METACON

I visited the METACON event at Dubai World Trade Center yesterday. The visit was exhilarating to say the least! The idea of the conference itself is amazing: networking, education, workshops, panel discussions about metaverse, NFT, web 3.0, e-sports and blockchain. This was so enlightening that I wanted to share some of the things I learned:

• We are still at the beginning: Everyone I spoke to stated that these "topics / technologies / discussions / projects" about metaverse, NFT, web 3.0 are still in their infancy. We have not yet even scratched the surface of what is coming. During the 80's, the internet was envisioned as the network of networks, linking the whole world, and many said this would never be possible. We are living this "impossible" today and we will be experiencing the metaverse in 5, 10 years or more!
• A Visionary Leadership: The U.A.E. government has taken serious steps to leverage opportunities within the metaverse: the establishment of the Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), the establishment of a new task force to track the latest developments in the digital economy and announcing the Dubai Metavator challenge! Check out BEDU, and Last Hopium two cool local startups!
• Interesting Mix: The participating companies were a mix of gaming companies, content creators, metaverse creators, NFT creators, intermediaries marketing and selling NFTs on behalf of artists and VCs.
• Today, it's about Gaming: Many of the "metaverses" created today are about gaming, but new ideas are popping up for metaverses for other uses. Example: the Ethereum Towers (https://ethereumtowers.com/), which is a real estate metaverse, providing property for personal and business use! You can purchase a unit, decorate it, show your NFTs on the walls and invite your friends for a virtual gathering. A business can purchase a unit to host meetings which are more "real" than having them on Zoom or Teams (attendees use VR headsets to join the room, see each other in the virtual world, cannot be distracted while the meeting is going on and the room furniture can be customized on demand!). Could we see the equivalent of Airbnb and WeWork in the metaverse?
• A Paradigm Shift: These new topics / technologies / discussions require a completely new way of thinking. You almost have to un-learn what you know, approach the new topics with a fresh mind and be ready to learn something completely new!
• Built on 3 pillars: Web 3.0 is about "de-centralization", "ownership" and "peer to peer transferability". In this new world, you will own your content, no centralized entity will control it. You can transfer "assets" and "privileges" you own to almost anyone!
• Blockchain is the Future: Blockchain - as a decentralized technology - will play a major role in all transactions in the metaverse.
• NFT's with Benefits: Many players in this domain are acting as a bridge between web 2.0 and web 3.0 (Web 2.0 means the current world that we live in, represented by social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter and others). Many of the discussions were about using assets in the virtual world (e.g. NFTs) to get perks in the real world. Example: owning a silver/golden/platinum hotel chain key (NFT) will provide you discounts in that hotel chain. You can use the discounts yourself, pass them entirely to others or pass them partially to others and make some profit from the difference! i.e. owning the key/NFT can be used as a wealth builder! This is new as in the current web 2.0 world, you either use the benefits or you loose them but you cannot pass them to others (e.g. the platinum status in an airline cannot be given to a friend). I can see many of the organizations starting to issue and sell NFTs that give privileges which are sellable and transferrable (just like you can sell a character in an online game!).
• Funny Names: Many, if not all, of these new companies have funny names: Bad Days, Crax, Shonen Junk, Zoe Winters, Boba and Llamaverse !
• NFTing Things: Some projects are about taking original and rare assets and creating NFTs from them. A project in Japan (AnimeFi) is creating an NFT from the original "Anime" assets used to create the cartoons.
• Education Metaverse: An interesting company is TATTVA118. They are creating an "education metaverse" bringing the virtual world to students. Chemistry and the periodic table was their start. Check them out!
• New Cool Games: Another cool company is CONREALITY who is using Microsoft Hololens to bring the real and virtual world together. Imagine playing paintball in real life, where one of the players is a real drone which can shoot paintballs and be shot down by the players!