This Week in the Metaverse for November 14, 2022

0 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:38,000 Script: November 14, 2022 1 00:00:39,000 --> 00:01:07,000 Hi, it’s Mike Stiles and this is This Week in the Metaverse, your weekly newscast that keeps you up to date on everything that isn’t real, and yet is. It’s November 14th. Let’s see if the death of the metaverse is being greatly exaggerated. 2 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:36,000 FTX probably broke the record this week for most media stories about one single topic. That whole thing just went all to hell and its rival Binance didn’t even want to rescue it by acquiring it due to mishandling of customer funds. People couldn’t make withdrawals from FTX fast enough. So what’s that all about? Sam Bankman-Fried is/was super highly regarded in the crypto community and started FTX, which everyone thought was on solid ground. Then it suddenly suspended withdrawals, never a good sign. July 2021, Binance sold its stake in FTX for $2.1 billion worth of FTT, FTX’s token. Last week, a report from CoinDesk said hold up, the balance sheet of Alameda Research, FTX’s sister company, was choked up with billions of dollars in FTT. That got people worrying about FTX and Alameda’s financial exposure to FTT, because it can’t easily be turned back into cash. Then Binance shed itself of all FTT, plunging the price almost 90% and kicking off a surge of panicky withdrawals. FTX’s collapse leaves Binance the world’s largest crypto exchange by an even wider margin than it was before and gives it great control over what kinds of coins are widely listed for purchase. FTX’s implosion also reignites the debate over how to protect crypto investors. One idea being everybody provide transparent “proof of reserves” to show they have enough cash on hand to fund customer withdrawals. It’s the second mention of the word cash in this story and a nice reminder that that seems to be the only thing secure and trusted. 3 00:01:37,000 --> 00:02:05,000 Have you ever wanted to start your own nation? Of course not, you’re too busy trying to make the one you’re in 100% to your likes and preferences. But if you ever did want to start one, you might want to follow the lead of the Balkans and start it in the metaverse first. That’s right, Lisa Gibbons reports in Euronews there’s a self-declared Balkan micronation founded in 2015 called Liberland. And it’s going to be the first country built and populated first in a virtual world before it eventually becomes an honest to gosh country that can compete in things like the Olympics and Eurovision. A world-renowned architectural firm is already working on a virtual city. There are 7,000 approved residents and 700,000 more applications being process. And yes, they actually have real land picked out. It’s on the banks of the Danube between Serbia and Croatia, and since unbelievably no country has claimed it, it was officially no man’s land, and a former Czech MP was able to snatch it up. They found it through Google search while I was searching for Breaking Bad trivia. The country will be a mixture of American republic, Swiss democracy, and Singapore’s meritocracy of Singapore with the whole system on blockchain for transparency. Taxes will be voluntary, but people are rewarded when they pay them. The metaverse part is so citizens can meet and start forming this society without having to go to the land just yet. The goal of the architect is to create equivalent virtual venues for all future physical venues. 4 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:34,000 Once again, we visit the topic of, can you really ever own anything in the metaverse? As reported in World Economic Forum, at least one associate law professor, Joao Marinotti at Indiana University says nope. Ownership of NFTs fall under contract law, not property law, so Marinotti agrees with other legal experts that you can’t legally own the NFTs you buy. All that’s happening is you’re paying money for the platforms to grant you access to them. Kinda makes you less swaggery as you sport your new virtual Nikes. Also, the platforms can cut off your access pretty much anytime they want. So that investment firm that bought 2,000 acres of metaverse real estate in The Sandbox for about $4 million, it owns nothing for all those millions. When you buy an item in the metaverse, the purchase is recorded on a blockchain, which you’re happy because that’s all decentralized. But all you have there is a unique string of bits. But an NFT, the string of bits, and the digital item aren’t one in the same. To use your item, the metaverse platform as to give you access to it, and that ain’t decentralized. It’s very centralized and controlled. Remember, virtual worlds aren’t connected to each other. One platform might let you wear your virtual Nikes, but another won’t. And if you ever get banned from the platform that does let you wear your virtual Nikes, you have nothing except a string of useless code on the blockchain. Sorry to be the one to tell you that but I’m sure your blockchain code is very nice. 5 00:02:35,000 --> 00:03:03,000 Fancy you and your avatar trying on clothes in the metaverse? Well put your sweatpants back on Paulina because Kimberly Gedeon at Laptop Magazine says there are three things currently crushing that dream. Actually, its Metaverse Expert Dr. Rolf Illenberger, managing director of VRDirect, that listed these things so don’t blame Kimberly for any frumpiness. First, the VR hardware just isn’t there yet. They don’t have enough what’s called degrees of freedom to make the experience work well and the resolution is still garbage, at least to make fashion shopping workable. Next, the adoption rate of VR just doesn’t justify the investments required to make clothes try-ons a thing. Only 15% of the U.S. population are VR users. Shoppers have to be in the metaverse before companies find it worth putting up a store and facilitating virtual fitting rooms. Lastly, the backend infrastructure for VR headsets still can’t manage a cool clothes shopping experience. The APIs aren’t great for checking out if you wanted to buy the item you tried on. But Illenberger says these issues will get solved one day and your dream vision of trying on clothes virtually will eventually become a reality, so keep your shirt on. 6 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:32,000 Michael Ogden is chief creative officer at the VR company Mesmerise, and he has this crazy idea that the builders of metaverse venues must keep humanity in mind when designing these experiences. Here are the tips he and his team have learned over the years. 1. Take inspiration from the real world but note the differences. Avatars need more room around their seat because they tend to move around a lot more. Details of the materials like wood must be visible to create a sense of space. And spatial audio has to deepen the impact of the visuals. 2. Empathize with your audience. Think about how you want your guests to feel. What is the purpose of the venue? And don’t build something generic or without character. 3. Don’t forget story. Even a metaverse audience is instinctively looking for a narrative progression. And 4. The more technology advances the more important, and challenging, it’s going to be to hang onto those human considerations. Now go listen to the song “I’m Only Human” by the Human League. 7 00:03:33,000 --> 00:04:01,000 Amateur singing and people getting rejected by stars in spinning robot chairs arrived in the metaverse. Christopher Rosa at NBC Insider says the TV show The Voice came to Decentraland and made attendees’ avatars the stars. No time like the present for a panic attack if you get performance anxiety. It happened at the 2022 Decentraland Metaverse Music Festival, which just wrapped up. In the Voice-themed game, fans stood in front of metaverse coaches and collected “notes” to the beat of a song in an attempt to get a chair turn. If you don’t watch the show, a chair turn is a good thing. If you got said chair turn, you possibly won a Voice collectible. Maybe a used Blake Shelton belt buckle. Speaking of Blake, players were also able to stop by the virtual Voice set and snag selfies with coaches like Blake, Gwen Stefani, and John Legend. The whole idea of The Voice is to use blind auditions so singers can be judged just on their singing and not what they look like. We can’t all be as cute as Justin Timberlake. 8 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:30,000 That’s all we have for you this week. If you want to help me turn tens of listeners into hundreds, tell your friends who are into the metaverse about this show and we’ll be back next week. 9 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:33,000 In this short episode you’ll learn: 10 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:36,000 What the FTX implosion means for the rest of crypto 11 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:39,000 About a brand-new nation that’s starting in the metaverse first, but then will be real land 12 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:42,000 Why if you own an NFT, you may not own what you think you do 13 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:45,000 What’s keeping trying on clothes from being a cool metaverse experience 14 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:48,000 Why we need to keep humanity in mind as we build metaverse experiences 15 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:51,000 How people got to audition for The Voice in the metaverse 16 00:04:52,000 --> 00:05:00,000 https://thisweekinthemetaverse.podbean.com/e/this-week-in-the-metaverse-for-november-7-2022/