A warm welcome to you during this festive time of year! MSQ recently moved into its Open Beta, meaning you can now sign up for a profile and enjoy all the features the site has to offer! From Monday to Friday we bring you our Discovery of the Day featuring some of the most exciting and promising projects in the cryptosphere. In today’s special holiday edition, we take a look at some of the biggest projects working to build and grow the Metaverse. Here we go!
The Merging of Realities
Imagine being online all the time and connected to people in a seamless virtual environment, engaging in just about everything you might expect to experience in the physical world, but also being able to do just about anything that virtual world permits you to. Whether you love or hate the concept, the Metaverse is a big deal right now, and there are numerous companies including Facebook, (which in a rather controversial move rebranded to Meta, ) working to bring their vision of this vast virtual world to life.
The idea of buying, owning and transacting in a digital space may sound strange, and for all intents and purposes, it is…but the beauty of the Metaverse, if done correctly, is that many people will be able to participate and freely engage in a range of activities regardless of where they are in the world. This includes buying and selling assets, hiring out land for events, and building unique experiences for people to enjoy. In many ways, the Metaverse has the potential to be nothing short of a paradise for creators and gamers alike, allowing those with skills to use them in a meaningful way and provide their services to a permanently present international audience.
Of course, not everybody is delighted about the Metaverse, especially when companies like Facebook are getting involved. In case you don’t know, Facebook isn’t exactly known for its integrity and ethics. I’m sure many would assert that it’s been utterly ruinous for countless people and played a fundamental role in engineering our social behaviors and perceptions. In many ways the battle for the Metaverse is divided between two encampments—existing companies that are looking to evolve in order to stay relevant and profitable, and decentralized projects attempting to harness the power of their communities to build something truly democratic and autonomous. This is likely something of an oversimplification, but I’m personally rooting for the latter ‘side.’
Many of you probably feel the same…
So as it stands, there are a couple of big projects already building their own versions of the Metaverse, and throughout the course of 2022, I’m expecting some big things from them. Let’s take a brief look at each one in turn and outline what they’re about
The Sandbox
With names like Snoop Dogg, Deadmau5 and Atari, The Sandbox is arguably the biggest and most ambitious Metaverse project in the cryptosphere. Featuring Minecraft-style graphics, a fully functioning virtual marketplace and even a Game Maker, The Sandbox is going all-out in its bid to establish an immersive and compelling virtual world in which people can create experiences and trade digital assets with one another.
Alpha Season 1 of The Sandbox concluded recently, and from what it appears, it was a huge success. Take a look at some of the metrics below:
Alpha Season 2 is coming soon and, based on feedback received from those who participated in Season 1, you can expect the following:
- Open to everyone to participate and progress through experiences
- More Alpha Passes available
- New types of Experiences
- Even more Play-to-Earn (P2E) Rewards
- Some surprises in the Metaverse
With an enormous Twitter following, big brands and celebrities involved, The Sandbox is constantly growing in popularity and promises to be one of the most impressive undertakings ever seen in the cryptosphere. Be sure to follow them on Twitter and join their Discord so you hear all the latest news as and when it’s released.
You can read more about The Sandbox in my MSQ article: The Sandbox - An NFT-Powered Metaverse Gaming Ecosystem
Decentraland
More or less on a par with The Sandbox is Decentraland, a Metaverse project that also allows participants to trade digital assets, buy land and take part in a range of events and activities. While The Sandbox uses pixel art-style graphics, Decentraland uses WebGL and runs in-browser, meaning users don’t require a graphics card in order to play. However, if you do own a suitably powerful GPU, you’ll most likely find that your gameplay experience is significantly enhanced.
While it may take a slightly different approach, Decentraland is a major player in the space with plots of land selling for thousands of dollars (denoted in the platform’s native token, $MANA). From March 24th to the 27th 2022, Decentraland will be hosting Metaverse Fashion Week, giving designers and fashionistas the opportunity to showcase their material to an international audience in an entirely virtual space. Check it out!
Decentraland’s development is governed almost entirely by the Decentraland DAO (Decentralzied Autonomous Organization). What this means is that the members of the Decentraland community determine the way everything works—from what wearables are allowed (or disallowed) to land auction policies and content moderation to event types, it is the users and participants in Decentraland who ultimately determine how everything will pan out.
With so much going on and so much planned for 2022, it would be remiss not to follow Decentraland, so be sure to check them out on Twitter and join their Discord so that you don’t miss out on any of the latest news and announcements.
Solice
Last but certainly not least, we have Solice, the first cross platform VR Metaverse on the Solana Blockchain. Solice hasn’t actually launched yet, but according to their Roadmap, a 1.1 release (soft launch) should take place sometime in Q1 of 2022. In essence Solice will allow users to trade digital assets, create experiences and trade freely with one another, so it is not unlike The Sandbox and Decentraland. However, Solice will allow users to interact with the Metaverse in VR as well as without a VR system. Moreover, the project appears more graphically ambitious and polished than existing Metaverse efforts, but just how ambitious remains to be seen.
As it turns out, the Solice IDO Whitelist just went live on December 27th. You can read the IDO Guidelines and find out more information by following the links in the following Tweet:
The Solice token sale will go live on Solanium on December 29th, 2021. In fact, at the time of writing, the sale is due to take place in 12 hours time, so hopefully you find out about it before it’s over!
Solice is still right at the beginning of its journey, but there’s a lot of energy and support behind it. Follow them on Twitter and join their Discord for all the latest news and updates on the project’s development.
You can find out more about Solice via their official documentation
The Growth of the Metaverse in 2022!
There’s been so much that’s happened in the last 12 months, but 2022 will almost certainly see an even greater amount of time, effort and capital being plowed into the development of Metaverse experiences for people of all nationalities and ages. While the projects I’ve discussed here today aren’t the only ones out there, they are certainly some major contenders, and I’m very eager to see how they all continue to develop as the months go by.
Thanks for joining me today on this trip into the Metaverse. This is my final article for 2021, so from myself and the team here at MSQ, thank you for all the support, and we can’t wait to see you again in 2022! Happy New Year and much peace and goodwill to you and yours! Bye bye!
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