almost simultaneously with Cryptopunks and Cryptokitties. The word “crypto” may have a negative connotation in the public mind, but the future of decentralization is bright.” [9]
Multi-Verse：the coming of the multiverse platform
Thus it can be seen that each metaverse platform offers a very different experience. They are clearly positioned and ought to make a push in niche tracks.
Decentraland is known for its four major events, namely Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW), Art Week, Metaverse Festival, and Pride Parade, which correspond to fashion, art, music, and LGBTQ, respectively, covering the needs for fashion, hipster fun, and socialising for most young people in reality.
The Sandbox, on the other hand, focuses on the gaming space. Early on, it was best known for its two mobile games, The Sandbox (2011) and The Sandbox Evolution (2016), which reached a total of 40 million downloads on IOS and Android. In 2018, developer Pixowl decided to bring this successful game to the blockchain ecosystem. With the number of users accumulated in the early years, The Sandbox is well ahead of the metaverse gaming platforms.
Cryptovoxel has become the go-to place for crypto artists, art institutions, and collectors, and people go there mainly to enjoy various art exhibitions.
In addition to the three platforms mentioned above, others are coming into prominence from a unique angle.
For example, the emerging online meeting metaverse platform Gather. Different from Zoom and other video conferencing software, users first have to build a virtual image in the virtual office, when you walk to the side of colleagues, the other party can see your real-time image, if you walk away, the sound and picture will also disappear, it almost restored to the real atmosphere of communication. In addition to meetings, people can also work and study in Gather.
More than 10,000 teams are already using Gather virtual offices and have even started using remote work policies because of Gather. [10]
Thus it can be seen,no single metaverse platform can cover the needs of all different scenarios for users, each platform has its own unique and irreplaceable characteristics.
The problem is emerging since more users join various metaverse platforms.
Different Metaverse platforms are independent and with closed systems, most of them are not yet interoperable. Although some virtual assets can be traded on large platforms, aforementioned, Virtual lands, clothing, and NFT assets in Cryptovoxel can be sold on Opensea, however, after purchase, users can only return to the original platform i.e Cryptovocel to use them.
In other words, users can only display their assets in one Metaverse. Whenever users come to another platform, they need to start from scratch, which is not only detrimental to the construction of their virtual identity but also makes it difficult for users to add value to their digital assets on that platform once it faces closure.
A growing number of young people spend most of their time in the virtual world, and virtual identity is seen as an extension of their image, for authentic metaverse players, identity is everything.
Once the various metaverse platforms are interoperable, it is certainly tempting when users’ carefully constructed virtual identities are consistent in the different metaverse.
Similar to the inter-blockchain technology of cryptocurrencies, users hope to transfer items such as wearables, buildings, and others across multiple metaverses to showcase their style and establish a consistent virtual identity across multiple platforms.
Multi-Verse will bring more user requirements, one of the most important needs is the use of digital assets in different metaverse platforms. If buying, using and trading products across platforms are achievable, then each user will have a larger, more stable market, and stronger correlation will also weaken the asset risks. When the time comes, the lifespan of each metaverse platform will also be extended.
DigiFun Cross Metaverse Bridge ：A Revolutionary Technology Innovation
DigiFun, a digital wearable brand founded in 2021, has introduced the Cross-Metaverse Bridge to enable the seamless migration of DigiFun’s digital assets across different metaverses.
Firstly, different metaverse platforms adopt different model formats. DigiFun modeled and released the same set of wearables across different metaverse platforms. In addition to production, since Decentraland uses the ERC-721 protocol and Cryptovoxels uses ERC-1155, the cross-metaverse bridge needs to interface with different protocols to accomplish NFT checking and secure transfer.
Since both Decentraland and CryptoVoxels publish wearables on a polygon, the cross-meta-universe bridge can be accomplished through deployment contracts.
Currently, users can already transfer DigiFun’s metaverse wearable between Decentraland and CryptoVoxel via the cross-metaverse bridge.
Through a cross-metaverse bridge, users can safely transfer NFT assets in Decentraland and Cryptovoxel, accomplishing interoperability of the multiverse. Users can purchase virtual assets on A platform, use the cross-metaverse bridge to B platform, and continue to enjoy the metaverse with their friends on platform B.
Before DigiFun, no projects have accomplished to move assets across metaverse, it is an unprecedented technological innovation.
In the future, DigiFun plans to combine NFT cross-metaverse bridge to accomplish asset conversion across more metaverse platforms, to further interconnect metaverse.
DigiFun Introduction
DigiFun is a digital fashion brand in the metaverse (@DigiFun_), launching a line of metaverse wearables and looking to build a broad product ecosystem, all products will be interoperable within the multiverse platforms, to support users in creating consistent digital identities.
The brand’s content is not produced by any set group of artists, instead, all DAO members can participate in the design, modeling, promotion, and even decision-making. In return, profits and long-term income are distributed in percentage to contributing members.
Currently, DigiFun has gathered dozens of designers and modelers, mainly focusing on designing and producing wearables to use in Decentraland and Cryptovoxel. In the future, it will incorporate more technologies to enhance brand content and create a metaverse fashion brand.
DigiFun collaborated with major traditional fashion brands to customize virtual wearable NFTs, including fast fashion e-commerce Cider, individual designer KINGWEN, etc. and was invited to participate in the Decentraland’s first Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW) in March.
Summary
The concept of the metaverse continues to grow, and various platforms and organizations are scrambling to be the first to spend huge sums of money to enter, bringing prosperity to the metaverse ecology. But some problems are gradually emerging, users can easily transfer Etc from a, etc native chain to polygon through the cross-metaverse bridge, but are not able to transfer wearables, assets, individual images, and other NFTs to transfer from A to B metaverse platforms. The emergence of DigiFun has solved this issue by innovating smart contract technology and accomplishing the interoperability of Decentraland and Cryptovoxel, the future metaverse is worth looking forward to.
References
[3] https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/w6C4n_lRDoKhGvavkVPleQ
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/business/metaverse-real-estate.html
[5] https://www.voguebusiness.com/technology/metaverse-fashion-week-the-hits-and-misses
[6] https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/decentraland/
[7] https://messari.io/article/state-of-the-sandbox-q1-2022
[8] https://www.metacat.world/en-US/analytics?typoe=cryptovoxels
[9] https://nftevening.com/cryptovoxels-metaverse-game-is-rebranding-to-voxels/
[10] https://www.fortunechina.com/zhuanlan/c/2022-05/12/content_411533.htm
[11] https://www.metapunk.co.uk/metablog/7-2021-the-tools-of-the-metaverse