Before building Metaverse, Blockchain needs an operating system
by Arthur · July 6, 2022
To understand what metavers is starting with understanding what the metaverse is not.
Metaversen is not a closed environment with strict rules and guidelines. It is not a specific destination. Metaverset is not virtual reality, and it is not a video game.
“Metaverset is akin to cyberspace,” said Tony Tran, founder, CEO and president of Peer, a startup that builds the blockchain-driven technology needed to enable mass adoption of metaverset.
Just as cyberspace is not a specific place, the metaverse is the notion – a metaphor, he said.
“We think of the meta-verse as a precursor to what we call the surrounding network, an extension of today’s network that is mapped to the real world,” said Tran Decrypt.
“The real benefit will come from the users”
If it sounds like the kind of thing that is inaccessible and incomprehensible to the average person, it’s because it is. It is difficult to understand what ambient web means in practice.
That’s why Peer focuses on “creating the very best consumer experience for blockchain technology,” Tran said. “We’ve figured out how to work with blockchain to create products that serve people better, and we’re starting with a social network,” he explained. “Ultimately, we aim to change the technological landscape for the better in the near future.”
“We think of the meta-verse as a precursor to what we call the surrounding web.”
Engaging in the surrounding network will require new types of software, a whole new type of devices and a blockchain operating system that will help open up the meta-verse to ordinary people.
Blockchain’s true potential has not been unlocked yet, because “the real tool will come from users, not developers,” Tran said.
“The a-ha moment has not come for the blockchain,” he added. “Developers are dictating right now because technology is so new, but it’s not the right development model. The last 30 years of computing have given us one truth: it’s always about users. “
Bring blockchain to the masses
Part of the problem is that developers are focused either on building decentralized apps (dapps) or on building the blockchain itself, instead of delivering consumer-oriented solutions with a simple user interface that allows them to use blockchain technology directly.
“Everyone is working to try to make the blockchain secure, fast and as decentralized as possible, but we argue that it is not the right problem to solve,” said Tran. “It’s like, why are you building high-speed highways without any cities?”
Without an OS that opens the door to ordinary people, blockchain technology will remain reserved for a tech-savvy elite, who primarily use it to play elaborate “hot potato games,” Tran said.
“To bring blockchain to the masses, we need to do what the desktop experience did for the command line user interface.”
“Everything in blockchain is about trading, from tokens to NFTs“But to bring blockchain to the masses, we need to do what the desktop experience did for the command line user interface – we need to hide the complexity of the blockchain and reveal the possibilities that normal people can use it.”
What, when, where
To create the future of ambient computing, Peer’s roadmap includes software, hardware, and advanced AI reimagining.
Peer, which launched the main network for its high-speed blockchain in March, is working on the first phase this year, which involves creating a visual architecture for the concepts of time, space and context in the metaverse.
Context is the lack of connection between the online experiences we have become familiar with and ambient computing.
“Steve Jobs often said that people build tools that enhance our inherent abilities,” Tran said. “He believed that a computer amplifies the mind by making it faster and more efficient. It dawned on me that if we could just figure out what blockchain amplifies, we would know how to approach the user experience.”
This led to Peer’s new approach, in which blockchain is envisioned as a “programmable equivalent of the physical world,” he explained. “Everything in the physical world can be boiled down to matter, space and time. Web1 gave us matter via data. Web2 gave us space via maps. Web3 gives us time via blockchain. If we combine it, then we have an environmental network there the data is mapped to the physical world with the properties of time. “
The leap to an ambient web will come when ordinary people have the tools to express their physical reality in the digital world, to create content for the metaverse, and easily find it and add it. “In other words, blockchain enhances the experience,” Tran said.
To bring this concept to life, Peer is developing a web3 platform for social networking that rejects the idea of a linear social feed to enhance the experience. Instead of just posting to a news feed that scrolls up or down, users will create immutable content on the blockchain that can live anytime – past, future or present – and anywhere.
“Everything in the physical world can be boiled down to matter, space and time. Web1 gave us matter via data. Web2 gave us space via maps. Web3 gives us time via blockchain.”
Imagine being able to navigate to the actual time and place where a particular photo was taken, say a photo of yourself as a baby, a child’s exam, an event in the story or even the marker of something that has not happened yet.
“When you say ‘blockchain,’ people think ‘ledger,'” Tran said. “But if you use it metaphysically, it’s you really have an operating system for experiences. Blockchain as an operating system – or BOS for short. BOS will activate the surrounding network, which will lead to a new class of devices that are no longer personal, they are divided. “
The atmosphere of the surrounding network
It can be difficult to think about the idea of a surrounding network, in part because the hardware to really experience it does not yet exist, although Peer has developed several prototypes for this new class of devices.
But think of it this way: The Internet as we know it today is about trying to digitize a flat version of the world so that people can experience it through their devices. The environment network will do the same, but vice versa.
“Instead of bringing the physical world into cyberspace, we are beginning to map cyberspace directly into the physical world,” Tran said. “It’s not immersion, where you stand still, attach your head to a device and drag your avatar across the virtual space – but presence, where the web can populate the space where you are. That’s the metaverse. “
This new architecture for experiencing the metaverse creates a number of new opportunities that can be built on the blockchain, including new types of marketplaces, business models and new forms of digital content.
For example, someone could create an NFT that requires people to visit a particular place in order to extract it. Although it would be possible to digitally push to that location using an app, such as the social app Peer creates, the person must physically go to the location to obtain the NFT and add it to their wallet.
Or say you want to sell a product or service that is not available yet, but that will be at a certain point along the line, not unlike the future of pork. “I could post it today,” Tran said, “get buyers to put money on one smart contract and when the day comes, it will be sold. “
A company can also create an augmented reality experience that allows people to participate in a previous event – live.
Say Pepsi wants to revive the Pepsi generation, Tran said. Pepsi was able to recreate a modern version of Michael Jackson dancing on the street and launch it exactly where and when it originally happened. People will be able to push the timeline back to experience it even as if it were 1983.
Similarly, if you were to record a scene at a specific time and place, in the future you could “scroll back” the timeline to see it as it was recorded; rather as a live version of Google’s Street View.
A blockchain operating system would enable and ultimately lead to the creation of ubiquitous blockchain devices so that everyone can experience the surrounding network and participate in the meta-verse.
“This is really just the beginning of this technology,” Tran said. “There is no roof.”
Peer launches a new audience sale format called an Initial Coin Exchange (ICX) on June 27 on the Peer network. ICX is an evidence-based framework that requires product features, IP grip and business acumen in line with the start-up of Silicon Valley. To find out more, go to
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