The centralized metaverse is a term used to describe the dominant model of virtual worlds that was developed by companies like Linden Lab. The centralized metaverse has been around for over 20 years and has become a big part of people’s lives. In the early days of the Internet, there were many different ways to interact with websites. Some people used browsers while others used separate applications like Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. Some people even had their own custom-built applications that they would use exclusively for interacting with certain websites. Eventually, however, all these different interfaces converged into one single interface: the browser. And once this happened, we realized that having multiple interfaces for accessing the same content was not only confusing but also inefficient. So we decided to standardize on one interface — HTML — and build everything else off of it. This is how we standardized on a single web browser and built everything else off of it: email clients, social media platforms, news aggregators…the list goes on and on. The Metaverse: The Evolution of the Internet What if instead of building everything else off of HTML we had built everything else off of another technology? What if instead of building email clients and social media platforms off of HTML, we had built them on blockchain? It turns out that having an immutable ledger as your foundation makes a lot more sense, as it...
