The metaverse means many things to many people, whether that be Meta's virtual reality "office," Fortnite's combination of gameplay and social space, or Decentraland's NFT-powered virtual world.
But to Robby Yung, CEO of metaverse investment firm and game publisher Animoca Brands, one fact is inescapable.
"There is no metaverse without Web3, because you need to have that transaction layer so that you have interoperability between content and you can bring it from place to place," he said in a panel discussion at Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal.
"We as an industry are working on setting standards for that," he added. "We've set up some various consortiums to try to address those issues."
Open Metaverse Alliance Says It Won’t Let Meta Define the Future of the Internet
Whether the future metaverse will be open and interoperable—and whether it will be primarily built with blockchain technology—remains to be seen. That’s why an array of crypto builders and firms formed the Open Metaverse Alliance (OMA3) to provide Web3 creators a united front in developing standards to help push the immersive future internet in that direction. First revealed in July, OMA3 officially opened up shop today, as announced at the Web Summit in Lisbon. The association has launched memb...
Animoca Brands is one of the founding members of the Open Metaverse Alliance, an industry group launched this month that is pushing for interoperability standards in the metaverse. Those standards would enable NFT content purchased on one metaverse platform to seamlessly integrate with another, so that an NFT bought on Decentraland could be used in The Sandbox, for example.
But one key player in the Web3 space has yet to commit to joining the Open Metaverse Alliance: Bored Ape Yacht Club owners Yuga Labs, which this week revealed that it's hard at work on its own open metaverse NFT standards.
BAYC Owner Yuga Labs: Metaverse NFT Open Standards Coming ‘Very Soon’
One of the unique selling points of the Web3 metaverse has always been the idea of interoperability; that users can port their NFTs between metaverse platforms. But to date, interoperability between metaverse platforms has been very limited. That could be set to change, with Bored Ape Yacht Club founder Greg Solano, aka Garga, telling Decrypt, “We’re going to be publishing our object standards as they become available; some are coming very soon, and others will be coming over the course of the n...
Yung acknowledged that there's a long road ahead for investors in the metaverse. "We have to be realistic that it's a long term plan," he said. "I mean, we're building the 3D internet, this is going to take 10 years or more, probably."
VR a 'big distraction'
Yung, like Animoca founder and executive chairman Yat Siu, is dismissive of Meta's metaverse approach—particularly its effort to create a metaverse centered around virtual reality. "My personal view is I think VR is a big distraction," he said, adding that VR is "just one platform" by which the metaverse can be accessed.
Meta, he said, has focused on defining the metaverse as "akin to VR," something that Yung described as "a mistake."
Facebook, Tencent a ‘Threat’ to Open Metaverse: Animoca’s Yat Siu
Animoca Brands has cast a wide net with its investments into the crypto industry, investing in more than 100 startups—including leading NFT marketplace OpenSea and the creators of smash Ethereum-based game Axie Infinity. For Animoca, it’s all about contributing to the development of the emerging online “metaverse.” We hear the term often in the crypto industry. The metaverse refers to shared online spaces that could be used for everything from work to play, not to mention social interactions, sh...
Certainly, Meta's all-in foray into virtual reality has been a costly one so far; last month its metaverse division reported a $3.67 billion quarterly loss.
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Main image by Web Summit licensed under CC BY 2.0
