Blockchain Metaverse Decentraland is gearing up for its first online land auction. Tech Trends takes a look at what this means for Social VR. 

VR’s greatest allure is its potential to create entire new worlds we can collectively be immersed in. This is why there has been such interest in emerging social VR platforms like Sansar, High Fidelity and AltspaceVR, but some believe that no platform owned by a single company or entity can truly fulfill that promise. This is because we arguably need diversity and conflict to build truly convincing virtual worlds, and no environment owned and controlled by a single entity can achieve that, no matter how “hands off” their approach and intentions might be.

VR’s allure is creating entire worlds we can collectively be immersed in
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In order to realize the true potential of VR, that power needs to be put directly in the hands of users, says Ariel Meilich, CEO and Founder of Decentraland, a blockchain-based Metaverse proposing to do just that.

“Currently, the companies that create the virtual worlds own all of the content built by the users. They are the ones who profit, reap the benefits from the network effects, and have the power to undo, change or censor what happens within the world itself. We believe virtual reality will flourish once users have a more prominent role in controlling their creations.”

The key difference is that Decentraland uses the Ethereum network to provide landowners with actual ownership over their land, and any creations located within it. “The content does not reside on our servers, so we do not have the power to modify or censor it. We could turn off our servers and the world would keep running. This guarantees permanency and security for anyone looking to develop their property,” explains Meilich.

“A public virtual world should be ruled by open standards, shielded from the agenda of any central organization. In Decentraland, users have full control over the content of the land they own and keep all the proceeds from the value they generate for other users,” he continues.

Decentraland started back in 2015 as an open-source initiative to build a virtual world, and remained a hobby project until recently, when its creators realized the potential tokenization existed that would allow it to retain those principles while raising the funds necessary to expand and develop the Metaverse.

“We completed our token launch in mid September, where over 5,000 members of our community contributed $26M USD to help us build the platform,” Meilich explains.

The Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to which Meilich refers was initially designed to last around eight days, but was sold out in just 35 seconds, with roughly 10,000 investors lining up for the chance to grab some of Decentraland’s native tokens – known as MANA. So it’s fair to say the community’s interest has been piqued, and competition for the prime real estate in its upcoming land auction is likely to be high.

5,000 community members contributed $26M USD to build the platform
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In a nutshell, a blockchain is a digitized, decentralized public ledger of cryptocurrency transactions. Essentially each ‘block’ is like an individual bank statement. Completed ‘blocks’ (the most recent transactions) are added in chronological order allowing market participants to keep track of the transactions without the need for central record keeping.

Decentraland uses Ethereum to provide landowners with ownership
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But unlike a standard blockchain transaction, when you buy a piece of Decentraland the blockchain not only logs the transaction but also gives you x and y co-ordinates to log the co-ordinates of your digital plot. It also contains a link to a torrent, which includes all the digital content of the land upon which you can build. Just like you mine in Bitcoin, here you’re staking a claim on a plot of land – and everything in it.

The platform launched in 2018
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From the beginning of October users were able to join the Decentraland Terraform auction registration, which will stay open until early December. The platform is now set to launch in early 2018 following the auction when users will be able to exchange their MANA tokens for parcels of land in “Genesis City.”

Decentraland used ICO funding to expand its engineering team
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Since the ICO, Decentraland has used some of the funds raised to expand its engineering team, adding people like Ben Nolan, who created SceneVR and did some of the foundational work in WebVR. They also released an alpha version of the Decentraland Editor, which allows users to design their content collaboratively in real-time and upload their work to their land parcels.

The project has so far been broken down into 6 ‘ages’ as it grows in scope and sophistication. In June 2015 the ‘Stone Age’ the land was modeled as a simple grid and a Bitcoin-like ‘proof of work’ algorithm was used to allocate pixels to users. The Bronze Age followed in April 2017 which developed this grid into a 3D space with both Blockchain and torrent full node enabled. A MANA (ERC20 token) Contribution period followed which allowed users to claim parcels of land and interact with each other.

Blockchain is a digital, decentralised public ledger of crypto transactions
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So could this prove to be the Metaverse that devotees of VR technologies, gaming and science fiction have been waiting for since the dawn of Cyberpunk? Only time will tell. With PTP networking on the horizon – ‘Iron Age’ (late 2017) boasting multiplayer support with avatars and live chat and ‘Silicon Age’ (2018) offering a fully-fledged 3D world with full VR support and customisation of the laws of physics, it does look like Decentraland is shaping up to be an interesting dark horse to watch in the social VR race.

Originally Published in the Huffington Post

How Much Would You Pay for Virtual Land? https://t.co/U3lDDCsNzu

— Alice Bonasio (@alicebonasio) November 8, 2017

Tech Trends offers comprehensive Virtual Reality Consultancy services to support businesses looking to adopt VR/AR/MR technologies into their brand and communications strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Why People are Excited About a Virtual Land Grab appeared first on Tech Trends.

Could Decentralised ownership using blockchain technology help kickstart the social VR revolution? Emerging platforms are looking to democratise ownership of immersive environments.

VR has often been considered something of a solitary experience, but that’s changing fast. Social VR platforms are on the rise, and as the acquisition of AltspaceVR by Microsoft shows, major players in that space are taking notice.

AltspaceVR was recently acquired by Microsoft
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In the VR gold rush a spate of social VR platforms have proliferated. High Fidelity, for example, is a sandbox environment allowing players to create their own avatars and social worlds and explore others all interconnected in one limitless Metaverse. It also features a marketplace where you can purchase avatars and additional 3D building elements.

VR Social platforms have proliferated
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Vtime is a stationary platform which offers fully rendered interesting environments for up to 4 people at a time wherein they can interact. One unique feature of the Vtime platform is the vCast feature which allows you to host and record your own chat show in VR. With around $1.5 million in venture funding VR Chat is developing a sandbox platform that allows you to interact and explore virtual worlds. VR Chat features full body and lip sync and eye tracking as well as a SDK that allows you to create your own worlds and avatars.

Supported by $5 million of funding, RecRoom from Against Gravity has also become a popular platform for social VR recreation featuring a games room where people can join and play games against each other in VR from all around the world. Noted for its great sense of community it makes great use of its touch and vive controllers in such games as golf, paddle ball or charades.

Momentum is building around social VR
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This shows how momentum is building around social VR, and although it’s unlikely that such platforms will replace social media in terms of popularity overnight, the question is certainly being asked about who will emerge as “Facebook of VR.”

Facebook itself is keen to be the Facebook of VR
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With Mark Zuckerberg announcing a year ago a host of new Social VR features at the Oculus Connect 3 keynote (such as the ability to create ‘parties’ and ‘rooms’ wherein friends can gather in VR environments), appointing Rachel Rubin – previously vice president and executive producer of The Sims 4 at Electronic Arts – as the head of Social VR and subsequently channeling $250 million into VR development, it seems clear that Facebook itself is keen to step up to that plate.

Tech giants have so far shirked the responsibility which comes with their vast power
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Yet as the ongoing revelations about Russia’s use of platforms like Google and Facebook to influence elections in the US and elsewhere show, allowing any one company such widespread reach gives it extraordinary power. And tech companies have not so far shown that they accept the responsibilities that come with such great power. A possible alternative? Decentralized ownership.

“We believe virtual reality will flourish once users have a more prominent role in controlling their creations. Currently, the companies that create the virtual worlds own all of the content built by the users. They are the ones who profit, reap the benefits from the network effects, and have the power to undo, change or censor what happens within the world itself. The true potential of VR might be realized, and certainly surpass what already exists, if this power were put into the hands of the users instead,” believes Ariel Meilich, founder of blockchain-based virtual platform Decentraland.

A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized public ledger of cryptocurrency transactions. Essentially each ‘block’ is like an individual bank statement. Completed ‘blocks’ (the most recent transactions) are added in chronological order allowing market participants to keep track of the transactions without the need for central record keeping. Just as Bitcoin eliminates the need for a third party to process or store payments, and isn’t regulated by a central authority, users in any blockchain structure are responsible for validating transactions whenever one party pays another for goods or services.

Decentraland started as an open source initiative in 2015
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Meilich says that the project began in 2015 as an open source initiative to build a virtual world, before pivoting into a blockchain tokenization model. Earlier this year, the company’s ICO (Initial Coin Offering) raised over $25M USD – in less than a minute. They are now planning to launch in early 2018 following its first land auction which will take place in December.

The notion of monetising Virtual Real Estate and assets is well established
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The notion of monetising Virtual Real Estate and assets is far from new, however. Second Life (SL), the longest enduring commercial virtual world launched back in 2003 thrives on the principle of enabling users to make money from digital assets.

Decentraland users will collectively own and regulate the platform
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Monetization was a bit aspect of the platform from the outset, incentivizing users to create high-quality content by allowing users to retain copyright for these virtual goods. The profits stemming from this virtual economy are very much real, with many SL users deriving a regular income from such activities, and Linden Lab itself being a financially independent company thanks to the fees and commission it makes from these.

Monetisation has been a big aspect of social VR platforms like Sansar
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With Sansar, Linden Lab is now laying its own stake to that next-generation of virtual worlds by offering similar functions to High Fidelity in terms of development, yet taking a more user-centric approach which also focuses on enabling monetization for individual users, who can earn Sansar Dollar (S$) for their VR creations. This in-world currency can be cashed into various currencies via PayPal and traded on a dedicated online exchange called the Sandex. This built-in economy with real-world application is borrowed directly from Second Life and its Linden Dollar (L$).

“If I can make an experience by building just a few original content assets and buy the other stuff, I can do way more interesting experiences at a much faster pace, because I don’t have to build everything from scratch. In the real world you see companies and brands specializing in certain types of content, and it’s no different in virtual worlds, we’ve seen this in Second Life,” explains Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg.“

What makes Decentraland fundamentally different from other virtual platforms is that it’s not only the content that will be owned by users, but the platform itself. This means the community will also have collective responsibility for regulating it. According to its creators, the blockchain structure – which uses the Ethereum network – creates a mechanism for consensus among strangers that allows this to work at scale.

“The networks provides landowners with actual ownership over their property and the creations that reside on it,” explains Meilich. “As is it decentralized and the content does not reside on our servers, we do not have the power to modify it or censor it. At some point, we could turn off our servers and the world would keep running.”

This all opens up new and interesting possibilities for users to communicate with each other, as well as new business models that enable them to create, share and monetize immersive content and experiences. But so far we haven’t seen any one model emerge as a clear winner and claim that crucial “first mover advantage” in the social VR space. The race is, by all accounts, still wide open, which is what makes for such exciting watching.

This article was originally published on The Next Web

Will blockchain help make Virtual Reality more social? https://t.co/G5CAeBhxhg

— TNW Contributors (@TNWcontributors) November 6, 2017

To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Democratising Social VR with Blockchain appeared first on Tech Trends.