Facebook Inc. has rebranded itself as “Meta” and the crypto-world has lost its mind. But why has it lost over a simple name change? The answer being that one of the biggest companies in the world has given the nod to the idea of the metaverse – a shared virtual reality, like that of social media, where people get to interact within an augmented reality. The plan for the Facebook metaverse was in motion for quite a while but the rebranding suggests that Facebook wants to lead the charge of the revolution. The metaverse has been in common parlance since the 90s but have been rated by technology analysts as “over-hyped”.
The first proper use was in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel, Snow Crash where humans were able to interact with third-dimensional characters. Since then, there have been numerous attempts to at the very least construct the foundation for a Metaverse. At the current point in time, there has been no tangible developments towards the Metaverse. It is considered the evolution of the internet but how it is to come about, the world is unsure.
One technology that may open the gates for future interaction is the blockchain technology giving each created specimen of data a unique identity in the form of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). Combining this with virtual reality technology that has been commercialized to a certain extent already and the estimated improvement virtual reality is going to have over the years, a Metaverse may not be that far behind. But there is still a long way to way and the roads have no signs.
Since the Metaverse has the roadmap of person-intractability and engagement, the best way to do that is through games. Two games that we are to discuss are Axie Infinity and Decentraland. Due to the news about Meta all the metaverse projects have had a sudden surge in the price.
Axie Infinity (AXS)
Axie Infinity is an Ethereum-based play-to-earn game that is heavily influenced by Nintendo’s Pokémon franchise. Axie Infinity, on the other hand, allows users to breed, raise, combat, and trade NFTs in the form of pets known as Axies. Axie Infinity works through two native tokens, that is the Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) which is the governing token, and Smooth Love Potion (SLP) which is the in-game token earned while the game is being played. At the time of writing this article, Axie Infinity is valued at $151.61 at the time of writing this article with an increase from $126.31 when the news of Facebook rebranding itself as meta.
Decentraland (MANA)
The other coin is by Decentraland whose token is MANA. It is a 3D (initially 2D game) where in-game items, characters, events are created, each with its own unique identity and then they can be transferred, sold, or bought within the game for MANA. It works on the principles of Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) with a democratic rule making policy. At the time of writing this article, MANA has a value of $2.44 with a 92.31% increase in the last twenty-four hours. On the 29th, it had a value of $0.852.
