The Metaverse

Facebook has recently market-rebranded as a “metaverse” company. Ostensibly because they are a VR company, and there is supposed to be an implicit connection between VR and the metaverse. But the metaverse is not waiting to be built.

It’s already here.

Perhaps influenced by Ready Player One, there is this idea that the metaverse must be in 3D, and can only be experienced in high-fidelity VR. This is nonsense. The metaverse is more like a Pokédex than it is the actual fictional universe that Pokémon inhabit. The metaverse is the rolodex of characters and objects whose ownership is indisputable and infrangible.

Specifically, NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain is the world’s largest decentralized trading game, and is precisely the metaverse that has long been prophesied. It needs nothing more to be so. Does a fictional universe really need 3D renders to be experienced? Can you not read mere words on a page and be excessively captivated by a book? So it is that the JPEGs on the Ethereum blockchain are a universe of characters and items, whose ownership is indisputable, whose objects are hotly desired, and whose characters enthrall you with their personality, backstory, and potential.

This is the metaverse. It’s already here. And its lack of central authority is more beautiful than we could have ever imagined.

No fucking Facebook account required.