Imagine your digital avatar walking into an Adidas store and talking to the sales representative to learn more about the current trend in sneakers.
Moreover, your avatar tried on a couple of sneakers and found one really worth the money.
You order it and have it shipped to your physical address. Two days later, you receive the order. The sneaker fits you as perfectly as you saw it in the feet of your avatar.
Welcome to the Metaverse — the intersection of our physical and digital realities.
Metaverse and NFTs — An Ideal Combination
The example above has probably given you an idea on Metaverse. It’s a virtual world that is under development and experts have been considering it as a major advancement in the Web 3.0 ecosystem. Games, shops, meetings, etc., are expected to get digitized as more and more people step towards the next generation of the internet. If it happens, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) will play a crucial role in defining digital identities.
How so?
Considering the example of the Adidas store: how would we know a similar avatar doesn’t exist?
That’s where NFTs come in — to define the identity of any asset that exists on the internet. Each avatar will be connected to a blockchain network by creating its non-fungible token. It means anyone can trace the authenticity of an asset, avatar, or any digital item by simply verifying the underlying details on a blockchain network.
If you would like to understand what this all means for Metaverse, we have already covered the benefits of introducing NFTs to Metaverse. In this blog post, we look into the impact that NFTs can have on the virtual world.
How will NFTs Affect the Metaverse?
NFTs possess all qualities to disrupt the traditional gaming and social network paradigm of interacting, socializing, and transacting with users in the Metaverse. Let’s see how they can impact the virtual world.
Creating The Creator Culture
Artists wishing to create digital content within the Metaverse can actively participate in the process, which was earlier limited to only a handful of professional designers. Investigating the design space of incentive schemes created for amateur creators to take part can facilitate the co-creation space.
But, how would one incentivize those creators?
The token-based rewards seem like an easy and efficient choice. For example, in a virtual environment in Metaverse, the efforts of creators — like accomplishing certain tasks — can be incentivized by offering them NFT-based rewards, thereby giving the artists tangible incentives that they can use in the real world.
Digital Representation of Humans
A common vision of Metaverse enthusiasts is to ensure that the digital representation of users is best represented in the virtual world that should nearly represent their real behavior while interacting with other users. The way an avatar is designed could impact the user perception, such as senses of presence, body ownership, sense of realism, trust, etc., during several activities included in a metaverse.
But, each human is unique and possesses various qualities that differentiate him/her from others. In a crowded environment like Metaverse where identities can be stolen, how would a platform ensure that a legit user is accessing its services?
NFTs are ideal to give a unique identity to each human entering the world of Metaverse. For example, creating an NFT of an avatar automatically makes it unique because no two NFTs could be the same. This will further help remove malicious actors from the ecosystem.
Easily Exchange Virtual Content
Currently, a wide range of virtual items is being traded on platforms like UnicoNFT. Some platforms have gone a step ahead and embedded NFT trading into games. For example, Battle Pets, a decentralized blockchain-based play-to-earn game, allow players to buy in-gaming pets (NFTs), nurture them, put them out in battles, and also trade them with other gamers. Considering the real-world use cases of NFTs, Metaverse can build similar structures in a virtual world to create an NFT marketplace where users can easily exchange virtual content.
Furthermore, real-life auctioning methods for goods with some commonality can be introduced to the community. For example, in the Metaverse, two users from different virtual worlds can enter a trading space via their individual portals, and trade an NFT-based item with each other.
Closing Thoughts
Technology giants like Facebook have ambitious plans for materializing the virtual world. With the engagement of progressive developments and disrupting technologies like blockchain and AI, the Metaverse has started to take a better shape and is most likely to look radically different shortly. It suggests that our near future is going to be more interactive, alive, embodied — although virtually -, due to 3D wearables and VR environments.
In such a scenario, NFTs will play a crucial role in identifying the proprietorship of all virtual assets and identities in the Metaverse. It is our firm belief that the NFT ownership is an important key in the world of Metaverse that will open up a world of possibilities as we step into the era of Web 3.0.
Visit UnicoNFT to explore our NFT Marketplace.
