What is the Metaverse?
Metaverse Categories as defined by MetaPortal:
Gaming
Virtual World
Marketplace
Collectibles
Media and Entertainment
Extended Reality
Artificial Intelligence
NFTfinance
Platform
Category Definitions
Gaming - gaming is most commonly represented by video games, whether on PC, mobile or console. Taking this a step further, gaming is defined by structured play, designed to guide users towards an objective (location, score, solution). There is always an end to a game, whether in campaign or multiplayer. This may be decided by kills, resources or some other score.
Virtual World - contrary to the more defined environment of a game, in a virtual world play is the objective. A virtual world reveals itself when the primary aim of being there is exploration. Rules of the world may differ depending on the location or activity you are in at the time. A virtual world can contain games but does not exist for players to achieve a specific objective beyond play itself.
MetaPortal struggled to make a distinction between gaming and virtual worlds for quite some time. Yet the crucial difference in gaming is structured and objective-based while playing is free, unstructured and has no rules. MetaPortal thinks of gaming as a finite game, while playing is more akin to an infinite game.
Marketplace - marketplaces are designed to facilitate the trading of NFTs. The assets must use an NFT token standard (721, 1155, 998 etc). Beyond that, the marketplace may be open to any and all NFTs, or be subject to a level of curation, where only selected assets may be listed.
Collectibles - projects falling under this category aim to leverage intellectual property, their own or licensed, to create NFTs that will be valuable to collectors. While they might use a marketplace to ensure the items can be traded, the primary goal is to utilise desirable IP to consistently create digital collectibles and powerful digital experiences.
To add more colour on Collectibles, most of these projects will likely have a marketplace. Examples are Terra Virtua or Ethernity Chain. While the marketplace is their business model, what they produce is, effectively, collectible items based on valuable intellectual property. Furthermore, these projects are vertically integrated, if you will. Unlike true marketplaces, they own the entire process from IP to design to sale.
Media and Entertainment - some of the segments that fall under the Media and Entertainment umbrella are movies, television, music, publishing, radio, and advertising. This list is not all-inclusive. The web3 versions of these businesses are powered by NFT technologies and are focused on a fair distribution of ownership between users, creators and platforms.
Extended Reality - protocols in this category fuse augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) or virtual reality (VR), with crypto-native technologies and concepts like blockchain, NFTs and smart contracts.
Artificial intelligence - protocols in this category merge artificial intelligence or machine learning, with crypto-native technologies and concepts like blockchain, NFTs and smart contracts.
NFTfinance - any project that allows you to unlock the financial value of your NFT. This can be through lending or borrowing, tokenisation, fractionalisation or pooling.
Platform - platforms provide structures or tooling that are used as a base upon which other applications, processes or technologies are developed, using the same technical framework. Examples specific to the metaverse would include blockchains that are optimised for gaming/NFTs or projects that offer tools to help develop any of the categories above.
The Curious Case of Social Tokens
Metaportal doesn't consider individual social tokens fall under the mandate outlined above and have not incorporate it into the Metaverse Index. As social tokens are a “category of digital assets backed by the reputation of an individual, brand or community.” There are different types of social tokens in existence today. Here are some examples:
Time tokens
Personal tokens aka personal IDOs
Reputations tokens
Access tokens
Gated content
Rewards, perks, discounts, etc
The problem with including social tokens into MVI and the Prime Rating is that there will likely be millions of them. It would be like picking individual NFTs for the index. Furthermore its difficult to differentiate between community social tokens and most other tokens - as most tokens represent a community and are likely to go up or down in price based on what that community believes.
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