Why I Will No Longer Be Writing about ANY Blockchain-Based Virtual Worlds and Social VR Platforms on This Blog – Ryan Schultz

Yesterday, as a primary step in pruning my long-neglected list of metaverse platforms, I made a decision to chop off an entire department. I deleted the whole subsection on these digital worlds and social VR platforms which integrated blockchain, cryptocurrencies, or Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). On this editorial blogpost, I’ll clarify why, shifting ahead, I’ll not write about any blockchain-based metaverse platforms on the RyanSchultz.com weblog. (The unique blogposts are nonetheless there and searchable.)

As a metaverse blogger, my introduction to blockchain got here through the primary few blockchain-based worlds which caught my consideration, notably three early entries which really launched a world the place you possibly can create an avatar and pay a go to: first Decentraland in February 2018, then Somnium Space in May of that same year, then Cryptovoxels (now called just Voxels) in July. In April of 2018, I began writing often about NeosVR, a non-blockchain-based social VR platform which had an related cryptocurrency (though it was probably not built-in in any manner).

At the moment, blockchain was a novelty, and I reported on the information and occasions occurring on these platforms a lot as I did for Second Life and different metaverse platforms I lined (usually from a extremely skeptical and sarcastic perspective). Apart from some NCR (Neos Credit, Neos’ cryptocurrency), a month-to-month “reward” which I had earned as a Patreon supporter of the venture, I didn’t purchase or use any crypto.

I do bear in mind being considerably excited in 2021 when NCR rose to the giddy heights of virtually US$9 per coin, buoyed by cryptospeculators who had little to little interest in the metaverse, even briefly indulging within the fantasy that I might promote on the prime of the market and purchase myself a brand new desktop PC with that “cash” (I simply checked proper now, and in the present day, 1 NCR coin is value a whopping seven cents U.S.).

After the inevitable crash, all I misplaced was maybe a number of months’ value of a Patreon subscription I had upgraded to “earn” extra NCR, maybe about $20 in complete, however I do know individuals who misplaced $1,000 and extra. It was an instructive lesson in simply how a lot of a bet crypto could possibly be.

In truth, a little bit over a 12 months in the past, I wrote on this blog that I might henceforth limit my reporting on blockchain-based metaverse platforms to these which supported digital actuality (which, at the moment, narrowed it down to simply three worlds on my record: NeosVR, Sensorium Galaxy, and Somnium Area).

I’ve additionally determined that I’ll not be writing about any blockchain-based metaverse platform except it incorporates digital actuality…

[T]hose platforms which had the nice success to launch nicely earlier than the present crypto carnage, are probably nonetheless entangled within the net of interconnected crypto corporations lending and borrowing from one another, in extremely speculative cryptocurrencies whose precise worth relies solely on what the next greater fool is willing to pay for them. Specifically, those that bought overpriced NFT-based actual property on such platforms as The Sandbox, Somnium Area, and sure, even pioneering Decentraland, are going to seek out it very troublesome, if not inconceivable, to make any form of revenue off their investments.

And one solely has to watch the travails which NeosVR has gone by means of, after a cyncial pump-and-dump instigated by cryptobros, to see how a social VR venture with such technical promise could be hamstrung by attaching a cryptocurrency to it. There has, to my data, been no lively growth on the platform in over a 12 months, and it’s unclear what 2023 holds for NeosVR. It breaks my coronary heart and it angers me.

Whereas I’ll proceed to observe the present crypto winter shenanigans as an (and bemused) observer, I’ve determined that I’ll not be writing about any blockchain metaverse except it has launched, and it helps digital actuality. Specifically, I’ll not waste my time (and your endurance) writing about all of the blockchain metaverse initiatives which encompass little greater than an .io web site, a Telegram or Discord channel, and a white paper lengthy on hand-waving, however brief on precise technical particulars. Sufficient with the bafflegab and bullshit.

Over time, from 2018 to 2024, my preliminary bemusement about crypto, NFTs, and blockchain has hardened into one thing nearer to revulsion. I began following cryptoskeptics like Molly Brown and David Gerard, and hanging out in the r/Buttcoin subreddit, which supplied a dependable stream of cryptosnark. Extra lately, I’ve been studying some well-written books important of bitcoin, notably Zeke Fake’s Quantity Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall, and Straightforward Cash: Cryptocurrency, On line casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, by Ben McKenzie and Jacob Silverman (each of which I can extremely advocate).

And I’ve lastly reached the conclusion that, though there may nonetheless be blockchain-based social VR platforms on the market, that are precise, delivered merchandise and NOT scams or rug pulls (for instance, Somnium Area), I’m so sick and uninterested in the general crypto area basically, that I’m not going to jot down about any of them anymore. I’ve lastly had sufficient of this nonsense, after 5 years, and I’m achieved.