Blockchain technology is poised to take over almost every facet of modern industry. From ports to finance to the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain’s ability to authenticate transactions, ownership, and rights is unparalleled. But there’s still an entirely other world that this technology can conquer —the virtual space.
Ownership and Rights in the Virtual World
With virtual and augmented reality (AR) also making giant leaps forward, a new issue arises — that of ownership and rights. With the ability to create new worlds, or ones layered on top of our existing one, virtual space could easily become the Wild West. How does one know, for example, that the physical property they bought won’t be virtually replicated? If this ownership is not established, augmentation equipment could be unable to communicate with the virtual property. Or, even worse, nefarious parties could conduct activity in the virtual space without one’s knowledge.
Without proper authentication, other virtual worlds could become closed off from one another, unable to communicate and trust without common guidelines on how to govern that space. With the internet, such protocols were set in place to allow different domains to link together, allowing for seamless interaction without the fear of losing rights or domain. However, with augmented and virtual reality (VR), entire worlds are being created without protocols being set into place for their interaction with each other. According to Gabriel Rene, executive director of VERSES Foundation, “To do AR/VR, there’s no way to move virtual things across the real world. There’s no address.”
VERSES Spatial Web Protocol
VERSES Spatial Web Protocol, launched at the recent Blockchain Futurist Expo, seeks to establish protocols that will enable a fluid interaction between virtual and augmented worlds. Using blockchain technology, the team at VERSES hopes to placate the fear of ownership surrounding these spaces, including areas that can be purchased within them, allowing for seamless integration of the physical and digital world.
“We create a geospatial internet protocol address that works inside virtual worlds. So you can move between virtual worlds and move virtual assets across real space. We see this as the basis for Web 3.0,” Rene told VentureBeat.
Set up as a nonprofit, VERSES technology functions as an open standard, “establishing a universal protocol that powers its key feature set for virtual assets across a multitude of applications. This includes use cases such as virtual commerce, interconnected virtual reality spaces, smart city infrastructure, and secure holographic telecom.” VERSES has sold $6 million worth of tokens to investors, and by 2020 the protocol will be compatible with more than 2 billion connected mobile devices.
Expanding Applications for AR/VR
Though it may sound far-fetched, or only a concern for those interacting with the virtual world, these protocols will become increasingly important as AR/VR technology continues to expand.
As illustrated by Dean Takahashi in his article on VentureBeat, once augmented reality becomes commonplace, people will want to own the virtual space of their apartment along with the physical space itself. “I should make sure that I own the augmented reality space in my home. I don’t, for instance, want someone else to set up their own property inside my house and then draw people to the location by advertising it as a virtual nightclub.” This example will apply to entire industries and workplaces, which will likely make increased use of augmented reality to improve efficiency and ROI.
And this will also enable interaction between the virtual worlds created by companies and organizations. Aside from video game worlds, the new technology could be used to integrate real-world entities such as museums, education systems, and supply chains. The rights and values of the items within the virtual worlds themselves will also be fully verifiable and trustworthy, making transactions transparent and authentic.
“It’s more like portals from one world to another. Once you have domain, with a link, you can port between the places,” Rene said. “You can think of [it as a] real world for geospatial augmented interaction. There may be an augmented reality art gallery moving from city to city. I could transfer something to my home and my wall and I could restrict who could see it.” Furthermore, each entity owning that digital space would be able to decide how much is revealed to whoever is within that space, similar to privacy settings on LinkedIn or Facebook.
Looking Ahead
Once off the ground, blockchain technology will hold the key for a future bounded only by the human imagination.
According to Jay Smit, an advisor to VERSES and independent vice chair at Deloitte Digital, “VERSES is the sandbox for the next generation of entrepreneurs that want to solve global issues [and] create new worlds and digital solutions to real-world problems. By overlaying the blockchain on the physical world, you can go to a location and store digital objects there that are known to you as being official, real, and allowed to be there.” Blockchain will also act as an essential check on nefarious parties looking to exploit that future. “This new protocol creates order out of what otherwise would have been chaos” said Smit.
As a concept, the “future” is inherently always just out of reach. Lately, though, it seems like it’s approaching faster than ever. Luckily, blockchain technology and companies like VERSES are working to curb some of the uglier side effects and pitfalls of this rapid technological advancement. And hopefully, when the future does arrive, we’ll be ready for it.
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