Comment by zachmx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zachmx | Hacker News Reader

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This is going to be an unpopular opinion here on HackerNews, but I think that potential protocol is Ethereum. It will be the tool that enables all sorts of Metaverse type things to exist (via NFTs), but I don't think that's where it stops. The metaverse and the real world will eventually be one in the same and are going to become interlinked. In game items, Car titles, house deeds, and any sort of asset that requires proof of ownership are all going to be part of a future society/metaverse.

All fungible as well as Non-Fungible tokens will represent the value that the users bring to the platforms/systems and reward us for participating.

For example, imagine playing a video game where all in game items are built on the NFT standard. A super rare item in game might end up having some sort of real value that a user can then later extract for time spent in game. They could either sell the item via a decentralized market, or leverage that item and take a loan out on it by using it as collateral. And why shouldn't they be allowed to do that? If a user pours hundreds of hours into an online game, they are generating value for that game network by being someone that other users can play with.

> house deeds

(HN, June 5th 2028): "Ask HN: I was phished in Meta Horizons and they stole my house deed NFT. They've already moved in, my wife is furious. How can I get my house back?"

I find this to be a null argument with the potential future development of smart contract wallets that help secure hot and cold assets and require multiple users to sign off on a transaction for cold assets. You can delegate sign off authority for transactions to multiple other wallets of users that you trust in the real world. That way there are multiple tiers of asset transfer authentication.

For example I wouldn't be able to transfer my house deed NFT without first getting a relative to sign off on the transaction via their wallet as well as maybe my best friend. The beauty of a smart contract wallet is that there can be multiple if/then statements that determine when cold assets are allowed to move, all of which are up to the discretion and preference of the end user.

An alternative solution is altering how we manage assets in general including the suggested Harberger tax from the Book Radical Markets. But I feel that's a deeper dive into more theoretical territory.

What happens if your relative or friend is incapacitated in some way?

You have if/then statements that act as a clause allowing you to bypass that system for that specific person. Since all identity will be intrinsically built into the system, you can hypothetically initiate this bypass mechanism which would require multiple associated wallets to confirm that that particular wallets owner has become incapacitated and can't fu-fill their duty as an authenticator to your wallet.

I don't have any specifics on what that type of mechanism would look like (I'm just spitballing), but it's a something that definitely is interesting to think about. Maybe that mechanism randomly selects wallets that have no known correlation to your own and ask those individuals to confirm that the specified person is incapacitated. Since those people wouldn't have any stake in your transaction (allowing it to go through or preventing it from going through), they would be incentivized to be truthful.

Edit: to add to this last thought, maybe the wallet requesting the incapacitation confirmation is abstracted from the users confirming the incapacitation. The wallet essentially probes other active wallets and requests them to confirm that person is incapacitated without revealing who is requesting the information. this could help prevent collusion

Why would anyone want to play a game like that though? That sounds significantly less fun than playing a game where everyone is on an even playing ground. Also, unless the game itself is open source and any forks / successors honor the same chain, how is that any better than just storing who owns what in a SQL database?

NTFs provide an elegant way to deal with this that an SQL database can't.

1) The ability to sell/trade items you've purchased is valuable and I don't believe is universally supported. NFTs make this trivial and supported on a number of marketplaces (like OpenSea) in a standard way.

2) Game makers could build resale revenue into the smart contracts of NFTs they sell through their games.

This is just one example where it's a win-win and improvement over what exists today.

> Also, unless the game itself is open source and any forks / successors honor the same chain, how is that any better than just storing who owns what in a SQL database?

I think future game development in the metaverse actually will be mainly open source and community driven. Imagine if you will a DAO that players of the universe can interact with and basically vote on new features that will be added to the game world. Rather than waiting for a centralized developer to patch and update the game they want, players will pool assets together in a sort of tax that helps fund future game development. Pair that with a Retroactive funding and other cooperative mechanisms and you will be providing incentives for player themselves to build out the game that they want to see.

It would almost be like building a town in the real world, but this is in the digital world.

>I think future game development in the metaverse actually will be mainly open source and community driven.

Nope. The cost of generating these assets are insane, and assuming that some nebulous, non-existent community will build Rome for you is a recipe for disaster. We made the same gambit ~2010, and all we got was a lousy Github acquisition by Microsoft. The reality is that our socioeconomic disparities will be exacerbated in a digital world, particularly if the majority of content is owned and operated by private interests. We can hope that a vibrant open source community comes out the other side, but you can't build a metaverse on empty promises and vaporware.

> The reality is that our socioeconomic disparities will be exacerbated in a digital world, particularly if the majority of content is owned

I definitely agree with this sentiment, but if it's not centrally owned by a government or a corporation what are our other options? We sit around and moan about how centralized entities are ruining the world and how we don't have alternate ways of coordinating? Ethereum and projects like it are the only ones actually experimenting with changing up the formula and seeing if you can combine typically contradictory ideologies.

In my opinon, if we can't find a way to decentrally coordinate we are doomed as a race and will eventually destroy ourselves via capitalistic/corporate greed or by the tyranny of a government.

People already play a lot of games where items are bought and sold for real money (not just gacha but e.g MMOs, Diablo etc.) so you can look through gaming forums to find what drives them.

>Also, unless the game itself is open source and any forks / successors honor the same chain, how is that any better than just storing who owns what in a SQL database?

I also don't see that many benefits to be sure it's worth it but there are some in theory. One people mention is that games can easily share items - e.g. owners of a cool sword NFT for one game can use it in another or cryptopunks can have cryptopunk skins etc. Trading would be more streamlined.I guess another potential benefit is you can also have them listed forever like Xbox achievments that can be looked at by others even if after the game is no longer active.

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