Why is it important?

To keep the metaverse solutions open and transparent, they should be developed with the highest integrity, honesty and openness in mind.

What does success look like?

Cardano should be recognized as one of the most viable options to create trustworthy solutions for the increasingly digitalized society.

Key Metrics to measure

Although for most the word “metaverse” refers to a parallel digital reality, it's actually a sliding scale from a fully analog world to a fully digital one. An open metaverse solution doesn't have to be a fully immersive experience. All innovations that augment the analog experience with trustworthy digital solutions matter. Whether you label it VR, AR, XR or Metaverse solution doesn't matter so much, as long as it takes us towards a safe, transparent and trustworthy Open Metaverse.

Challenge brief

Web2 held a promise of a more participatory, fun and user-driven internet. Yet it was soon co-opted by powerful corporations.

Web3 holds the same promise and our daily interactions happen more and more online. Web3 just goes one step further, promising true decentralization and control of your own data. As we engage with one another, and increasingly with machines, we can become active creators of a truly decentralized Internet of Value. One day, probably sooner than expected, augmented reality interfaces enable us to morph the user experience into a mesh of Metaverses.

Unfortunately, if this is not done with the highest integrity, transparency and openness in mind, Web3 will face the same faith as Web2. It will be annexed by power-hungry mega enterprises. Any technology can be used with good or bad intentions, and there will be unimagined consequences. At its worst, Metaverse can become a dystopian nightmare that we can't wake up from.

Therefore, when developing the building blocks of the metaverse and services on it, solid information security and decentralized self-sovereign identity become necessities. Blockchain solutions need to be developed in collaboration with government, nonprofits, educational institutions and business.

Summary (from PwC):

• Don't believe the hype: the metaverse is an evolution, not a revolution. And it's one that business leaders should not ignore.
• The metaverse may profoundly change how businesses and consumers interact with products, services and each other.
• Key metaverse concepts, including digital economy innovations such as cryptocurrencies, are business-relevant today.
• Risks are real too: new technologies require new strategies and new methods to build trust.
• Measured actions can allow business leaders to familiarize themselves with the six most important metaverse concepts and explore lower-risk use cases.

The building blocks of the metaverse:

Economy

Cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other blockchain-based digital currencies, assets and exchanges will likely underpin value exchange across the metaverse. Further innovation will be needed as governments, companies and new, digital-only organizations work to build trusted digital monetary systems, offer new data monetization propositions and conduct lending, payments, real estate investment and more in the metaverse. Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) — with voluntarily agreed-upon rules enforced by a computer program that runs on a blockchain — will likely play important roles.

Interoperability

A true metaverse requires seamless interoperability among users and platforms, based on web 3.0 and still-to-be-determined standards. While this interoperability will offer new possibilities to reach and understand customers, it will also raise new challenges for gathering and protecting data, and for cybersecurity and privacy. It may also undermine business strategies built around keeping users and their data in a given platform. Competitive advantage may shift to those companies that offer (through hardware or software) trusted ways for users to enter the metaverse.

Governance

The metaverse will need rules of engagement for users, rules for how the metaverse itself can change over time and enforcement mechanisms, including for tax collection, data governance and regulatory compliance. Early movers may be able to help set these rules. Security will be paramount, as a new, decentralized digital world may offer malicious actors a new world of entry points for attack. Authenticity — and trust more broadly — should also be front and center, to reduce the disinformation that has often plagued the internet.

Identity

In the internet today, identity is often linked to platforms. It may be true, pseudonymous or anonymous. The metaverse, decentralized and interconnected, will need trusted digital identities — for people, assets and organizations — that port across platforms. Companies active in digital identity now may both help set the metaverse’s standards and be able to offer a necessary service. Digital identities may also be central to permitted data collection and data governance in a decentralized environment.

Experience

A shared, persistent and immersive 3D digital world will offer unique experiences, based on its own aesthetics — beliefs, ideals and tastes as expressed in individual choices. Some trends for user experience are already becoming clear, in games and VR / AR environments. Companies that create trusted metaverse experiences and protect privacy rights may win consumer loyalty, while those that stay on top of metaverse trends may be well placed to forecast consumer preferences and behavior.

Persistence

A true metaverse should reflect in real time the changes made in it by different participants, entering and leaving it in different ways, in different places, at different times. When you take your metaverse headset off, the metaverse and other participants will continue their activities uninterrupted, with (for example) smart contracts enforcing agreements and trading assets. This persistence will likely require a new approach to digital assets and activities, including services and applications that are portable, dynamically configurable and extensible.

Source: Demystifying the Metaverse

Alignment with Fund9 strategic goals

Fund9 Challenge Setting proposals have to meet one or more of these attributes:

• Prepare a group of people willing and able to make contributions to the ecosystem.
• Because it's so trendy, a metaverse-related challenge can help bring people from outside of Cardano ecosystem into Catalyst.
• Turn Cardano into an open source project.
• The centralized metaverse model advanced by large corporations is a threat to all things open source. This challenge setting proposal helps Cardano become a notable player in the Open Metaverse.
• Accelerate the growth and evolution of developer & app ecosystem.
• It is safe to assume that metaverse-related initiatives will be exciting for the growth of developer ecosystem and dApp builders, too.

Challenge Team

You are welcome to join the challenge team. Just connect with the main proposer Tomi Astikainen. He is a Kickstarter, Connector and Storyteller who helps in different facets of Project Catalyst. He is in various Challenge Teams, a Veteran Community Advisor and an active community member since Fund3.

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomiastikainen/>