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Have you been looking at the Maetaverse at all? https://www.sandbox.game/en/ https://www.sandbox.game/en/ https://decentraland.org/ https://decentraland.org/

Have you been looking at the Maetaverse at all? https://www.sandbox.game/en/ https://www.sandbox.game/en/ https://decentraland.org/ https://decentraland.org/ These are 3D virtual world environments and people are using crypto to build an online economy. They are trading property, buying virtual artwork and creating galleries, setting up clubs and meeting spaces, etc. You can also explore decentralized finance, act as a peer-to-peer lender, provide liquidity in a marketplace, fund an idea you're interested in, whether that's a game (https://illuvium.io https://illuvium.io) or a commission for a comic book series (https://www.one37pm.com/nft/art/punks-comic-pixel-vault-cryptopunks https://www.one37pm.com/nft/art/punks-comic-pixel-vault-cryp...) or start a DAO and raise money for charity or open source software (https://gitcoin.co/ https://gitcoin.co/).

morelisp 5y ago
> They are trading property, buying virtual artwork and creating galleries, setting up clubs and meeting spaces, etc. This all happens in Second Life and doesn't need to burn the planet to do it.
- SubiculumCode 5y ago
  If you think these defi projects are hurting the environment then you have not been paying attention to the industry. Proof of Stake, what most smart contract tokens are moving to, is very energy efficient.
  - floatboth 5y ago
    Is anyone actually really sure that Proof of Steak is secure though? Anyway, none of this matters because Bitcoin exists and is the dominant shitcoin (due to first mover advantage). All these other shitcoins can claim whatever efficiency, but it doesn't matter because that's a very isolated view of the problem. The shitcoin economy as a whole will still be fueled by mining unless somehow Bitcoin gets dethroned and the whole mining thing just goes away. I can't imagine that happening without the whole economy crashing completely into the ground – but that would bring all these efficient coins down with it.
    - disqard 5y ago
      This is my first time hearing the moniker "shitcoin". Thank you :D
    - chrisco255 5y ago
      Yes, they've been live for years. Bitcoin can't do smart contracts, it's not a Turing complete scripting language and it's very difficult to work with, so of course it matters. And already more transactions and more daily volume is settled on Ethereum than Bitcoin, see https://money-movers.info/ https://money-movers.info/ and https://cryptofees.info/ https://cryptofees.info/ (pink lines are Ethereum DeFi applications)
- chrisco255 5y ago
  Ethereum is transitioning to proof of stake which means the nodes will run on raspberry pis. At any rate, if you think data centers are burning the planet, you really should boycott the internet. Its data centers and mainframes all the way down.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    Stake is better than work, but it also forever installs a system where the rich get richer just for being rich.
lreeves 5y ago
Second Life did this 3D virtual world stuff almost 20 years ago, and even managed to use real money with an exchange rate as well to do exactly the things you're saying are now new with crypto and blockchains. Also for your other points - the games in this space are universally unfun to play with hardly anyone actually playing them; I can pay normal money to commission artwork; and I can use a zillion platforms that already exist to raise money.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  They did, but they were an insular community as a result. NFTs allow for a common open standard to be interoperable between games. That helps create an economy where, for example, you can buy a digital artwork at a Christie's auction and display it in Decentraland and have it be verifiably authentic. Second Life was awesome! This Metaverse trend is pushing that concept much, much further and it's giving ownership and utility to the makers.
  - lreeves 5y ago
    I don't think any of that matters at all to people who enjoy the games or virtual worlds. I understand your point, I just disagree that it will matter in any way. >you can buy a digital artwork at a Christie's auction and display it in Decentraland and have it be verifiably authentic I can't imagine anyone would give a shit about someone's virtual art being "authentic" for whatever meaning of authentic NFTs pretend to claim. This is basically receipt porn at this point. Truly we're talking about bragging about wealth, one of the shittiest traits a person can have.
  - throwaway3699 5y ago
    Look to the Steam Community Market & Trading if you want an example of a cross-game economy.
    - chrisco255 5y ago
      And how does it interoperate with the virtual artwork NFT ecosystem that is burgeoning right now? Can I use a song I purchased on Audius to play in my virtual pad on Decentraland while showing off some art work that I purchased on OpenSea?
curtisf 5y ago
> These are 3D virtual world environments and people are using (VIRTUAL CURRENCY) to build an online economy. They are trading property, buying virtual artwork and creating galleries, setting up clubs and meeting spaces, etc. What you're describing here is Roblox (2006), which was launched 2 years before Bitcoin was conceived, and has attained a market cap of >$50 billion without any cryptocurrency nonsense. Or Second Life (2003). Or RuneScape (2001). Cryptocurrency doesn't enable online trading with virtual currency -- if anything, it's dramatically _more_ difficult to use than either real plastic, or virtual currency sitting in a SQL table. What it enables is theoretical trust in a shared ledger (handwaving that a Sybil attack isn't attempted by any of the massive mining pools); but this trust is assuming you're a computer scientist capable of auditing the clients and contracts. Yet, even professional programmers have lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crypto with programming mistakes and security flaws in their smart contracts and clients! If even professional crypto software developers can't take advantage of cryptocurrency's supposed benefits, how are the players of an online game supposed to? The answer is of course that they have to relegate trust, in the same way that online shoppers relegate trust to Visa/Mastercard. The important difference being that only Visa/Mastercard guarantee your funds are returned if you're defrauded.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  No, I'm not describing Roblox. Roblox is a great game and has many great characteristics, but this is bigger and broader than that. Sybil attacks would be detected in an open network first of all. If you can pull it off, I invite you to try: there's hundreds of billions of dollars on the table protected by nothing but cryptography and game theory. Knock yourself out. I'm sure all the people in this space are idiots and haven't seen the holes you claim are there. I'm old enough to remember when using a credit card was a hassle or seen as predatory on consumers and many people either refused to use credit or accept credit in their businesses. For several decades using a credit card wasn't any more convenient than using cash or check even. Over time, the scanners got better and faster, Visa and MasterCard integrated with ATM debit cards, and then mobile phones and swiping plugins enabled it all to get better. Now it's ubiquitous. But that ubiquity will make it all the more easier for merchants to adopt crypto. It turns out there is already crypto insurance protocols like Nexus Mutual and Cover that will cover you if a loss occurs. Insurance is really just a business problem that is easily fixable. On the plus side crypto is far more secure than Visa or MasterCard, because it works on public/private key cryptography and you simply sign a transaction rather than enter your name and address and all the same information you'd need to commit a fraudulent credit card transaction.
danbolt 5y ago
The assets available for those games are ultimately at the mercy of the proprietary Unity client. If the company developing it decides to stop doing so or supporting certain assets, you might find the things you previously had become unusable overnight.
imtringued 5y ago
The games may be bad (I don't know) but honestly at least the currency is being used for something. I personally disagree with in app purchases because it leads to game design where the cash shop becomes the solution to all the pre designed problems but criticizing game design isn't the same thing as criticizing cryptocurrencies.

morelisp 5y ago

> They are trading property, buying virtual artwork and creating galleries, setting up clubs and meeting spaces, etc. This all happens in Second Life and doesn't need to burn the planet to do it.

SubiculumCode 5y ago
If you think these defi projects are hurting the environment then you have not been paying attention to the industry. Proof of Stake, what most smart contract tokens are moving to, is very energy efficient.
- floatboth 5y ago
  Is anyone actually really sure that Proof of Steak is secure though? Anyway, none of this matters because Bitcoin exists and is the dominant shitcoin (due to first mover advantage). All these other shitcoins can claim whatever efficiency, but it doesn't matter because that's a very isolated view of the problem. The shitcoin economy as a whole will still be fueled by mining unless somehow Bitcoin gets dethroned and the whole mining thing just goes away. I can't imagine that happening without the whole economy crashing completely into the ground – but that would bring all these efficient coins down with it.
  - disqard 5y ago
    This is my first time hearing the moniker "shitcoin". Thank you :D
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    Yes, they've been live for years. Bitcoin can't do smart contracts, it's not a Turing complete scripting language and it's very difficult to work with, so of course it matters. And already more transactions and more daily volume is settled on Ethereum than Bitcoin, see https://money-movers.info/ https://money-movers.info/ and https://cryptofees.info/ https://cryptofees.info/ (pink lines are Ethereum DeFi applications)
chrisco255 5y ago
Ethereum is transitioning to proof of stake which means the nodes will run on raspberry pis. At any rate, if you think data centers are burning the planet, you really should boycott the internet. Its data centers and mainframes all the way down.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  Stake is better than work, but it also forever installs a system where the rich get richer just for being rich.

lreeves 5y ago

Second Life did this 3D virtual world stuff almost 20 years ago, and even managed to use real money with an exchange rate as well to do exactly the things you're saying are now new with crypto and blockchains. Also for your other points - the games in this space are universally unfun to play with hardly anyone actually playing them; I can pay normal money to commission artwork; and I can use a zillion platforms that already exist to raise money.

chrisco255 5y ago
They did, but they were an insular community as a result. NFTs allow for a common open standard to be interoperable between games. That helps create an economy where, for example, you can buy a digital artwork at a Christie's auction and display it in Decentraland and have it be verifiably authentic. Second Life was awesome! This Metaverse trend is pushing that concept much, much further and it's giving ownership and utility to the makers.
- lreeves 5y ago
  I don't think any of that matters at all to people who enjoy the games or virtual worlds. I understand your point, I just disagree that it will matter in any way. >you can buy a digital artwork at a Christie's auction and display it in Decentraland and have it be verifiably authentic I can't imagine anyone would give a shit about someone's virtual art being "authentic" for whatever meaning of authentic NFTs pretend to claim. This is basically receipt porn at this point. Truly we're talking about bragging about wealth, one of the shittiest traits a person can have.
- throwaway3699 5y ago
  Look to the Steam Community Market & Trading if you want an example of a cross-game economy.
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    And how does it interoperate with the virtual artwork NFT ecosystem that is burgeoning right now? Can I use a song I purchased on Audius to play in my virtual pad on Decentraland while showing off some art work that I purchased on OpenSea?

curtisf 5y ago

> These are 3D virtual world environments and people are using (VIRTUAL CURRENCY) to build an online economy. They are trading property, buying virtual artwork and creating galleries, setting up clubs and meeting spaces, etc. What you're describing here is Roblox (2006), which was launched 2 years before Bitcoin was conceived, and has attained a market cap of >$50 billion without any cryptocurrency nonsense. Or Second Life (2003). Or RuneScape (2001). Cryptocurrency doesn't enable online trading with virtual currency -- if anything, it's dramatically _more_ difficult to use than either real plastic, or virtual currency sitting in a SQL table. What it enables is theoretical trust in a shared ledger (handwaving that a Sybil attack isn't attempted by any of the massive mining pools); but this trust is assuming you're a computer scientist capable of auditing the clients and contracts. Yet, even professional programmers have lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crypto with programming mistakes and security flaws in their smart contracts and clients! If even professional crypto software developers can't take advantage of cryptocurrency's supposed benefits, how are the players of an online game supposed to? The answer is of course that they have to relegate trust, in the same way that online shoppers relegate trust to Visa/Mastercard. The important difference being that only Visa/Mastercard guarantee your funds are returned if you're defrauded.

chrisco255 5y ago
No, I'm not describing Roblox. Roblox is a great game and has many great characteristics, but this is bigger and broader than that. Sybil attacks would be detected in an open network first of all. If you can pull it off, I invite you to try: there's hundreds of billions of dollars on the table protected by nothing but cryptography and game theory. Knock yourself out. I'm sure all the people in this space are idiots and haven't seen the holes you claim are there. I'm old enough to remember when using a credit card was a hassle or seen as predatory on consumers and many people either refused to use credit or accept credit in their businesses. For several decades using a credit card wasn't any more convenient than using cash or check even. Over time, the scanners got better and faster, Visa and MasterCard integrated with ATM debit cards, and then mobile phones and swiping plugins enabled it all to get better. Now it's ubiquitous. But that ubiquity will make it all the more easier for merchants to adopt crypto. It turns out there is already crypto insurance protocols like Nexus Mutual and Cover that will cover you if a loss occurs. Insurance is really just a business problem that is easily fixable. On the plus side crypto is far more secure than Visa or MasterCard, because it works on public/private key cryptography and you simply sign a transaction rather than enter your name and address and all the same information you'd need to commit a fraudulent credit card transaction.

danbolt 5y ago

The assets available for those games are ultimately at the mercy of the proprietary Unity client. If the company developing it decides to stop doing so or supporting certain assets, you might find the things you previously had become unusable overnight.

imtringued 5y ago

The games may be bad (I don't know) but honestly at least the currency is being used for something. I personally disagree with in app purchases because it leads to game design where the cash shop becomes the solution to all the pre designed problems but criticizing game design isn't the same thing as criticizing cryptocurrencies.