ROLE OF BLOCKCHAIN IN METAVERSE

Metaverse is an emerging technology and it needs to be persistent. So, it should be constructed on a decentralized architecture. Besides, there needs to be a virtual economy and value system in the metaverse. This is possible only through blockchain. So, there is a significant role of blockchain in metaverse.

This blog post explores the role of blockchain in metaverse. I will start this post explaining the basic concept of blockchain and metaverse to give you insight. Then, I will discuss the pivotal role of blockchain in metaverse in detail. Finally, I will present to you different blockchain used in some of the famous metaverse projects.

BLOCKCHAIN

Metaverse is expected to connect everything in the world. Everything will be digitized like digital twins for physical entities and systems, avatars for users,etc. This will produce a huge amount of data. Using a centralized server for the metaverse has many demerits. Blockchain is the solution to all these demerits.

Blockchain is a distributed database. The  data in blockchain is stored in blocks rather than structured data. Each data generated by users are stored in a new block that is linked to the previous block to form a chain of blocks.

DAO in Metaverse
Source: www.pixabay.com

ROLE OF BLOCKCHAIN IN METAVERSE

Blockchain technology is the soul of metaverse. Blockchain as a decentralized and temper proof has important role to play in the metaverse. It protects the assets and activities of both the metaverse users and the providers of metaverse without involvement of 3rd party.

Digital Assets are the core functions provided by the blockchain. It can maintain the smooth economic operation of metaverse. The ownership and uniqueness of your digital assets is provided by blockchain.

The main role of blockchain in metaverse can be summarized below.

ENABLING DECENTRALIZATION

Users of the metaverse store blockchain data locally and synchronize them with other users. The users in blockchain are called nodes. Each node maintains complete data of the blockchain. 

Thus all the nodes in the blockchain form a Peer-to-Peer(P2P) network. All the nodes collaborate maintain all the data of metaverse without a central authority. So, we can say the data of metaverse is decentralized.

By the above way blockchain is enabling decentralization in metaverse. This makes  decentralization one of the most important role of blockchain in metaverse.

ENSURING DATA PRIVACY AND SECURITY

To ensure data privacy and security is one of the important role of blockchain in metaverse. The metaverse collects vast volumes of sensitive information from its user. 

Data in the metaverse is collected from AR/VR Devices, Haptic Devices, Smart Devices, Smart Glasses, IoT Devices, etc. All the data in the metaverse is sensitive. If this data is leaked or falls in the wrong hand, they might target users in the real world. 

Blockchain with its access control, authentication and the consensus mechanisms provides you with complete control of their data. Blockchain uses asymmetric-key encryption and hash functions to ensure data privacy and security of data in the metaverse. This way it secures the data privacy of the users. 

ENABLING DATA INTEROPERABILITY

Interoperability of data in metaverse will be one of the important requirements of the metaverse. A metaverse is interoperable when a  DeFi application will be able to share and communicate information with another application related to health in the metaverse.

The metaverse will be a cultural and social interaction platform for virtual worlds. All the Virtual Digital Assets (VDA) should be interoperable. In the coming time you will need to use a variety of applications within different metaverse or the same metaverse.

Data interoperability across different metaverses is limited due to different environments they are built. Blockchain has made the data interoperability in metaverses possible to some extent. This is made possible by cross-chain protocol. So, enabling data interoperability is one of the essential role of blockchain in metaverse.

ENSURING DATA INTEGRITY

Data Acquisition, Storage and Sharing is an important step in the metaverse ecosystem. Some of the sensitive data from the users of metaverse are stored and shared. These data must be maintained consistently and accurately.

The users may lose faith in metaverse if the integrity of the data is compromised. Due to the immutability characteristics of the blockchain, data integrity of metaverse is ensured. So, ensuring data integrity is one of the role of blockchain in metaverse.

ENSURING QUALITY OF DATA

The metaverse will acquire and store sensitive data from the users all the time. The metaverse will contain data from experiences, places and the things accessible on the internet. So, it will require a large amount of data storage.

Every person who enters the metaverse creates a data file and continues to grow as a result of their social interaction. It will receive data from multiple applications ranging from healthcare to entertainment.

All this data will be fed into the AI model of the metaverse to make key decisions for you. The creation of these AI models in the metaverse will depend on the quality of data shared by you.

Blockchain provides complete audit trails of transactions to ensure quality of data is not compromised. This enables individuals and organizations to validate all the transactions. Thus ensuring data quality is one of the most important role of blockchain in metaverse.

ENABLING SEAMLESS AND SECURE DATA SHARING

To get a fully immersive metaverse, you need to use AR and VR devices. The metaverse real benefit resides in integration of Extended Reality (XR) on digital and physical objects. The real success lies in the sharing of data between these devices.

Sharing data in a closed metaverse or centralized server can expose sensitive and private data of you to heavy risk in the metaverse. Data in this server is highly mutable which results in high latency and non-availability of data. Scalability of the closed metaverse is challenging as compared to open metaverse.

Blockchain’s advance encoding technique enables the metaverse data sharing to be seamless and secure. All the data in blockchain is transparent and the user has complete control over the data. The use of blockchain in metaverse provides flexibility and adaptability in data sharing. 

Enabling seamless and secure data sharing is an important role of blockchain in metaverse.

ENABLING IMMUTABILITY AND AUDITABILITY

NFT
Source: www.pixabay.com

Immutability is the ability of blockchain to remain unchanged, unaltered and indelible. It is an important and required role of blockchain in metaverse.

But how is immutability achieved by blockchain in metaverse? I will explain it in brief below.

Once a transition is completed, it will be packaged into blocks and synchronized to to all the nodes in the blockchain network. The hash value (unique identification of block) is permanently stored in the block. Through this process other economic system of the metaverse is also stored permanently. To mention, some of them are

  • Tokens
  • NFTs
  • Transfers of data in the metaverse.

Auditability is an essential role of blockchain in metaverse. Each transitions on the blockchain is recorded with a timestamp. You can trace the transitions record through any node in the blockchain. You can also verify the data through the hash value of the block. This way you can audit each and every transition in blockchain.

BLOCKCHAIN USED IN DIFFERENT METAVERSE PROJECTS

INTEROPERABILITY of NFT Charcaters in Bored Ape metaverse
Source: www.pixabay.com

All of the open metaverse uses blockchain. Most of the metaverse uses layer-1 blockchain and some of them are shifting to layer-2 blockchain. In this section, I will list some of the famous metaverse projects and their blockchain used.

Metaverse ProjectBlockchain Used
DecentralandEthereum
The SandboxEthereum
Axie InfinityEthereum
IlluviumEthereum
Somnium SpacePolygon
Star AtlasSolana
BlocktopiaPolygon
EnjinEthereum

CONCLUSION

This blog post highlighted some of the role of blockchain in metaverse. Blockchain has a great potential to revolutionize the immersive experience of the metaverse. From enabling decentralization to ensuring data interoperability, blockchain plays many important role in the metaverse. 

Ziaul has been in data related field for the past eight years working as a Management Information System Manager (MIS Manager), analyzing and decoding data to provide useful information.

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