The Metaverse, Crypto, And Blockchain
The Metaverse, Crypto, and Blockchain
Have you ever played ready-player-one games, and wondered when they would incorporate blockchain technology? Well, the time has come! All game lovers can now play blockchain-powered games and that’s not all! You can also earn crypto for playing these games. Today, we will take a look at a specific type of blockchain-powered game called the metaverse. This article will cover what exactly a metaverse is, as well as ways that you can earn crypto in the metaverse. We will also take a brief look at three of the most popular metaverses currently in the market.
What is a Metaverse?
So, what exactly is a metaverse? As mentioned, a metaverse is a type of blockchain-powered game. It is a virtual world where players can play, work, earn, and interact with other players. This is made possible with blockchain technology: a decentralized network of interconnected nodes. A blockchain enables people to perform actions, in the form of transactions, without the need for a 3rd party intermediary to facilitate these transactions. In the metaverse, these transactions can include mining, chatting, earning, etc. By utilizing blockchain technology, a metaverse allows players to interact, earn, and transact without jurisdictional limits.
There are a number of types of metaverses, where each type is a different game and, if players can earn from it, may require players to do different things to earn cryptocurrency. Most often in these games, a player is able to earn cryptocurrency by exchanging and transacting with various forms of assets that are represented as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.
As mentioned, metaverses gained a lot of their popularity during the peak of the lockdowns when people across the world were left jobless and isolated at home. The metaverse not only offered them a way to earn money while staying at home, it also opened an escape from the sad reality of the lockdowns.
Let us now take a look at ways that a person can earn crypto in the metaverse.
Ways to Earn Crypto in the Metaverse
The concept of the metaverse is still in its infancy. With this being the case, the exploration into ways to earn crypto while playing in the metaverse is still going on. However, there are still a few ways that you can start earning today.
When taking a look at how to earn in the metaverse, it is important to note that each metaverse offers players different ways to earn. Looking at all of the metaverses currently in the market, there are three main ways to earn and they are: purchasing and raising sprites, owning land, and mining resources to mint NFTs in the metaverse. Let’s take a look at these three main ways to earn in the metaverse in more detail.
Purchasing And Raising Sprites
Sprites are NFT-based characters in the metaverse. Depending on the metaverse, each sprite has a different set of capabilities as well as a different earning potential. The process to earn from sprites is pretty simple. You start by purchasing a sprite on an NFT marketplace. Once you have the sprite, you then develop and/or train them. Lastly, once the sprites are developed and grown, you sell them at a profit on the NFT marketplace. Some metaverses that implement sprites also allow you to battle with other players’ sprites and earn rewards.
This way of earning in the metaverse is one of the first ways people started to earn and has grown in popularity since. Its popularity first started to grow in the Philippines during the lockdowns as citizens in the Philippines were left jobless and desperate for a way to generate an income. Since then, mainly because of the success in the Philippines, this method of earning grew really popular. The metaverse game that is leading the way in this method of metaverse earning is Axie Infinity.
Owning Land
Blockchain and, more specifically, cryptocurrency unlocked digitized forms of the assets we are familiar with. Real-world assets such as oil, gold, and silver are digitized in the blockchain space and are represented in the crypto space through various cryptocurrency coins and decentralized application development platforms. It was only a matter of time before new asset classes were represented in the blockchain space. Queue virtual real estate. Yes! You can now buy, own, sell and rent out virtual land in the metaverse.
Land in each of the metaverses has become one of the virtual assets with the highest demands, with the collective amount spent on purchasing these lands topping several 100 million Dollars. Large companies, and even celebrities, are joining the race to own virtual land in the metaverse.
Each piece of land is represented as a non-fungible token and can be purchased and sold in any NFT marketplace that supports the blockchain that the metaverse is built on. For example, if the metaverse that you bought the land in is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, then you can sell the land NFT on any marketplace that supports the Ethereum blockchain. Purchasing land is quite expensive due to the popularity of virtual land in the metaverse. The average price for land can range anywhere from 10 thousand dollars to 100 thousand Dollars. However, there are metaverses that offer land for just over 500 Dollars. This is because these metaverses are still new projects and people still need to be made aware of them. Before purchasing land in these new metaverses, it is important to do some research into the team and project so that you can speculate on the project’s potential before purchasing land.
Once you own a piece of land, the ways that you can earn cryptocurrency from it may vary slightly depending on the game. Usually, you can rent out the land or sell the land for a profit. Some games also give you access to exclusive in-game assets for owning land. Lastly, you can also earn cryptocurrency just by owning land and staking the land in the network. Some of the most popular metaverses to buy and own land are The Sandbox and Decentraland.
An exciting new development in the blockchain space is the ability for NFT owners to fractionalize their NFTs. This enables them to sell portions of their NFTs in an NFT marketplace. This new development will open up the NFT market to people who cannot afford a whole NFT, but it also gives the NFT owner access to a larger market when trying to sell or, in the case of land, rent out the NFT.
Resource Mining
Some games require that you mine resources so that you can spend the mined resources to mint wearable NFTs. In other games, you can also mine and mint in-game assets that can be sold on an NFT marketplace. A popular metaverse where you can mine resources to mint wearable NFTs is Decentraland. In Decentraland, you can mint wearable NFTs by mining virtual meteors in a land called Wondermine. These wearables can then be sold on any of the NFT marketplaces in the market. Other games, like League of Kingdoms, allow you to collect and sell in-game resources as NFTs.
These are the main ways that you can earn cryptocurrency in the metaverse. Although there are currently only three ways to earn cryptocurrency in the metaverse, new projects are looking to add more ways for their users to earn. Some projects also include more than one way for players to earn cryptocurrency, like Decentraland.
The Rise of Play-To-Earn
Most Popular Metaverses
The three most popular metaverses currently in the market are The Sandbox, Axie Infinity, and Decentraland.
The Sandbox
The Sandbox is a metaverse that allows players to create in-game assets and experiences and then monetize. These assets are created using SandBox’s VoxEdit software, which is a 3D pixel art and animation editor. Apart from monetizing game experiences and assets, players can also buy land in The Sandbox and rent it out or sell it at a profit.
Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity first gained popularity in the Philippines due to the impact of lockdowns and is a metaverse where players can purchase, battle with, and sell in-game characters called sprites.
Decentraland
Decentraland is a fast-evolving metaverse that offers players a few ways to earn crypto. Players can either mine virtual meteors for resources and then mint sellable NFT wearables in the marketplace, or play other games in Decentraland that enable them to mint NFTs. Players can also buy, sell, and rent out virtual land.
Metaverse as the Future Internet
There is a growing belief that the metaverse will be the next phase of the revolutionary cycle of the internet and that it will become known as Web 3.0. As more and more demand is placed on the number of jobs around the world, people will either create jobs for themselves or they will look for jobs on the metaverse. After all, the amount and type of jobs, as well as the rate of expansion in the metaverse are only limited by a person’s imagination. The metaverse combined with blockchain technology will unlock new types of jobs. This will lead to more people joining the metaverse in search of online work. Once a certain number of the global population is on the metaverse, not only will we work and earn in the metaverse, but we will socialize, trade, and run new decentralized economies all in the metaverse. This will result in the metaverse becoming the next internet.
Metaverse, Crypto, and Blockchain: Recap
A metaverse is a virtual world built on top of a blockchain. These virtual worlds have unlocked a new concept in the blockchain space: play-to-earn games. Play-to-earn games offer people several ways to earn cryptocurrency simply by playing them. You can earn crypto by either owning land in a metaverse, raising sprites, or mining resources needed to mint NFTs. Some metaverses, such as Decentraland, offer multiple ways for users to earn. Due to government lockdowns, play-to-earn games grew popular as more people had to stay at home and were left jobless. This popularity has led to a race to create a better metaverse that offers users more ways to earn and a more immersive experience.
