Introduction to the Ecology of the Metaverse (2)

Yesterday, I introduced to you about the project that provides activity space in the Metaverse. In fact, in addition to the few projects I introduced, there are other well-known projects such as the sandbox and so on. I believe that with the popularity of this concept, more and more similar projects will appear. For example, will there be imitation disks that imitate these projects in Ethereum in other blockchain ecosystems? I think it is very possible, but I think projects in the Ethereum ecosystem are most likely to become kings.

Some readers also asked, among so many projects of the same kind, which one can survive to the end, or will there be any project that will eventually dominate the world? At present, it seems that there are well-known players in each of these projects, and they are all in fierce competition. I am afraid that it is still difficult to determine the future outcome.

In the metaverse, I think that besides the activity space, another very important thing is the virtual identity that belongs to you forever. This virtual identity can have many meanings, and currently the most popular ones are personal image and virtual logo.

This year Sotheby's, the world's top auction house, auctioned off punks from the well-known project Cryptopunks. Among them, the punk numbered 7530 was sold at a high price of 4,200 ETH (the market value exceeded 10 million US dollars). This record shocked players inside and outside the circle.

If these cypherpunks are nothing more than simple and rough punk avatars from the perspective of visual effects, why can they be sold at such a high price?

Aside from the hype, the very important reason for this is that cypherpunk can be regarded as the first digital collectible in Ethereum, the first "non-homogeneous token" in Ethereum, and inspired later The well-known ERC-721 protocol. Because it contains so many important historical connotations, its value is naturally high.

After Cryptopunk was auctioned by Sotheby's at a high price, it not only brought the creation of NFTs in the Ethereum ecosystem, but also drove a group of digital collectibles enthusiasts into this circle to start looking for similar digital collectibles.

Driven by this craze, a large number of creators began to enter the Ethereum ecosystem and continue along the path of cypherpunk, exploring new directions for NFT creation.

Entering 2021, a number of phenomenal projects such as HashMasks, MoonCats, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Ethlings, etc. have appeared in the NFT market of Ethereum. Among them, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) has attracted a large number of buyers with its unique gameplay.

BAYC is a group of 10,000 ape avatars issued by a group of fans. Each ape avatar is an NFT. Each ape avatar has different characteristics and is unique. Each ape NFT holder not only has a series of benefits given by the project party, but is also granted the right to use the intellectual property rights of the avatar by the project party, and can use the avatar arbitrarily ------ this is a long-term emphasis on intellectual property rights in Europe and the United States It is a great boon and welfare for lovers of protection. Therefore, BAYC became popular in the circle shortly after its release, and the price of these ape avatars also rose from 0.08 ETH initially issued (in May) to the current minimum of 1.6 ETH.

The popularity of these items not only makes the items themselves sought after by digital collectibles enthusiasts, but also is used by many enthusiasts as avatars and their images on Twitter. If we go to Twitter and pay attention to the big Vs and big players of various NFTs, we will see that many people's avatars are cypherpunk, BAYC, and HashMasks. This has become a show-off and publicity of virtual identities.

What's more, enthusiasts of various projects have established their own clubs and started to hold their own activities in discord and clubhouse. Only players who hold NFT of these projects are eligible to participate in these activities.

When I was browsing various virtual spaces recently, I also found that many players have placed their own NFT (such as cypherpunk, BAYC, etc.) avatars in their virtual spaces as a status symbol.

The development of this upsurge is still continuing. Recently, with the outbreak of the metaverse concept, the creation of Ethereum NFT projects has also entered a higher dimension. The NFTs issued by the projects listed above are just two-dimensional pictures. Recently, new projects (such as Super Yeti) have publicly announced on the Internet that in order to support the metaverse ecology, they have launched their own 3D versions, which means that the new batch of NFT projects will be 3D graphics, more three-dimensional and more dazzling.

Judging from this trend, I believe that in the future we will definitely see such a scene: In the space of the Metaverse, each player will be a variety of 3D images. These images move and play in the space, and these images are all one NFTs. "Things of a feather flock together and people form groups" -------- in the metaverse, people will gather together according to their own three-dimensional images and "live" together. A player can change his identity according to the various NFTs he holds and participate in activities in different circles.

This will be a virtual space completely different from the real society.