Cyber, a virtual reality platform, today announced a deal with Rarible to integrate its protocol and create a virtual NFT marketplace.
Launched in February last year, Cyber said the new functionality will enable consumers to browse for NFT collectibles through an immersive VR experience.
"You had all these top-to-bottom companies that were selling [virtual] land that is quite expensive, and then you had a lot of 2D platforms, but not the option in the middle," Cyber founder Rayan Boutaleb told Decrypt. "We launched and placed the first brick of a bottom-up metaverse company that we would build with the help of the [blockchain] community."
Boutaleb said the Cyber VR app can run on mobile phones—even older models—in addition to Oculus, widening the audience for potential NFT buyers. The platform currently is available for NFTs minted on the Ethereum blockchain through the Rarible protocol.
Rarible, which launched in 2019, is a both a protocol that can be used for NFT issuance and decentralized apps as well as a marketplace. Developers use Rarible's native RARI token to interact with the platform. RARI has a current market capitalization of $54.5 million, according to CoinMarketCap.
By integrating Rarible's tech, Cyber said, users will be able to access collectibles beyond the Cyber marketplace, namely all projects that use the Rarible protocol, including Rarible.com, a top-10 NFT marketplace, according to DappRadar.com, with $291.88 million in trading volume since it launched.
"We dreamed about something like this happening," said Rarible co-founder Alex Salnikov. "It's like working on Burning Man. We always wanted to have many front ends on top of the protocol. And NFTs are the backbone of the metaverse that we're all dreaming about."