What Are The Biggest Use Cases So Far in Blockchain Virtual Worlds? Games, Clubs, Art, Conferences and More!
In this post, I’ll explore industries and experiences that seem to be growing and showing promise within Blockchain Virtual Worlds.
We’re still relatively new and this space has a lot of growth ahead of it.
Art
No brainer, we’ve seen the Art community dominate Virtual Worlds. Whether it be Cryptovoxels or Decentraland,
God @cryptovoxels is cool.
Anyone know where I am? @builtoneth pic.twitter.com/kGXhxY8K5J
β DeFi Dad – defidad.eth (@DeFi_Dad) March 17, 2020
Thanks to everyone who came yesterday to the first #CryptoArt meeting in @decentraland! π
We’re proud you liked it, see you in the next one! π pic.twitter.com/iCU5gQUwSW
β Polygonal Mind (@polygonalmind) March 26, 2020
Galleries will be big!
.#Crypto Art has a Bright Future in #Decentraland and other Metaverse’s
π
Music by https://t.co/ig5pQDUgVq pic.twitter.com/8ODUu178kG
β dclblogger.eth (@DCLBlogger) March 10, 2020
Gaming/Competitions
Obviously this is going to be HUGE in Digital Worlds
So far we have seen the Blockrunner team build a whole franchise business in selling games, (soon to be tokenized).
People pay 10 MANA to play and can get a share of the daily and monthly pot.
there are now TWO different @TheBlockRunner games at NorthGenesis Gaming (17,88) in @decentraland! the games are Block Runner and Block Hole. Come try to get the highest score. Daily High Scorers win MANA!! #Decentraland $MANA #NFTs #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/ZEd7ZAI0Ge
β DCLanorak (@DCLanorak) February 18, 2020
There was also a Backgammon competition built by the Decentral Games Team
Congrats to @Ferri26550834 (Pupsik06 on Discord) for winning the first ever @decentraland backgammon tournament and taking home the 1 $LAND parcel top prize! pic.twitter.com/VV9Ue7ciwx
β Decentral Games (@decentralgames) March 20, 2020
Decentraland are yet to release features like ‘DAO based Guilds’, Multiplayer support, more advanced SDK features which should take gamification to the next level.
From the Decentraland Road Map:Β https://trello.com/b/YZnGNh5z/decentraland-roadmap-2020-and-beyond
The Sandbox whole premise is building a Minecraft game on Blockchain where you will be able to create games, buy and sell different smart models like guns, characters, etc and basically build a big world with voxel based buildings and games.
They are on the cusp of selling another 10% of land supply.
Only 500 LANDS are remaining! π¨
Take part of our third presale round and secure your piece of the metaverse β https://t.co/zNYJbUY2qC#Blockchain #NFT pic.twitter.com/hvGSTqSYkb
β The Sandbox (@TheSandboxGame) March 31, 2020
Giveaways/Treasure Hunts
This was part of Decentraland Launch.
Although the launch was buggy and the ‘success’ of it is debatable, there was a HUGE desire from people to join, play and hopefully win some crypto/NFTs in the process.
A quote from the Decentraland post-launchΒ write up article,
“Over 12,000 active participants.Β 66,000 rewards given to 6,385 distinct usersΒ 700k+ MANA, 590k ANJ, 82k+ MATIC, 10k+ wearables, 2k+ Cryptokitties, 33 Axies, 25 LAND and two HTC Exodus 1 phones found and bagged.”
We also noticed a lot of activity in the Discord and social media as people ran around trying to find these chests.
There definitely will be a big desire to ‘win’ things in Decentraland and other virtual worlds.
Dance Events/Clubs
These have been some of the most fun meetups. Just letting loose and having fun to some great tunes!
Now all I need to do is record a song. @SugarDCL pic.twitter.com/KMVv3Q95Hw
β danky.art (@ConnieDigital) February 21, 2020
I have seen a few clubs pop up lately.
Not to mention Somnium Space rocking it out
Another epic evening in #VirtualReality inside @SomniumSpace! Immersion is key: I am dancing on a video floor with other people in real time, while seeing colors from that video reflecting on my skin and shadows from my body on the walls all on a #blockchain #VRland parcel. #RP1 pic.twitter.com/lbpu6Z0LOd
β Artur Sychov π₯½ + π (@ASychov) March 29, 2020
Conferences
No doubt this will be big.
Especially once there are enough features to enable things like Audio streaming, slides, presentations, voice chat, putting your hands up, maybe a laser pointer or a way to sign entrance books, etc.
We had Coinfest hold some meetups and a conference soon.
Anyone can hold a coinfest meetup so next year I’m sure this will be bigger and better on Decentraland.
There’s also companies like DCG and I’m sure many waiting and watching to start running conferences once the features are there.
20+ Buildings in #Decentraland ALL @DCGco Partners!
THIS is how a Virtual Business Space should look like.
Coinbase
Kraken
BitPay
Coinbase
Merkle Science
Ripple
Carbon
Horizen Labs
ZCash
Wyre
Purse
BoostVC
QOHash
Etherscan
more..Maybe plans to propose a Virtual Workspace? pic.twitter.com/1gFmaNXSVP
β dclblogger.eth (@DCLBlogger) March 15, 2020
Education/Immersive Experiences
Two experiences come to mind.
The Ross Ulbricht Tower which I did a write up on a while back.
I learnt a lot visiting the different levels and reading letters from Ross.
There’s also this build by Lemursiv, an initiative aimed at educating people about Madagascar and the endangered species that are being effected by deforestations.
It was awesome!
“Lemursiv is a 3D game in @decentraland where players can,
– Create pixel art
– Explore Madagascar
– Donate to the reforestation of the island which is handled by @eden_reforestA Beautiful Immersive Experience Educating the Digital World about Saving Endangered Lemurs. πππ pic.twitter.com/BH8aOyk7Sd
β dclblogger.eth (@DCLBlogger) March 31, 2020
Both these builds gave me a true appreciation of how an immersive build in a virtual world can teach in a way other mediums cannot.
Ecommerce/Auctions
Once the ability to buy and sell NFTs straight from these virtual worlds will be incorporated, no doubt, ecommerce will be a big use case.
All the art you see around the worlds can be simply clicked and purchased.
Or use cases like MakersPlace Auction House which right now is holding a Charity Auciton using Cryptovoxels and Decentraland as in world displays,
π¦ πͺ#COVID19Relief Auction — HOW TO GUIDE
πΆοΈWe’re fully virtual!
1. Bid at @nonfungibles gallery πhttps://t.co/ThhaKY484R
2. View in @cryptovoxels gallery πhttps://t.co/VdERo6c9OT
3. View in @decentraland @ExitmusicDCL gallery πat: (23, -41)
β²οΈOffers close in 48 hours! pic.twitter.com/SzUxxbuxZR
β MakersPlace (@makersplaceco) March 31, 2020
I also think the Wearables market, at least in Decentraland will see a surge as people LOVE to represent themselves in different clothe pieces.
If you can buy these in game, while others are wearing it, it’s going to get crazy!
There’s also this cool build on Decentraland where you can see and buy the wearable straight from inside the world! By Vrlandlord
Social/Meetups/Special Days
Well..this is a no brainer.
One of the first use cases and probably will be the biggest is simple meetups and gatherings for special events and launchd days.
Soaking in the hot tub after a long weekend. Hats off to you hosting the event @Coldie! pic.twitter.com/16waSyXTpk
β nΓshot.eth (@n0shot1) March 30, 2020
Nice turnout at Barter Town’s Launch Party in @decentraland! Pretty awesome place. Captured this gif on top the entrance tunnel to Club Zion (opening soon).
Btw, what are Sam & John Doe doing down there? π§ Looks a little suspicious if you ask me! π#decentraland $MANA $ETH pic.twitter.com/TAre0QqgBX
β Studz Arcade DCL (143,-58) (@StudzArcade) March 27, 2020
πΆ In times when many people are isolated during #COVID19 #Quarantine our community gets together every day to discuss situation and discover spontaneous creativity of one another. Such an amazing surprise visit today by this young talented artist! #Metaverse #VR #blockchain pic.twitter.com/68iFeRM8vz
β Somnium Space (@SomniumSpace) March 30, 2020
I expect these meetups to hitting numbers of 100-300 within a year from now.
Business/Entrepreneurship
This one will be big as well.
We’ve already seen people make money buying and selling land, wearables, names and anything that can be tokenized really.
In time we will be able to tokenize full experiences.
Imagine building a game you can tokenize and only make 10 available to be deployed amongst different worlds.
Other can buy, rent and basically trade full scale businesses!
What Else I Want to See in the Metaverse Collaborative
Work Spaces – I think making along side of your colleagues in a digital way makes sense. Whether it be hold meetings, share work stations and basically disconnect yourself from real world work needs.
If I could share my work screen in real time with others, that would be pretty cool. Kind of like a work office.
And then walk out during ‘break time’ and chat/network with others.
Affiliate Marketing – What? Why? I’ll tell you why. Affiliate Marketing, or sending clients/leads to business was my main source of income for 3-4 years. And it worked amazing.
This should be implemented here eventually. Like my Art Gallery for example, Bring business to artists and larger projects who can incentivise me for business that comes from my marketing channels will help fund me to bring in even more business and grow the economy within the space.
This should be the case for any NFT. As a land owner, I could find ways to display and monetize projects that can give me a cut of their larger activities.
Non-Invasive Advertising – Ok, I don’t want to ‘see’ more ads but I want ads to be smarter. Having a rotating banner in a digital world catches your attention.
But if there was a way an Ad publishing company can create Ad management tools for advertisers and publishers so we can manage and see where our ads are being displayed and whether they are bringing in business, this will give land owners another way of monetizing their experience.
Kind of like Adsense does for websites.
Imagine having 50×50 or 250 x 50 ‘digital’ spots that you can fill, track who watched and monetize.
This will encourage land owners to focus on experience and not monetizing through sales but via ads. Again, in a non-invasive way.
Exploring –Β The simple act of logging into a digital world and walking around. This gets boring if there’s nothing new but with enough build momentum there should be something new to do everyday.
Non Realistic builds – I’ve seen a lot of builds that try emulate reality. That’s cool but would love to see more fantasy/cyber builds that push the boundaries of not being limited to real world physics.
Removing walls, maybe make experiences upside down, floating islands, or something completely new and whacky that’s never before been seen.
The above shows a lot of promise as we’re at such early stages at building a metaverse. In 2-3 years this space will be absolutely buzzing!