January 19th, 2022

NFTs and blockchain key to metaverse future, crypto boosters claim

Blockchain technology, used to power cryptocurrencies and other decentralized record-keeping systems, has been struggling to find practical use cases outside ransomware and speculative projects like Bitcoin and NFTs. There have been a number of pilot projects in a variety of industries, but they’ve rarely turned into anything with significant business impact because of issues related to security, scalability, efficiency, and cost.

Now crypto proponents are looking to the metaverse as an area where the blockchain can make an impact.

NFT proponents say it is a better way of personalizing art and content in the metaverse, and say that the blockchain is a technology that can decentralize and secure metaverse content.

However, NfT’s actual use as part of the core infrastructure of the metaverse will likely be limited given those same issues of privacy, security, and inefficiency, plus the lack of legal oversight.

The most successful implementation of blockchain is cryptocurrencies, which are mainly used for speculative purposes. Like cryptocurrency, most people will be using NFTs in the metaverse for speculation, said Anndy Lian, a founding member of Influxo and Asia chairman of BigONE, a top global digital asset exchange.

And the fact that there’s a lack of legal oversight could actually be a benefit for its adoption, he said.

“Indeed, away from the hype about NFTs as high priced art work, one of their chief attractions within the crypto space is that they’re not considered securities for regulatory purposes,” he told Hypergrid Business.

There are privacy concerns regarding the blockchain. Although cryptography is involved in the sense that each transaction that’s added to the blockchain is digitally signed, the actual content of the blockchain is in plain text, unencrypted, available for anyone to read. That means that the public can, for example, trace cryptocurrency payments from wallet to wallet.

However, because of the legal limbo that crypto is currently in, there are no “know your customer” requirements such as those in place for all other types of financial activity.

For this reason, proponents of blockchain say it can prevent the kind of user privacy violations that Facebook — now rebranded as “Meta” — has been criticized for.

And since the blockchain relies on decentralized storage — every participant has their copy of the entire blockchain — there is no central control.

Through tokenization of physical assets for sale in the metaverse platforms, blockchain and NFTs can unlock commerce because this way, they facilitate exchanging of goods digitally, that could not be digitally transacted before, he said. For instance, digital passports such as those promoted by ARCx, can help with credit scoring, collateralized lending, and decentralized commerce in the metaverse, he said.

NFTs are already being used in existing metaverses such as Decentraland, but there are a lot of forgeries and duplication.

Blockchain can assure authenticity

According to proponents, the blockchain’s digital signature mechanism and distributed nature can help creators prove that they are the actual owners of particular content, and help users demonstrate that they are legitimate users.

Using blockchain could reduce NFT forgeries in the metaverse because each node verifies the status and ownership of all assets on the network, hence preventing them from being duplicated or changed, said Cynthia Cao, creator of CC is Dreaming, who is a NFT personality and a leading figure in virtual reality in entertainment.

And it’s not just about digital goods, she added.“In the future, when people upload their consciousness into the metaverse, we cannot ensure that their memories are not tampered with or controlled by anyone without the verification and authentication that blockchain provides,” she told Hypergrid Business.

Storing metaverse content, data, NFTs, images and other arts on the blockchain can ensure permanent storage of that data as it becomes immutable.

This can prevent illegal tampering of anything of value stored in the metaverse, said Luke Stokes managing director at Foundation for Interwallet Operability.

The FIO protocol is enabling artists to sign their work with an easily readable address that acts as a unique signature for their work, hence preventing NFT forgeries, he told Hypergrid Business.

But there are risks, he added.

“There is also the potential for user error, where people miscopy long complicated addresses or suffer man-in-the-middle attacks that could potentially result in millions of dollars being sent to the wrong address or stolen forever,” he said.

Many existing metaverses and virtual worlds succeed by gamifying social and business experiences.

Metaverse platforms that use blockchain have better digital-based rewarding mechanisms for such gamification, for instance through tokens and in-world digital currencies, said Dinis Guarda, who is author, founder, and non-executive chairman of LynKey, Citiesabc.com, and Openbusinesscouncil.org.

“The metaverse will empower peer-to-peer experiences that will offer jobs, financial empowerment, lending, and trading, he said. “The metaverse and NFTs certification solutions will take on the role of a virtual business-empowered financial system.”

This gamification will lead to further growth of art, fashion, collectives, history, cities, property in the metaverse, he said.

Cryptocurrencies are also being used to trade goods and services, for gaming rewards, betting, and for value speculation in metaverses. In Decentraland, for instance, users can buy NFTs with cryptocurrencies or platform token MANA.

Other examples include Citiesabc.com, a metaverse for cities, and LynKey, a virtual and augmented reality platform using crypto for trading NFTs in property and smart tourism.

Unlike fiat currencies like the US dollar or the Euro, crypto enables very cheap transactions in digital worlds, said Daniel Logvin, CEO at LedgerByte.

“We can actually use blockchain to manage in-metaverse currency,” he told Hypergrid Business. “This provides us with security and transaction verification for our purchases and trades, thus ensuring a solid and transparent economy.”

There have even been grids that used Bitcoin in OpenSim, such as YrGrid back in 2015, though none of these projects ever took off due to the high management and overhead costs of using the volatile Bitcoin currency for in-world payments.

Although gaming and art will continue to lead in adoption of metaverse and NFTs, remote working and virtual living — which increased due to COVID, will play a role in popularizing metaverse, NFTs because even the non-tech world is getting interested.

“I think we are entering a really exciting time for the mainstream adoption of NFTs,” said Influxo’s Lian. “Certainly the rise of NFTs for football fans around the world to capture unique moments and to follow their favorite players is a testament to the maturing of the NFT marketplace.

The dark side of the blockchain

Turning an image or another digital asset into an NFT does not actually create any value, said Maria Korolov, editor and publisher at Hypergrid Business. Since it’s stored on the open blockchain, there is no security for assets. In fact, there’s already an epidemic of people simply “right-clicking” on NFTs to save their own copies, with no repercussions, since the block chain no legal weight behind it. Plus, anyone can add anything to a blockchain, whether or not they are the legal owners of that content.

NFTs are thus nothing more than virtual Beanie Babies, she said.

“NFTs by themselves don’t protect intellectual property,” she said. “Anyone can claim to own IP and put it on the blockchain. And the blockchain itself is notoriously susceptible to being hacked.”

Crypto companies are high-profile targets for attackers. Hackers go after exchanges, virtual wallets, and even the blockchain itself. For example, one approach is the “50 percent hack.” The blockchain is decentralized, and if there’s a conflict between transactions the blockchain automatically opts for the transaction that’s supported by the majority of the participants. Hackers have hijacked blockchains repeatedly by using botnets to create participating nodes and then stealing millions of dollars worth of currency. This vulnerability is built into the fundamental design of the blockchain, and there is currently no known fix.

Hackers steal money from blockchains right, left and center, she said.

Finally, blockchains are inefficient compared to centralized data storage because the data is duplicated in multiple locations, and new transactions require progressively larger amount of computing power, resulting in adverse environmental impact.

“That’s why no major organization has replaced its databases with blockchains,” she said. “Blockchains are inefficient, insecure, and basically unmanageable,” she said. “A bunch of companies have done pilot projects. They issued press releases about the pilot projects. But then when they looked at how those pilot projects actually worked out, they quietly abandoned the whole thing and never mentioned it again and wrote off the money they wasted as a learning experience.”

Original Source: https://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2022/01/why-nfts-and-blockchain-are-critical-to-success-of-metaverse/

Anndy Lian

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com

j j j

November 21st, 2021

Why Understanding Token Utility Is Key to Finding Real Value

It feels a little like the heady days of the ICO boom of 2017/18 again with the rise of meme tokens, which have captured crypto investor’s attention following DogeCoin’s 14,000% rise in value in the first six months of 2021. Back in the ICO boom scores of crypto projects backed by little more than whitepapers and a compelling story pulled in newbie investors keen to benefit from the spectacular gains on offer. When the ICO market collapsed, and the lack of any real utility for most of these tokens became clear, as well as leaving people out of pocket it also left a question mark over the long-term value of crypto ventures.

With the rise of meme tokens the importance of establishing real utility is even more important in 2021, not just for meme coin projects, but also for the wider crypto and blockchain industry. For the crypto investor, faced with an overload of token listings, how do you find the hidden gem rather than fall for a dud, whether a new meme token or an innovative blockchain project? Billionaire entrepreneur, and head of Alameda Research and the FTX cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried stated in a recent Vox article that some information are “clearly legitimate”, some information are “clearly bullshit”, and in-between that, there exists a plethora of information that are “a little bit confusing”. “In this financial environment”, he continued, even a token, stock, or asset with a meme can get “a $20 billion valuation”.

Projects like ChainLink, Cardano, BitcoinCash, Polkadot, XRP, EOS, Stellar, and many others have been backed by billions of dollars of market cap with billions of dollars in liquidity.” Luke Stokes, Managing Director for the Foundation for Interwallet Operability, pointed out the challenge in finding utility and thus getting in early on a crypto project. It is arguable in many ways that these projects are “innovative and providing solutions in ways investors (actual investors) believe bitcoin and second layer bitcoin solutions currently cannot.” Will these projects still be current in a decade? Is there a way to spot these projects before they reach the leaderboard?

As a shorthand for how to spot a coin with real utility and real value, there are several common characteristics worth paying attention to, Stokes. The first is to look at the team, what is their track record, do they have much experience or is their first venture. In such a new sector as meme coins this may not be easy to assess, but it’s still worth looking out for. Secondly, to review the product or service the crypto startup is looking to solve. In the case of meme coin DogeCola, the team not only took the initiative in launching the first crypto-backed cola drink, but has also followed up with its first GameFi product, MoonAlley. “This is a great example of how meme coins are maturity, as they see the need to demonstrate real utility to users, and not some ‘pump and dump’ token. I think it’s just the start of an exciting phase of development in the crypto space, which harnesses the power of the meme community to real world projects, from consumer products to eco campaigns,” said BigONE chairman Anndy Lian. BigONE exchange was the first central exchange (CEX) to list DogeCola, in large part down to its understanding of the value of utility to its long term prospects, confirms Lian.

DogeCola has entered the cryptocurrency gaming industry with the intention to bring cryptocurrency into the current traditional economy of the world. “DogeCola is here to stay”, confirmed the DogeCola team last month. When reviewing token value, it’s also worth reading the fine print too when considering the impact that its perceived utility can have on token price. For example, as the DogeCola’s website states: “Even though DogeCola DeFi/Crypto project is related to the brand, the token and the soft drink are not to be considered the same legal entity. DogeCola Token is made, managed, and maintained by a community of Devs in a decentralized way. DogeCola Trademark will be used from a different company aiming to connect crypto and real worlds. BigONE Exchange will continue to find innovative projects to be part of our ecosystem.”

So, when looking for crypto projects worth investing in consider whether the token utility helps solve a real need for the customers, from consumer-facing gaming projects to more business to business propositions. In the rapidly emerging play-to-earn (GameFi) sector, the utility token often has value both as the crypto currency to reward the gaming community and to fund in-game transactions. Consider the rise of Axie Infinity, the hugely popular crypto gaming platform which runs on Ethereum, created by Vietnamese developer Sky Mavis. After generating more than $220 million in revenue in 30 days to the start of August, the play-to-earn game has its own in-game token, SLP, that can be sold on an exchange, with top players earning up to 1,500 SLPs a day. As a further revenue stream the game’s cute digital pets called Axies can be sold as a non-fungible token (NFT).

So where else should investors look for the long-term gains of utility, rather than a quick buck? Paddy Osborn, managing director of the London Academy of Trading, says it’s clear that the returns from crypto with utility are far superior to coins with no intrinsic value or function. Osborn pointed out that the true challenge, within this complex and fast-paced industry, is to identify these very “hidden gems” before their price skyrockets. A good starting point is that when looking at token utility, any evaluation must be set in a business context. CEO Mayande Walker, who’s blockchain startup OpenCT first emerged in the ICO boom days of 2017, agrees that explaining the role of token utility within the business is key to persuading investors. “When you look at the technical details of how our OpenCT protocol delivers data transport – it soon becomes clear just how dependent it is on a utility token to drive our VPN-killer product, the Private Crypto Network. But it’s also our experience working with governments and global carriers that goes a long way towards convincing would-be-investors and partners of the OCT token’s long-term value” he added.

For rising stars of the GameFi sector, or with fast-moving NFT projects it probably involves doing more in-depth research into the sector, as much as an individual project. Attracting attention is Solana, which despite outage issues since the beginning of August, the price of Solana has risen by more than 100%, making it the tenth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. In the recent Raconteur article Osborn highlights three other coins with real utility, he thinks are worth watching: Polkadot, Internet Computer, and Vechain. Polkadot is building a network with an aim to support a range of different blockchains, enabling them to work together. Internet Computer aims to disrupt the internet space through a decentralised web platform running on a blockchain. Vechain helps companies monitor and analyse their products through each stage of the supply chain in a safe and secure manner. Ultimately, it’s down to the individual investor to do their due diligence before parting with their hard earned cash, whether to back a popular meme coin or invest in a little-known crypto startup’s token.

Original Source: https://programminginsider.com/why-understanding-token-utility-is-key-to-finding-real-value/

Anndy Lian

www.anndy.com

j j j

September 27th, 2021

Forkast News: Why DeFi holds the key to metaverse success

A profound shift is underway in online culture, writes Anndy Lian of BigOne Exchange. Here’s how decentralized finance might one day power the NFT and metaverse economy.

Visa buying a CryptoPunk NFT for around $150,000 recently may be the first sign that these unique digital assets are starting to be taken seriously for commerce. Up until now, the sale of these “non-fungible” assets has been associated with high-priced artwork, but Visa’s purchase, while also about art, is really about promoting their expertise to businesses in the field of using NFTs for commerce. Indeed, in a report, coinciding with the CryptoPunk purchase, Visa states a longer-term vision: “While the prices of individual NFTs fluctuate, fascinating use cases for NFTs are still emerging and the groundwork is being laid for the long-term utility of NFTs.”

One such use case led by big consumer brands from Facebook to Coca Cola is the use of NFTs in the virtual world, called the metaverse. Indeed, if you heard the news that Facebook is about to launch its own crypto wallet Novi (which is — in true metaverse fashion — interoperable with other wallets) then you may also recall it’s also due to work with NFTs as well as stablecoins.

What you may not know is that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees the future of the global social network in the metaverse. Indeed, Zuckerberg recently said that within five years Facebook would be a “metaverse company,” while Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, said they were investing in the “enterprise metaverse.” Simply put, whoever can integrate NFTs and payment with the metaverse may well lead the biggest change in online culture and economy since the birth of the web in the 1990s. This view is also supported by David Raszucki, head of the US$50 billion Roblox Corporation, who sees the emergence of the metaverse as profound a shift as the invention of the internet and the World Wide Web.

Certainly, it’s along those lines in terms of potential of the wider metaverse, coupled with the key role of NFTs that software developer Alethea AI, which claims to have created the world’s first “intelligent NFT,” recently raised US$16 million in funding to create a metaverse populated by its bots. The NFTs that will fill the metaverse will be talking, intelligent NFTs (iNFTs) created by Alethea: machine-learning bots that can have human-like conversations.

“Alethea’s thesis is that NFTs will provide a definitive property rights infrastructure for the emerging Metaverse driven by interactive and intelligent Avatars,” according to the company. “The AI infrastructure built by Alethea will serve as the underlying connective tissue to enable NFTs to ‘come alive’ as interactive media assets, with personality traits, preferences and real-time interactive capability.”

In a recent interview in The Verge, Zuckerberg laid out his vision of a metaverse bringing “enormous opportunity to individual creators and artists; to individuals who want to work and own homes far from today’s urban centers; and to people who live in places where opportunities for education or recreation are more limited. You can think about the metaverse as an embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content — you are in it.”

Of course, anyone who’s watched The Social Network, or has seen how Facebook can do harm through manipulating its online users’ behavior, is certainly going to wonder if the metaverse is going to be in safe hands with Facebook. As Tim Sweeney, CEO of Fortnite maker Epic Games famously once remarked: “This metaverse is going to be far more pervasive and powerful than anything else. If one central company gains control of this, they will become more powerful than any government, and be a god on Earth.”

Supporters of a thoroughly decentralized metaverse, where NFTs play a pivotal role in facilitating the DeFi (decentralized finance) necessary for this meta-project to come into being, gathered recently at the Paris-based ETH event EthCC. Key speaker Ben Lakoff , co-founder of NFT-protocol Charged Particles, led discussion of the need for permissionless, trustless financial services with a high transaction rate for a metaverse to function optimally. The metaverse would also necessitate a large amount of data to be stored and unaltered, where blockchain technology comes into play.

Lakoff underlined this point to the audience, connecting DeFi and identity in his presentation: “NFTs as identity, as a DeFi passport, this on-chain credit scoring — all of these things kind of mixed together. We can start to see how these things play together in a very, very unique way that paved the way for Web 3.0.” Lakoff became particularly passionate when talking about NFTs as financial products able to hold other tokens. “You have your NFT that acts as a basket, owning all of these different types of assets,” he explained, adding that baskets could contain social tokens and interest-bearing assets, as well as enabling easy transfer to another individual’s portfolio.

Certainly, there are many aspects of the metaverse to be figured out before the vision becomes a reality. Matthew Ball, a venture capitalist who wrote a key article about the metaverse in early 2020, also makes this point. A lot of the pieces of the jigsaw must come together before the metaverse can take shape, with Epic Games’ popular “Fortnite” game possibly the nearest to that future available right now, says Ball.

Putting aside the technological challenges of an “always on” environment capable of supporting thousands if not millions of people online in the same virtual space at the same time, what is certain is that a DeFi financial architecture involving NFTs is likely to be key to its success, what you might call the “MetaverseFi.”

Looking at the current cryptocurrency landscape for clues on what form these decentralized products and services might take in the metaverse it’s worth returning to the real world. Take the accelerating mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies, and greater financial institutional involvement. From the legalization of Bitcoin in El Salvador, the implementation of crypto payments in PayPal, to the reformation of the Dogecoin Foundation to push its crypto payment potential, the trend is clear. At the same time, as we’ve seen over in the U.S. with the Infrastructure Bill inclusion of provisions on crypto, and the European Commission’s proposed Regulation on Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA), there’s a parallel push for greater regulation from the government.

Clearly, any key players in creating the metaverse which includes large corporations like Facebook and Epic Games are going to have to be compliant with these emerging DeFi crypto regulations when creating its decentralized payment systems.

In an in-depth look at the prospects for a metaverse, U.K.-based blockchain VC company Outlier Venture has found the the need to have a crypto-decentralized core is paramount: “It needs its own economy and currencies native to it, where value can be earnt, spent, lent, borrowed or invested interchangeably in both a physical or virtual sense and most importantly without the need for a government.”

However, while the metaverse may reside in the virtual world, I believe its use of NFTs and DeFi to bring it to life are firmly rooted in the real world. The dream of an open metaverse is a motivating vision that engages individuals and attracts corporations, but if it’s going to include people from all around the world from Beijing to Boston, it’s also going to have to contend with the impact that increased government scrutiny and regulation will have on DeFi.

AUTHOR PROFILE: ANNDY LIAN

Anndy Lian is chairman of BigOne Exchange, a trading platform registered in the Netherlands. Anndy is a business strategist with over 15 years of experience in Asia, and he has worked in various industries for local, international and publicly traded companies. Anndy is also currently the chief digital advisor at the Mongolian Productivity Organisation.

Original Source: https://forkast.news/why-defi-holds-key-to-metaverse-success/