Today I take a deep dive into Webaverse, a new metaverse project that’s launching its first NFTs in a few days. Honestly this one has me pretty hyped, and it checks off all the boxes for what could become a truly massive platform.
But at the same time land projects have a terrible record and we’ve yet to see one attract users sustainably and at scale.
Watch this video to hear my take on the bull and bear case for Webaverse, as well as why it could change the game entirely if it succeeds.
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webaverse:
tech demo:
0:00
0:50 metaverse projects are huge (that’s a problem)
2:41 not just a game
3:47 what makes webaverse different
4:54 the code was there all along
5:38 how big can this get?
6:28 bull case
8:03 bear case
8:57 UPSTREET
Hey guys so today I’m going to talk About maybe the most important nft Project that most people haven’t heard Of and it’s a project called Webaververse and they’re dropping their Genesis collection this week and it’s Going to be 16 000 pieces of metaverse Land now I can already hear some of you Saying Giancarlo are you serious more Metaverse land more land I know it’s not The most original thing in the world and I’m sure some of you have already been Chilled on some random metaverse land in The past and now you’re up to your ears And virtual Mortgage Debt in fact it Seems like we get one of these land Projects every few months and up until Now none of them have really been Successful I get it but this one might Be different and in fact their drop this Week will probably be one of the biggest Events of the month so today we’re going To get into why people are getting so Excited about webaverse we’re going to Talk about the bull case and the bear Case for how big this can get and then I’ll give you my take for how I’m Approaching this project okay now first Let’s define something because I’m using The word metaverse but I really mean a Virtual world of Worlds and I know that Probably doesn’t make sense either but Essentially it’s a game platform like Like a Minecraft or Roblox and then
Within that you have different servers Or Realms that are also their own sub Games with their own creators the most Popular examples of those platforms are The ones that I just mentioned so Minecraft and Roblox and it’s surprising To me how many people I know that are Hardcore Gamers but don’t actually Realize how massive these games have Become over the past few years Roblox in Particular has gone from 15 million to 54 million daily active users so more Than a 3X increase in the past three Years and it’s not just kids about half Of those daily active users are over the Age of 13. so these games are huge and The assumption is that they’re just Going to keep growing and just in the Past year alone Roblox spend over 500 Million dollars on research and Development to expand their lead and From the perspective of people who are Pushing for web 3 and decentralization This is a problem right because you have These massive centralized companies who So far have shown no support for Blockchain Technologies and in fact just Last month Minecraft outright banned Nfts and so we have a potential future Where a single company or a handful of Companies control a large part of our Digital lives even more so than social Media companies do today and that can Get dystopian right like you might just
Be hanging out tending to your pixelated Crops the next thing you know the Robux Tax Collectors come through and your Account gets banned for having a low Social credit score and you’re probably Like all right here’s Giancarlo Exaggerating again but take it from Tim Sweeney who’s the CEO of epic games you Know and they’re also trying to be a World of Worlds where he says quote the Metaverse is going to be far more Pervasive and powerful than anything Else if one Central company gains Control of this they will become more Powerful than any government and be a God on Earth so yeah things could get Bad now the alternative to that Lego Hellscape is building a metaverse on Decentralized Rails and over the last Few years we’ve seen a bunch of these Right you’ve had decentralands sandbox Crypto voxels Etc but none of these have Been able to attract many users and We’ll talk about why in a minute and if Webber verse can escape this fate why One last thing to understand about these Worlds is that they’re very different From one-off games like GTA or FIFA and That’s because they’re offering way more Than just a game if we take a look at ROBLOX for example they have these Different layers first they have a game Engine called Roblox Studio then they Have a developer marketplace where
Creators can sell assets using that Engine and finally they have the actual Game layer where creators can release The experiences that they’ve made to Other players at the end of the day the Games that people play on Roblox are Made by the users themselves not by ROBLOX Corporation so now if we turn to Webaverse you’ll see that they’re Building a very similar stack at the Base layer they put together their own Engine then they have a platform where Devs can create and share content and Then you have the game layer and the First game that’s coming out is called Upstreet and that’s the drop that’s Coming out this week okay so those are The similarities with Roblox but then Comes one huge difference okay because Unlike Roblox which is using closed Proprietary technology that doesn’t give Users benefits like interoper ability or Access to web 3 web of versus being Built on 100 completely open source Tech And Open Standards and it uses Tech like Node.js react and of course public Blockchains they’re also supporting Open Standards like vrm for 3D avatars and so Anybody who makes an asset using one of Those standards can then just plug them Into the game and that’s why as a result We’re seeing people import their me bits And clonex avatars for example they’re Taking an even more open approach than
Other crypto worlds like the central Land which uses some closed technology Like the unity engine and sorry if That’s taking a shot at the eight the Central and players out there but it’s Just the truth so the goal here is to Create a completely open source Metaverse that anybody can build on and That is fully designed for the web Meaning that it can run sophisticated Games in the browser on any device Including VR in other words this is Ready player one but building a more Sustainable path instead of letting a Single platform dominate now you might Say all right damn that’s pretty Ambitious but how are they actually Gonna pull this off well because one They’ve actually been working on this in Some capacity for several years now and The game itself has actually been in Alpha since early 2021 and two it turns Out that a lot of that underlying code Already existed and platforms like Unity Are even building off of some of that Open source code and for example they Even share the same physics engine and So most of the code was already there And it just required a team that could See the big picture and that could glue It all together and in this case the Lead engineer in weberverse is Avera Casmer I hope I’m saying that right who I can say after reading a lot of what
He’s put out you know this guy is an Elite engineer and I’m gonna link a Video for those who want to go deeper Into exactly how he’s putting together The back end Tech but anyways the reason Why I say this might be one of the most Important projects in the space is Because of the sheer magnitude of what a Victory scenario looks like you see if This were a typical game then the goals Would be to just attract a ton of users Monetize them somehow and then extend Your life cycle as long as you can Before people get bored in the case of Webaverse a bull case scenario would Mean literally becoming the base layer For an infinite number of experiences That people are building Permissionlessly on its platform while Leveraging a ton of decentralized assets This means letting any Community use a Platform to create virtually anything That they can come up with whether it’s 3D or 2D a VR chat app play to earn Games import whatever content they want And even use features like AI all Without any restrictions we’re starting To question what is human so it’s Clearly a very ambitious project but now Let’s get into some reasons why this Bull case scenario can actually come to Be as well as some reasons why this Could be yet another flop in a long line Of crypto metaverse projects maybe the
Best reason why webaverse can take off Is because of these superpowers that you Get when you’re using open source Technology we’ve spoken about this on This channel before but like this tweet By Naval says open source means each Problem only has to be solved once and This tweet by Chris Dixon composability Is to software as compounding interest Is to finance the idea is that by having Hundreds or thousands of creators all Remixing each other’s Works taking Lego Blocks from other open source projects That the speed of innovation is going to Be much faster than what you would get Inside of a centralized organization so If webaverse picks up those Network Effects then the evolution could look Like a flat line until all of a sudden Exponential growth comes in and you now Have a ton of experiences with thousands Or millions of users and then another Potential Grove driver for webaverse is That unlike centralized platforms here Creators can actually keep a lot more of The money that they earn take Roblox for Example it’s common for the company to Take a 70 percent fee on all the goods That creators sell themselves and that’s Because they’re using proprietary Technology right and so the creators Can’t just team up and say all right We’re just going to build our own Roblox Because it’s Roblox that has all the
Users and so they pretty much have you Buy the book in contrast with webiverse Because they’re plugged into that web3 Ecosystem the creators can pretty much Keep all the money that they earn okay You don’t only get those insane fees When you have a closed ecosystem all Right so that’s enough about the bull Case now let’s talk about why webaverse Can fail the obvious risk is that the Technology just isn’t good enough okay This is still a small team that’s Putting this together and so maybe they Can’t figure out how to scale it Properly or get the level performance That players are used to unfortunately We’re not going to know the answer to This until they get enough users and That leads us to an even bigger Challenge and one that all these crypto Metaverse platforms face is that how do They attract their users in the first Place basically you need to build Something that’s fun okay it doesn’t Matter how fancy the technology is or How decentralized it is players aren’t Going to just spend their time in a Barren Wasteland just because they’re I Don’t know protesting against Mark Zuckerberg or something the fact is that Webaverse might run into that same Chicken and egg problem where they don’t Have a fun game and so they can’t Attract users and because they can’t
Attract users they can’t attract Creators so then make fun games this is The biggest risk here but to their Credit they’ve seen this coming and That’s where upstreet comes in so Upstreet is a game that Weber versus Creating themselves and it’s essentially An MMO Fantasy game with Dungeons and Raids and mob bosses and the idea is That through upstreet they’ll have an Actually fun experience and one that Shows developers the potential of what You can build on the platform and so the Nft drop that’s coming out this week is Essentially a fortnite style season pass For the first season of upstreet and it Comes with a parcel of land that you can Build on as well as access to upcoming Airdrops that are going to be part of The game in terms of official dates Starting today August 3rd there’s a Select group of communities that can Enter a raffle for a whitelist spot Where you can actually buy one of these Nfts for point to eth and then for the Rest of the public there’s going to be An auction on August 9th starting at a Low price and then going up to a cap of 2e so I’m personally going to try to Enter the raffle or the general auction Myself but with the full understanding That this is a long shot with a ton of Potential scenarios like Doctor Strange Can go into 10 million universe is and
In each one he’s going to see webaverse Perform differently but there’s enough Actual Tech here for me to take a stab And also I’m just afraid of that Scenario where we end up with a Godlike Platform dominance that Tim Sweeney Seems to be warning us about also for Those expecting super fast adoption Here’s an internal email at ROBLOX During their first year where they’re Celebrating having five players in their Game alright guys that’s it for today Thanks for watching and I’ll catch with The next video
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