Reporting by XinZhiyuan
Author: Liu Qiushan
EDIT: Sleepy
There is a special group of people in the world with a population size of about hundreds of thousands, who have inexplicable beliefs (no less than the two-dimensional group), which has been committed to building cryptocurrencies, in order to cater to worldwide recognition, and later evolved into a "blockchain" as the main position, a revolutionary technology that sounds more like benefiting mankind (rather than antagonism).
The current Web 3.0 is more of a finite set, with only visible elements such as Decentralized Finance (DeFi), the Decentralization Creator Economy (NFT & Gamefi & Metaverse), and The Decentralized Account and Identity (Connect Wallet).
Blockchain narrative
It can be said that it is rare, or even without the support of any hardware technology, completely from the virtual, trying to directly challenge the "traditional Internet" under surveillance capitalism.
The "blockchain narrative" has been supporting the industry for five or six years, and the result of changing the narrative is that it has become more huge, and a new generation of networks with blockchain as the cornerstone has been formed, with a completely different underlying architecture and underlying logic from the traditional Internet, and there have been several waves of large-scale network effects (especially in 2020 and 2021).
When the "blockchain narrative" is no longer enough to support today's industry expansionism, in order to start the great journey of the second decade, Web 3.0 (more precisely, the "next generation of the Internet") was officially pushed to the stage of the times.
Web 3.0, like the industry that promotes it, does not have a proposer or a center of authority, but is the product of the "inexplicable" consensus of hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and it sounds more like an information revolution for the benefit of mankind than "blockchain".
As a result, at the beginning of the second decade, the concept of technology is being diluted, and while blockchain technology has taken the world by storm and taken the hearts of the people, it is no longer possible to represent the "great cause" that this particular industry is about to do – it is increasingly convinced that it can give birth to new products at the Internet level.
Unlimited gaming accounts
For a while, the whole industry seems to have found a long-awaited truth or doctrine, and has used Web 3.0 to "set" all the landing scenarios that have been practiced in the past decade.
The most widely recognized is the "Connect Wallet" feature, as the name suggests - any application service can use "wallet" to log in, and it is also a revolutionary experience that the industry considers to be "hanging the Internet", because it is so simple and "cool".
Admittedly, "Connect Wallet" is not a new thing, it has been in the crypto world as an operation for a long time, especially in the 2019 wave of chain tourism (MetaMask has a long history of fame, and it has long helped the wave of crypto people successfully enter the Ethereum network in 2017).
However, driven by the "DeFi Summer" in 2020 and the "NFT Year" in 2021, decentralized wallets (especially browser plug-in wallets) have become more and more important layers of network protocols, because it represents the highest control of human individuals over their own identity value and asset ownership, and perfectly grafts public and private key systems and asset economic activities.
Bringing the "simple" blockchain network into the "intelligent" era is like the mobile Internet era where smart phones open up intelligent links between all apps (such as login, sharing, recommendation, address book, importing pictures, etc.).
This is the inevitability of digital assets entering the stage of extremely active economic activity development, thanks to the incomparably rich digital economic activity created by the great 2019-2021.
When you generate your own wallet account in this decentralized network, it will follow your whole life, no external force can destroy it, and creation is eternity, a kind of "digital eternity".
Over time, more on-chain activities (behaviors) are involved, and more events and data are associated with your account, just like a brief history or profile of your life. When you connect your account to an on-chain application with one click through a decentralized wallet, the application layer will automatically obtain the useful parts of the "life file" to provide you with services or rewards.
Let's call such a higher layer of blockchain public-private key systems, transaction records and smart contract operation records at the bottom as the "Meta-account Layer", which is the "portal" and "Avatar" that enter the "Web3 meta-universe".
Along the way, crypto people will (are) gradually forming a consciousness: paying more and more attention to their MetaMask wallets, and gradually transferring more and more asset allocation activities, and more and more passionately involved in the rise and spread of new things, while paying more attention to the credibility and "high-end feeling" of all the on-chain activities they participate in, as if the world is watching themselves.
We're all talking about the need for an Avatar to enter the metaverse, but have you ever really thought about what the path to build Avatar is? In the game world, we are first given a digital body cheaply, and then given a soul through constant monster fighting, upgrading, leveling, management, socializing, etc. - a body-to-soul construction model; but if the body is recycled, whether your soul can be migrated, in this parasitic relationship, the body is the host, the soul is too "humble".
Is there a paradigm in the world that can reverse the characters in between, giving the soul an infinite body and making the game an infinite game?
In the blink of an eye, we're in for a new game world, Red Dead Redemption, but this time it's different: you need Connect Wallet to import your MetaMask wallet, which is the Meta Account Layer, into the game world.
If you are read to have a CryptoPunk NFT, you will be given an "alien" or "zombie" body, if you are read to have a BAYC NFT, it will be an "ape" body that likes heavy metal winds, if you are read to have both, it will be interesting, a new species is about to be born - "alien zombie ape".
In short, the "Red Field Ethereum" prepares an infinite "body" based on the "human consensus layer" (the prosperity of the NFT today is indeed the establishment of a human cultural consensus layer).
In the game, you will experience a lot, complete a lot of valuable things, and gain a lot of "medals" and "holy grails", which will be "jumped" in the form of digital assets, and will be permanently recorded in the form of NFTs in your "meta account layer".
When you quit the game, these are your real-world "badges" and "holy grails", and they will be recognized by the real world for their value because of the degree of consensus of the game "Red Dead Redemption".
If you trade your "badge" to someone else and return to the game again, you lose that experience (of course, whether the "soul" should be "bound" is also an interesting topic, see Vitalik's Soul Binding).
It all seems to make sense:
a) Why did NFTs become so hot and rapidly grow into a $40 billion market?
Because the metaverse parser needs to use NFT as the "source code" to parse and restore the three-dimensional sensible virtual world, there is no more suitable encryption carrier for carrying hypertext than NFT.
The value logic of NFTs is similar to that of classic IP, but completely assetized, and today's NFT market is just the beginning of a story, and the value of time will be superimposed on it to make it perfect.
b) Is Web3 really visible?
Blockchain is just one of the components of Web3, as are NFT assets. Even if the NFT asset market is extremely prosperous, if it is only played like a homogeneous crypto asset on the native crypto network, such as mapping to the trading area in CEX through a centralized account, or using DEX as a transaction driver in a more niche network, it will only represent a game in the crypto world.
The emergence of the "meta account layer", more precisely, the formal establishment of the "meta account layer", so that the blockchain, public and private key identities or all kinds of encrypted assets, began to be able to enter the traditional Internet more conveniently and naturally, starting from OpenSea, imagine that the future will be more and more traditional Internet products and large games to accept, please have one more option "Connect Wallet", is to give users a new world of doors.
Only by opening the door with his own hands could Web3 really see it.
c) Is the metacosm too far away?
At present, the two lines (referring to meta's Internet metaverse and the crypto world's "asset metacosm") develop independently, and it is indeed difficult to see the effect of qualitative change in the short term, which is also the main reason why everyone is familiar with the concept of metacosm, but it cannot fight the morale of entrepreneurs.
We want to boldly predict a possibility based on first principles, this pattern will begin to appear subtle "collapse" in 2022 and 2023, the "meta-account layer" will spread like a virus, when more and more entrepreneurs begin to shift their goals to the "meta-account layer", the real meta-universe will be broad and cheerful (it is like the "Doraemon pocket" or treasure chest that accompanies you, hiding all your big treasures), "emergence is the inevitability of life", So look forward to such a special event or milestone!
The distance that people wait for does not come from the unrealistic realization, but from the fact that they dare not face the destruction and reconstruction that go back and forth with the process.
To quote BGI CEO Yin Ye, "The future is the points of the present".
The author has a good explanation of emergence in Metaversm: Physics, The Ultimate Medium, and the Infinite Game: "Emergence is divided into several different types according to intensity, in order: simple emergence, if emergent, multiple emergence, and strong emergence. The final strong emergence is a kind of emergence of the highest level, which gives rise to a whole new world, a transition and evolution of the original system to break its own boundaries and barriers, in which new subject types and roles are born, in which there are multiple causal feedback relationships between the various levels and elements from top to bottom and from the bottom up--the metaverse can be seen that the metacosm is such a strong emergence, which emerges from the physical universe, but finally unifies and merges the physical universe into a universe with a larger true continuous spectrum."
Creationism and the Holy Grail
Top-level designs are not valid in complex systems. What is First Principles of Life Sciences?
- Evolution
The same is true of metaversary systems!
The so-called Web3, creationism (fundamentalism) is to subvert the traditional Internet ownership, the direct display layer is a super account layer related to accounts and assets, the ultimate goal is to create a "huge elemental ultimate medium that can interoperate with the physical universe" - the metacosm.
The game is currently the most intuitive imagination space and large-scale arena given to the world in the metaverse, and it may become a "springboard" for the opening of a new era!
"Red Dead Redemption" itself is no different from the traditional top AAA masterpiece, but it has made a revolutionary change from the traditional game in the "body" and "soul" of gamers.
With the help of a "mysterious bronze door" to Web3, the meta-account layer, it took the lead in breaking the boundaries and shackles of closed accounts in traditional games, and took the opportunity to open up to the outside world and extend the "experience line" of the game.
While it seems to have lost the game's most valuable "account rights" and players are no longer under control of the virtual world they have created, it has become "ubiquitous" by grafting public-private key account systems and (encrypted) digital assets to deliver "worldviews" and "numerical goals" to the Web3 network!
Web3 network, in essence, can not natively replace the value of the Internet, but become an Internet value relay network - any valuable thing in the world that can be abstracted into digital form will have "Avatar" in the Web3 network and be captured by infinite scenes; the so-called value comes from creation, infinite creation, then infinite value.
Another game, "Ethereum Ready Player One", recognizes its "world view", and the player's assetized "experience" in "Big Player" can be directly given to the "body" in "Ready Player One", which is born "brave", or realize the classic IP interconnection in the movie "Ready Player One".
And the "experience" accumulated in the "Ready Player One" will also be recognized by the "Big Dart", so back and forth, "experience" is transmitted, a "character", different worlds travel, and the "soul" is growing rapidly.
Players are both in the game and more in the game, no longer the player moves with the closed game world setting, but the game world settings continue to create unlimited plots with the player and assets, such as every additional Web3 consensus "experience" assets, the game upgrade will match.
As more and more game worlds join the consensus of the meta-account layer, a new game revolution will arrive - unlimited games!
(The following is a bit of a reverie about how to create an "infinite game", excerpted from CITIC Publishing House's Metaverse: The Road to Infinite Games)
1. There are no cryptocats or dongles in the metaverse (on the chain), only genomes.
The genome is stored in shards in a blockchain distributed network. And in the beginning there was only the junk genome, which was the cradle of all genes, the language of programming.
Languages preceded compilers, and in the metaverse, the first compiler was the reproductive protocol G0. In nature, the first compiler was RNA, which compiled DNA into proteins.
2. Unlike current deterministic blockchains, we need to introduce randomness to blockchains.
Referenced schemes include verifiable random numbers, external oracles, and more. Randomness is the foundation of genetic mutations, and no one can modify genes on the chain unless the genome spontaneously produces random mutations.
3. New genes are produced by random mutations in junk genes.
The gene that was first produced was short, with only a few characters. The gene produced later is longer because it cannot be prefixed with the old gene.
Genes that are widely present in organisms (usually ancient genes) are shorter, and genes with less likely to appear (usually new genes) are longer. They are a type of Hoffman encoding, which has the highest information density for variable-length sources.
4. In reproductive protocols, the genes themselves do not code for any proteins or functions.
The properties they exhibit in the metaverse (biological appearance, physical strength, intelligence, etc.) are compiled by other compilers.
For example, the bacterial compiler G2 compiles gene A into a nitrogen-fixing gene, one that absorbs nitrogen from the air through photosynthesis, and the other bacterial compiler G3 compiles gene A into a bacteriophage gene, an ability to devour other bacteria. According to the biological point of view, in G2 and G3, gene A is a homologous gene.
However, the same metaverse game can only support one compiler, that is, in its game, gene A can only be compiled into one of these types of genes.
5. There are no species in the metaverse at the beginning, only genomes (including exons and introns) until chromosome fusion occurs.
The number of chromosomes of the offspring after the Robert translocation occurred is not equal to that of the parents, so they cannot be paired, and the offspring and the race to which the parents belong are reproductively isolated.
If the offspring find a heterosexual kind that has the same Robert translocation as he does, then they can combine to reproduce, and in this way, we will witness a miracle in the metaverse: the birth of a new species. The first player to complete this process has the right to name the new species.
Since only the number of chromosomes is inconsistent, the genomic composition and parenting are completely consistent, so the appearance and function of the new species in all compilers at this time are actually similar to the parents.
But after mutations in their genes, they will no longer share the mutations with the parent races, and their differences with the parent species will become more and more different.
6. Genes are not stable, and mutations occur in the metaverse process.
But relatively speaking, the environment is more unstable, because the compiler is acquired and can be modified at any time.
For example, if a very popular new game suddenly emerges, and the compiler it supports compiles a previous unfavorable gene dd (usually a recessive gene) into a very bullish attribute, then, by natural selection, those creatures that carry dd will pour into the continent to gain survival and competitive advantages.
But this advantage is not constant, and the popular game will one day be scattered, and when the continent withers, the pure complex of the gene will also decline and survive in the form of heterozygous recessive genes.
7. There will also be genetic weapons and viruses in the metaverse.
But similar to the real situation, successful genetic weapons and viruses are not aimed at killing each other, but to coexist with or even parasitize each other. Because of killing the other party prematurely (the host), the self also perishes because of the loss of the host.
Viruses are also an infinite game, and their purpose of survival, like that of humans, is to continue. So, from the genetic point of view, in fact, it doesn't matter about creatures and viruses, it doesn't matter about primates and beasts, high and low creatures, they are all combinations of genes, the custodians of copies.
8. Genes compete, and compilers compete.
Genetic competition is to perpetuate oneself, and compiler competition is also to perpetuate oneself.
Compilers are the game environment of the metaverse, they compete to attract more species (NFTs) into the interior, as it attracts more species, the greater the value of the assets that the game carries, the users, social connections, brands and influences are expanded, and the most successful compilers may constitute a culture, a phenomenon, a super-sovereign consortium, like Facebook to the Internet.
As the compiler becomes popular, more and more games will support it, just like the network effects of programming languages, and the more people use it, the more market it will have.
9. Compilers have a lifespan, but genes live almost indefinitely.
Just as dinosaurs are extinct, the genes encoding the forelimbs of dinosaurs still exist in birds in the form of HOX, although in the latter's compiler, it manifests as wings.
Therefore, the finiteness of the compiler does not impair the infinity of the metacosm. Compilers are endless, they are just genetic "stains".
10. The game perspective of the metaverse should be a genetic perspective, not a species perspective.
Due to the infinity of blockchain, NFTs can be considered immortal. In this way, it is funny that we define the game character in NFT form, is it possible that the lifespan of the hero, werewolf, beast or alien creature on the chain is infinite? This seems to clash with our culture.
But this is not a contradiction, because the finiteness of the game character is actually reflected in the finiteness of the compiler (game environment). When there is no market for the compiler, or when the game platforms that support the compiler go out of business, then your hero, werewolf, and other game characters die.
Just because only the first principle is on the chain, such as reproductive protocols, NFTs (gene banks), etc., other game logic is running under the chain, so the infinity and finiteness of the game are self-evident.
The lives of the game characters (species) are limited, but the data (genes) on the chain are infinite.
If this logic is true and generalized, it can't help but make us take a breath of cool air, if the real world in which humans live is also a metacosm, the universe as a "game compiler" is finite, and human genes and consciousness are infinite.
If the universe we live in goes to a heat death, can our genes and consciousness choose another compiled universe to survive?
The metaverse needs to establish a system that can achieve rapid iteration, "constantly iterating, so that it emerges"!