#8: Entering the Metaverse with Adam De Cata and Darius Mouktarzadeh

With all the exciting opportunities around of the Metaverse, it was about time to sit down with Adam DeCata from Decentraland and Darius Mouktarzadeh, and dive into it. 
Exploring its origin and evolution, we take a look at how  Web 3 impacts applications and use cases for the metaverse, considering questions like:

1. How would you define the metaverse? How is this different from SIMs / WoW (open world games from the early 00s)? I could own stuff there too!
2. What is the point of virtual ownership? Both in terms of land / collectibles?
3. What sort of use cases do you see emerging in the metaverse? business use cases / social networks
4. Why does the metaverse need a blockchain infrastructure? What are the benefits of decentralizing this?
5. How do you see the synergies of NFTs, metaverse, blockchain based games – how will they all play together?
6. How long until the metaverse ‘exists’? 

Disclaimer

Because Sygnum is a bank and some of the information in the podcast relates to financial and investment topics, we want you to understand that we do not create a bank client relationship with you when you listen to the podcast. By listening to the podcast, you agree that the information on this podcast does not constitute professional advice and no bank-client or other relationship is created between you and Sygnum. Do not consider the podcast to be a substitute for obtaining advice from a qualified investment advisor. The information in the podcast may be changed without notice and is not guaranteed to be complete, correct or up-to-date. All information you hear is never considered to be a solicitation for any purpose, in any form or content.

Read the disclaimer here: https://www.sygnum.com/disclaimer 

Transcript

Disclaimer

Because Sygnum is a bank and some of the information in the podcast relates to financial and investment topics, we want you to understand that we do not create a bank client relationship with you when you listen to the podcast. By listening to the podcast, you agree that the information on this podcast does not constitute professional advice and no bank-client or other relationship is created between you and Sygnum. Do not consider the podcast to be a substitute for obtaining advice from a qualified investment advisor. The information in the podcast may be changed without notice and is not guaranteed to be complete, correct or up-to-date. All information you hear is never considered to be a solicitation for any purpose, in any form or content.

Episode 8: Entering the Metaverse

Aliya Das Gupta  

Hello and welcome to the Crypto Explorer. It's a podcast by Sygnum bank designed to bring you closer to the to the world of crypto into the future of finance. I'm your host Aliya Das Gupta, and today I'm speaking with Adam De Carta. From the Decentraland Foundation, who leads partnerships there, I believe, and Darius Mouktarzedah,  apologize again for wrecking your name! But Darius works with Sygnum Bank and is one of our resident degens. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming on the show today. I'm very excited to be talking about NFT's the metaverse and everything that's going to be changing about the world as we know it. It's a exciting topic. And but before we really get into it, I think it would be good to start with some introductions. So Adam, do you want go first.

Adam De Cata  

Yeah,  I'm Adam. Head of partnerships at Decentraland. A smart contract romantic, believe in interoperability and within Web 3.0 , but I'm just truly just inspired by the digital world as we know it today and what it may look like in the future. In general, I'm obviously from Australia, based out of Melbourne and plan to be in Portugal in a couple of months time, which is super exciting for my partner and I. But the wild west doesn't sleep and digging into blockchain tech and what were three may mean in the future.

Aliya Das Gupta  

Cool. And maybe a little bit about how you got started in crypto.

Adam De Cata  

Yeah, it was a whirlwind. To think to think back, it feels like a long time ago. But the reality is I sort of started reading into smart contracts at the start of 2020. I was really fortunate to come across some really intriguing projects that I sort of really connected with... Top Shots comes to mind. I'm not, I'm not a basketball fan. But intrigued by how technology can sort of make something only possible if it was to be with that technology and blockchain enabled digital assets and ownership with, you know, video streams of clips moments, sort of led me down the path of what that actually meant and what it could mean in the future for a smart contract in general. I worked in intellectual property. So I looked after DC Comics and Harry Potter. Mike's a few other things at Warner Brothers consumer products. AsiaPac. So yeah, Evergreen brands and IP sort of run through my brain and my body in most cases of how I look at how to engage consumers and fans. With any brand new sort of mind,

Aliya Das Gupta  

cool. I mean, that must be a really interesting skill set to then also leverage into the metaverse and we'll talk more about that. But before that, Darius goes about you?

Darius Mouktarzadeh  

First of all, Aliya, you didn't pronounce my last name actually wrong. So it was perfectly, so a lot better than when the most people try. So how did I get into crypto and actually with me, it started in 2016, when I was at a startup conference organized by the students of my university, and there was like a poof of crypto startup and they were handing over Bitcoin white papers. So I remember I just went there. I I've heard about Bitcoin before in the news, I think mostly because it was used on the dark web, but I wasn't really into it. And then I thought, it's interesting. I took the white paper and basically with this, my my whole crypto journey started, and also wrote my bachelor thesis about smart contract implementation. So very quickly, I think similar like you, Adam, for me, Ethereum became a lot more interesting than than Bitcoin just because there's a lot more use cases. And I was also very interested in like smart contracts. And there were a lot of misconceptions about about that, in that time. And also, at the end of my studies really decided that I want to spend my entire professional career also in crypto and blockchain. And since then, I've been working both for startups and corporates in the crypto valley as well as in Zurich, and in the digital asset field, both in business development, consulting, sales, and now also in my recent role here at Sygnum, as a researcher in asset management

Aliya Das Gupta  

antastic. Really looking forward to hear both of your inputs on how the Metaverse is going to evolve. But I think a good starting question is how would you define the metaverse?

Adam De Cata  

I think my understanding of the metaverse And what I initially believed it to be many moons ago, was whilst watching, I think it was ready player...  Ready Player One! was watching Ready Player One was like, for me, in my, my spare time I used to play console games, when reflecting on on what it could be. It's sort of always engaged me in that sort of extension of what I'd been used to playing a console and sort of moving forward. And then this movie came out and I was like, oh, that's where the future could fly, you know, within VR. And you know, that is the metaverse to me and today in 2022. My reality is that, you know, I think we're  actually sitting in the metaverse right now, the three of us wouldn't be connected, if it wasn't for the digital world. And I think that's the like, it just starts to make a lot more sense to me when you know, exploring the fact that you know, right now we're on this call and because of this call, it's only possible that I can see the two of you and after this call, I'll probably jump on Twitter for a quick sec. And I know that my partner upstairs is on Tik Tok, or, you know, like on Instagram just procrastinating, you know, I probably know that my brother is on Facebook and probably connecting to other friends. And the reality is, it's like the social platforms that we're used to today in general, have been connecting us for many a moon. And yeah, that to me is like that penny drop moment where it's like, okay, we're not...We're not too far from what would be a general statement about this social economy that we talked about in this social community that were within sort of friends, family, business peers, have been able to all connect by digital sources. And then, you know, like we talked about the metaverse today. But you know, the, what I think people are talking about is virtual worlds. What that extension is, to what we know, social platforms within apps or vaults. So yeah, that's that's a long winded hopefully makes some sense and doesn't make me sound like too much crazy. But

Aliya Das Gupta  

that's really interesting. I think how you're decoupling sort of Metaverse as what we're doing right now versus virtual worlds, which is, I think, perhaps what I was referring to a little bit when I talked about the metaverse at first, but it's interesting that it's interesting how you look at it, Darius, so do you want to add that?

Darius Mouktarzadeh  

Generally, I agree with Adam. And also I must say, I was also one of those people that initially also explained the metaverse as virtual worlds. And actually this was wrong because it's meta. Virtual worlds are part of the metaverse for the metaverse is a lot more. If I had to define it, I would also generally say like, like Adam, it's like any type of digital experience. That's in the ideal case, it's largely scalable, it's persistent. It's immersive. It's virtual - 3d. It can be accessed by multiple types of devices, tablets, smartphones, smart TVs, IoT devices, of course VR glasses, which is often used to represent the metaverse and I think taking like this very, like, let's say broad definition is important. Because for me also like the metaverse is like also, let's say the next evolution of the Internet. So it will. And also I think this is something Adam we could also discuss which I'm very interested in your opinion. And I read some articles. And I agree also to some part to this theory that people are saying Metaverse is actually not web three. Metaverse built upon web three. So one could even say the metaverse will be Web Four. So even one, the next step after will create some really interesting, what do you think about it. But I think that as a user, it will mostly be a universe of multiple virtual worlds, which you can access, as I said, by this different types of devices. And we should really define it as like very broadly as any type of digital experience that has this characteristics. And just because similar with the internet, while you could anticipate some of the use cases of the internet in the early 90s, many things we couldn't because the technology wasn't here. So I think also similar with the metaverse, we can anticipate some things and I'm sure we also got to do this in this talk, but also a lot of things that will happen in 10-20 years in the metaverse nobody will have thought of just because the we didn't have the infrastructure the technology or the ideas weren't here yet.

Aliya Das Gupta  

Yeah. That's hopefully we will get to as we're as we continue our conversation but kind of zooming into let's say virtual worlds right. And a lot of this now is been empowered by the power of blockchain and having this blockchain infrastructure and I guess my fundamental question is what makes this different from the kind of virtual worlds we've sort of engaged with in the past, you know, if you're playing Sims or World of Warcraft, or any of these sorts of games, what what makes what we have today in front of us different?

Adam De Cata  

Web three, right? A lot of people like, what is web three, probably easiest way to explain it is that you can connect your digital wallet. And you know that wallet allows you to use what's in that might be within cryptos, and might be other tokens like NFT's, etc, etc. So, and like, I feel like that's a major part of where Web 3.0 can go in general. So when people talk about these Metaverse as a yes, as a general term, but these social virtual worlds, there are some that are on the blockchain, and there's others that are not. And the difference probably is digital ownership. So where, you know, I can sign into Decentraland, for instance, and I can use the crypto in my wallet to buy things within the world, I could also use things within my crypto wallet, maybe in NFT, to gain access to a building or an experience that I might not be able to otherwise.

Aliya Das Gupta  

But I mean, in the past, I would have some kind of currency or coins or health or whatever, that I would collect in Sims of World of Warcraft, and I would get a sword or a wand or any of these sorts of devices, which would also still be in my arsenal. And so in a sense, there was an economy I know it was an economy controlled by the game maker, but like fundamentally what differences that make to me as a layperson.

Adam De Cata  

Digital ownership, yeah. That means that means I can that means you know the things that you may have collected, or what you may have bought can be traded sold, within a marketplace that you can then exchange for more crypto or Fiat, you know, like it's, the reality is you can't do that and you can't like what are you going to do with Sims you're going to give someone your password and your username and transfer them your file,

Aliya Das Gupta  

like but couldn't I give someone my sword like that I found or that I created or so is that not a thing that was possible in these games before? was it? It was?

Aliya Das Gupta  

Not to the extent Yeah,

Darius Mouktarzadeh  

so it was possible before, but not as convenient as it would be now by leveraging NF T's and so forth, that is transparent. Also, I remember that, um, there were a lot of like, let's say, frauds, like people like saying, like, "Hey, I'm gonna give you gold, and let's give me your Sword. And then once the people transfer to sword, they, the other guy just vanished, which happened a lot". So I think every gamer remember that time?

Adam De Cata  

The modern day, the modern day rug pull

Darius Mouktarzadeh  

Exactly. And so you wouldn't have this with NFTs. Also, coming back to your first question Aliya, what's the big difference of let's say, open world games that we know and World of Warcraft, and the same, let's say also a project like Decentraland, or the Sandbox and, and so forth. And at the core, it's really decentralization. So as Adam said, it's it's Web 3.0. And maybe also, for our listeners, probably not all of them also know what Web 3.0 is. Maybe also quick, let's say explanation or definition of what two or three is. So currently, we are in Web 2, which is also called the social web. And Web 3  is basically going back to Web 1, which is the original web. And what do I mean with this? So the first internet was really characterized by open protocols, transparent, it was open source protocols like HTTP, etc, that people could build on top of it. And it really had the spirit of inclusiveness. And what happened in Web 2 is actually the opposite. So we had large companies, some of them are now wonder some of the most val ued companies in the world, I'm thinking about Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc, that built propreitary systems on top of this open protocols, and the idea and hopefully, the goal of that is actually to go back to, to Web 1, by creating again, an internet that's inclusive, that is characterized by open source programs, apps, like Decentraland, where the source code is public, where it's owned by the community, and not by let's say a single entity. And, and giving, let's say, making the internet more democratic, and also increasing transparency and making things more efficient. So this is how I would define Web 3 and at its core, it's really decentralization. So I would say that's like the, the main the main difference. So if I, I am in one of those virtual worlds like let's say Decentraland if I if I'm holding their native token, Mana, I'm also part owner of it. But if I play World of Warcraft, and I have some goals, I don't own anything of Activision Blizzard for example.

Aliya Das Gupta  

 That's that's really helpful and I think that difference is, is helpful to understand. But I kind of want to come back to my first question a little bit and say, okay, cool. So now I own the sword in, let's say Decentraland, or I own a patch of land, or one of the little land parcels that exist. Um, what's the point? And I understand that might be a  little bit controversial, or this may seem like, a little bit rude. I'm sorry for that. But

Adam De Cata  

no, no, no. Because, because you can only imagine that, you know, right now today, right? We're talking about digital ownership at will, like, this is a gold rush of opportunities, you know, the, we talk about how decentralization is there's a true need for all these things that are based on assumptions in some capacity, it's really up to the person individual, to see the value in what they say, right? So my brother, he collects cars, I like cars, but not as much as my brother. And he will go and buy cars that I don't find particularly interesting. But for him, they are, they're a classic, the, you know, the rare to the condition, and someone else is gonna buy that from him that sees that value, right? So here, at the core of it, Web 3 has enabled the opportunity for digital assets to be verified on the blockchain, that allows people to be able to trade these and sometimes that's a value to someone. And sometimes, it just doesn't make any sense. It was I remember watching this I got tagged the other day in something, and it was like Bill Gates talking about the internet in 1995. And he was talking about, like, the fact that the internet, you could listen to a baseball game, and, you know, the, the the rebuttal to that is like, well, we've got the radio for that there's no difference. And he's feedback is that that's great, but I can I can listen to whenever I want. And then you know, like talks about forums, and how that's important. Or, you know, like, well, the comment back for even when I when I would listen to anything I want. It's like, oh, well, there's a tape deck, we could record them. And we look today, right? And that sort of philosophy, I'm like, Well, who who was outdated in those comments? I feel like, the reality is not going to say that you doubt it or not, I do feel like what the opportunity is, though, is like, on a transparent ledger. You know, individual can own trade and sell something that is of digital form. Now it doesn't need to be a sword, it can be a piece of artwork, it doesn't need to be a piece of artwork can just be a cryptocurrency it can be, it's no different from anything else in digital form. And the reality is that that's the life that we're living today is like one that is transitioning into this, where I collect sneakers, and I like my sneakers. But there are a lot of people that wouldn't know what I'm wearing in my shoes, my feet. And you know, like, in time, digital is just naturally going to transition there. You know, and what we're building today is for the future, in many ways, there's no rulebook, we're all evolving with the technology. We're testing, we're trialing we're building case studies. And what it will look like in the future is not what we're dealing with. But at the same time, you know, we're exploring a lot of the unknown. There are a lot of people out that are connecting with it again, it makes me feel like you know, I'm back in grade six, collecting Pokemon cards in weird ways. And it just doesn't have to be collectibles today. And that's what probably is helped me when working with Decentraland Foundation and exploring this virtual world and what it really does mean in terms of, you know, a community of people, it's super inspiring once you sort of wrap your head around it, but at the core of it all, it's, it's no different from, like I said before, having an Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, Snapchat, they're all different types of ways to connect with different communities with different voices. You know, what I post on Twitter will be very different from what I post and what sort of content I post on Instagram, and how people engage with it. And exploring that within a virtual world like Decentraland is something unique. And it's reminds me Yeah, it's not going to be what it will be today in terms of the aesthetics for what it will be in the future when we're developing a desktop client or a mobile app or for VR in the future. It's, the reality is just remember how YouTube looked 10 years ago and look at the UI and then think of how it looks today. And there will be no way that you would interact with what it looked like in the past. I remember the filtering systems sucked, remember, like in the way that you know, your favorites. And it just the natural progression of UI in this case, has been that we are getting better with aesthetics, and coding and structures and apps and

Aliya Das Gupta  

just creating, like a user experience that is actually pleasurable in some way.

Adam De Cata  

Or addictive, you know, like, but you know, like, the whole point being, yeah, the whole point being is we're only at the start of a very early chapter of a book of unexplored stories. And, you know, it's exciting to sort of see and witness and experience it. But I'd say keep an open mind. It's my advice and don't get so close, because it doesn't matter about the sword. It really doesn't. But it does, what it does matter is that it's the possibility of being able to own one of those that may change something feature, and I think that's pretty cool.

Aliya Das Gupta  

Yeah, I mean, people like me, who are asking the sorts of questions I'm asking today. History has not been kind to them. Like you said in the Bill Gates interview

Adam De Cata  

I'm just talking about my own beliefs in my experiences, right. I, I like I'm happy to put my name on the line at the point that I think that you know, in 10 years time, we can reflect and take, we should take a listen in 10 years. For my sake, it would be so intriguing to sort of know, but, hand on heart, it's like there's so many unwritten rules in general to technology in the digital space. But what the blockchain has been able to enable in terms of Web 3.0, is really powerful. It's just, we're still exploring it. We're still working on things. And there's a whole heap of regulations that still yet to work out their way through things too. So yeah.

Darius Mouktarzadeh  

Just adding to your your first question. So still, like, Why? Why are people investing into virtual land? And NFTs, I can imagine, for many people, it's very abstract and weird and confusing. And, I mean, one difference, again, like coming back to the sword , and I think hopefully, it's the last time we're going to use this metaphor is that let's say I have a sword in World of Warcraft, I cannot use it in Grand Theft Auto in another game. But if since then, in the metaverse, items like this are represented as NFT's potentially, if two virtual worlds interact together, I can take it from one ecosystem out and into another. So this would be one use case you cant do currently, also about like virtual land, and I think, here, it's very important. And I really believe it, it depends highly on how old you are. Because I'm 25. So I'm like the last generation that like grew up, both digitally and not digitally. So I didn't grow up immediately with the iPhone in my hand, like my little cousins, I still know the, the, let's say the physical world also, and the digital world. For a lot of investors who are older, it's a lot more abstract. But also if I'm looking at the young generation for them, it's so normal, like being all time virtual having access to all these devices. And at the end, I mean, also, if you take the term Metaverse, I mean, it's meta and universe, meta means beyond universe. So beyond universe, everything you can do in the, in the real world and beyond, let's say like this. So when people are buying virtual plots of land on Decentraland, basically, it's the same investment theory if like, let's say I have a friend, he made some money in crypto, now he wants to buy some real estate on the outskirts of Berlin, because he says, okay, currently this area of Berlin, like the outskirts, it's not very attractive, but I believe that Berlin will grow a lot bigger and at some point in time, this area will be actually more in the center than the outskirts and will greatly appreciate in value I can rent apartments or sell the real estate in some years. And it's the same investment theory feel like buy like a parcel of land land in Decentraland. So you imagine, okay, you have a theory decentraland will get a lot more traction, more people will come and you look on the map. So okay, I want to be near the Crypto Valley, because probably all the action is going to be there. That's a more central area. So you invest your real estate, you buy a piece of land, either you build a house on top of it, you make a shop out of it, you rent apartments, and you allow companies to have advertisement on top of it. So I mean, for me, really, it's not so abstract. One thing is just digital, the other is physical. I mean, for me personally, it's still very rare that people are paying millions for physical paintings. So if this is weird, why shouldn't it be weird to people are paying millions for this digital paintings? I mean, it's just another type of form. So yeah,

Aliya Das Gupta  

that's that's really cool way put it. Actually, yeah, I mean, how do how does one value art at millions of dollars? And then question why a bored Ape is not at that price. But coming back to the point that you made right about how possibly you can rent out your land or Decentraland or what, and also kind of having the engagement of more brands and larger companies coming on board. And I guess, like if we assume that he has now we're at the beginning We're exploring what what sorts of use cases do you see really emerging here that will eventually result in, let's say, the growth in value and engagement with a virtual world like Decentraland?

Adam De Cata  

Why don't we take a little step back? Okay. Yeah, I like sort of start at the beginning, because it'd be really like, I'm not sure how deeply, you know, about like, the humble beginnings of decentraland. And the, the sale of the land and what that actually meant at the time. So like four and a half years ago, decentraland sold 90,000 parcels of land. And you know, at that point in time, these  were probably one of the first instances and have an ERC 721 token, which means that they're truly non fungible. So the reason to why the someone could buy a piece of land on the blockchain would be that this coordinate is mine, it's verifiably mine on a, on a ledger that would prove that this is where it's located. Right. So the smart contract in the metadata that's inclusive, would include the fact that this parcel of land is my land, and I can either hold it, keep it or build it. So the special part about what this actually meant at the time is that when you went Central and sold the land and all of it, it became a community managed, known project, and the vision is very much of a decentralized future. So you know, it's unsure how many people actually really care about decentralization, I speak about it all the time, and you get different feedback, you know, some don't mind the fact that their data is collected, others don't mind the fact that they don't have as much choice. And they're limited by, you know, a governing body that may dictate what they are allowed to do or not, you know, like, there are so many different ways and, you know, I like I'm in, I'm in the middle with different parts of it. But the reality of it is, it's like the ethos of decentraland and being community owned and community managers and amazing human experiment. Because at the core, it means that anyone who owns land has voting rights, and those that have voting rights can decide what is proposed. Within the DAO, which is a decentralized autonomous organization, think of it like a entity that sort of accumulates all the different votes for the decisions that are being made, and for the proposals that are delivered. So you know, I think I think something that is super intriguing about this is that there was a token, Mana, And, you know, four and a half years for any crypto is, you know, almost a dinosaur within the the market itself. And, you know, manner holders as well as decentraland, land holders had voting rights. 

Adam De Cata[RS1]   

   We're also got, you know, we also host a number of different events that inspire the community to engage in, you know, take inspiration and build upon. There have been music events like the Metaverse Festival, which had like deadMaus in Paris Hilton form and 80 other artists like Alison Wonderland, Nene&Nesbit. There's a whole heap of different international acts. We even had like a Chinese orchestra come in and play which is so epic. You know, that was over four days, the stage changed every day it was, but I know that we're going to look back on this and think, like, look at this footage and content and it will feel you know, very basic to what I think it can be in the future. But at the core of it the community really engaged with it, they bought digital garments, they did all these things. Anyway We run events like that we've got a fashion Festival, which is coming up soon we run like Halloween, Christmas New Years, etc, etc. But at the core of it, you know, the foundation is set up in such a way that at some point in time, if the funds run out from, you know, the vesting smart contract that the foundation can walk away, and the platform is there to continue developing and building on their own accord. And I think that's at the core of it doesn't have to even come down to the fact that the funds weren't there anymore. And that's why the foundation didn't exist. The romantic side of it is that we've built and explored and developed everything that the platform is needed. And it can then function and develop and continue building by the community. The kicker to all of it is that that 220 million Mana that is in that vesting smart contract is also part of the treasury of the DAO. So a separate 222 million is that, and currently there's over 100 million US dollars, for community grants and applications. So if I'm a developer, and I also have some land that need to, but I've noticed the challenge, that I don't plan on wanting to sell my land, and I want to lease it safely. But there isn't any platform that I can do that on, there's no way that I you know, like, I don't want to take that risk by doing it off market, I would go and put a proposal in and explain what I want to do and build. And if it was, you know, if required up to $240,000 USD, the community can vote, which is what it's up to now, it's a T-six grant. And I could get that, and then I could build it, and I could deliver it within timeframe that I was what what I allocated, which has been the fit within six months. I think that's super important. It's like so cool to think that that's just the starting blocks of what can happen with, you know, a community of people that can be inspired to create and building a platform that can you know, fund them in different projects?

Adam De Cata  

Yeah, it's like, in, you know, like, it has its challenges, it's, you know, we've got to continue working through audits and all the rest of it. But the core of it, it's like, you know, who we are as a community that can vote, if I've got land, or if I have, if I hold this token Mana, or if I own a name within the platform that gives me voting rights too and you know, I can be part of that community, or I might not hold anything, and I want to submit a proposal and I want to add value to the space and I can I don't know any other entity that can do that.

Aliya Das Gupta  

Yeah, no, I mean, the way DAOs  function, I think, is a really good topic for a whole new episode, on, you know, how governance structures have to evolve from the way we sort of know them as having five guys in one ivory tower somewhere making calls and everything versus a community genuinely voting on what's better for the growth and evolution of the ecosystem. So 100% down for that conversation. And also, I guess, when we're looking at the metaverse so we're looking at, let's say, decentraland, today, right, everything, a lot of different brands will be interested in it. So my question is a little bit about for the people who are, let's say not 100%, married to the decentralization, epic, or the, the story or the journey to decentralization and Web 3 or Web 4  , you know, this ideal universe, but in fact, you're looking around, say, Okay, how, how do I ride this wave? How do I make money? How do I capitalize on clearly what is a growing movement? And I think that's a genuine question. I have like, what do you think are the use cases that will come out that might be interesting? Or? And don't don't crucify Me?

Adam De Cata  

Totally, but not everything has to come down to revenue lines of anything. Yeah. Like, I think you can come down to experiences Absolutely. At the core of decentraland. You know, like, you've got crypto native consumers, and you know, like, and like minded individuals that are just wanting to explore and see different things. And, you know, we've seen the likes of Coca Cola, you know, launch their first NFT on open seat, and promoted via hosting a party in decentraland. It was an oversized code can you needed to enter it and you sort of your avatar moved up to the top, which was an oversized lid, and there was a DJ playing on what would be a rooftop, but the reality was, it was in the sides on this oversized token was so typical, and you know, like, it's escapism wise and what you could do that you probably couldn't in the real physical world. But now you've got 250 year old auction and like a 250 year old auction house like Sotheby's has entered the space. They don't sell NFT's on the platform, they just exhibit different experiences on how they can connect to crypto native audience, by running events, gives you the opportunity to have social support in and on Discord and Twitter and Instagram by Decentraland Foundation. There's a newsletter that goes out to over 700,000 subscribers every week that, you know, your event can feature within. You know, there's multiple different ways to connect to the community. But at the core of it, we're only scratching the surface of what is engaging or not.

Aliya Das Gupta  

Yeah, yeah, it felt a bit like experimental right at this stage because you don't know what will really click and what may need to be more engaging or more a better user experience. I dont know Darius, what's been your sort of thought? 

Darius Mouktarzadeh  

Oh, no, definitely, I think at its core is as Adam said, it's experience like giving your like, let's say, client base, a different new type of experience. It's also about positioning itself as a company as being like innovative, forward looking future oriented, because Metaverse now the best buzzword. So we have a lot of people now jumping on the metaverse train like companies are jumping on the blockchain train in 2017. And about the use case, I think we already have some which Adam also mentioned, which I believe will become bigger and bigger. So that's a use his like concerts, auctions, parties, and also a Facebook, if you look at Facebook horizon, let's say virtual meetings. So instead of just having like a zoom call, or teams call, like we know it like I'm sitting into a virtual office, and you actually don't only see like a box with the face of the person, the head of the person, but the whole body and you can interact. So I think that this will become use cases, which we already have now and will become bigger and bigger. But at the end, so what can you do in the metaverse as the name says everything you can do now and beyond in the in the physical world. And so basically, there are no limitations. So you can also imagine that the matrix, for example. So being in a world like which resembles the real world, but doing stuff that you couldn't do in in the real world. I think another very obvious use case is gaming, which I believe will just be part of the metaverse like blockchain based gaming, and also less than this awesome that Adam mentioned, which I think is very important, and which actually, I also didn't mention in in the definition at the beginning, decentralization Metaverse doesn't need to be decentralized. But I really hope and it's really important that it should be decentralized. Because if we have one single entity controlling this virtual world, it will be basically the Matrix. And I think similar like in our real world, we have different governments, we don't have a single entity that controls the whole world. It should be the same in the metaverse, at least in my opinion. So technically speaking, it doesn't need to be decentralized. But like most other things, material and I'm biased because I'm a crypto guy. I think decentralization makes a lot of everything actually better and more transparent. Of course, there are always those questions of governance, which are also very important, also challenging, especially now, because we are now in this experimentation phase, seeing what works, what doesn't work, what level of decentralization is needed, what is not needed, like, Should we be decentralized from the beginning? Or should we start relatively centralized, and then give more and more over time, like decentraland to the community, and at the end, it's fully decentralized. So I think these are also very interesting things. And I'm also very looking forward to how things will develop, but I believe it will be decentralized, we will probably have, if you're talking about this universe of multiple virtual worlds, some of those virtual worlds will be centralized. And some of them will be decentralized. That's my guess. Yeah. 

Adam De Cata  

It is that, you know, if something like decentraland, which is completely open source, right, you could go into GitHub, and literally, fork to Decentraland if you wanted to, like, .... , I think that's the prospect here is like, decentralized decentraland, like this Cryptovoxels. Wilda World, which is coming out soon, Sandbox hopefully become more on a cross Metaverse belief, but the interoperability of being able to take these tokens and use them across different worlds, explore them, and jump between different experiences. It's all possible. It'd be so interesting to sort of say in the next few years, how that all sort of blends out. But, you know, decentraland as a community, hold their flag to be that anyone you know, in that interoperability of what you can hold in your wallet and what you enter the world to have access to means that there's different revenue cases and resources because of it... when the Australian Open, just launched, they did a 14 day tournament, which, you know, for tennis fans, like, could go into Decentraland, play games, collect these poaps, which are proof of attendance protocols. Think of it like going to your favorite concert back in the day and keeping that ticket as a reference that you went and saw that band that you've always cherished, in terms of that gig. But here, you know, this like references that you were there at that time that day, and you can then AirDrop them or reward those people that went by doing things with that. And, you know, once once again, another great thing about it all in terms of blockchain, but people going back every day in the juxtaposition of being in what they call garden square, which is like this grass area where you can watch the tennis in the physical meat world. There were camera broadcasts that were 24/7 that you were able to get access to, that you couldn't get in So you could literally watch what was happening in the physical meat world, and at the same time be in the virtual world. Or vice versa, where, you know, like, you could be walking around in the physical space and see that there was a virtual stream like this. 

Aliya Das Gupta  

Im sorry I have to laugh at meat world!

Adam De Cata  

Yeah. But you know, like, the perspective was that the Australian Open sort of runs their entity is this open exploration of an experience, it's not just a Grand Slam tennis match. There's music performances, there's activities to do during the day that so many different things and they jam packed that into a virtual experience as well. And for that first instance, they airdropped all these different digital garments for people to wear, like I was wearing, like, an oversized tennis ball would never be seen in  the meat world wearing. But in the virtual world, I was loving it, you know, like in the fact that I could just do these things, it was super intriguing and interesting, but because of the interoperability of what an open platform like Decentraland has, it meant that there was a way for an audience to engage in an NFT sale that was on Ethereum as a blockchain raised, you know, sold out in a couple of minutes. And, you know, like, raised, you know, a million and a half dollars, and it was an amazing experience. And those the way that you can kind of connect the two and what that means for future holders, as well as just the general public, it's, it's so mething that you know, sets a benchmark and a precedent of ways to engage, that's just not a stream that you could watch on YouTube, it's access and other things that you could enjoy, that are different, but have the same holistic brand vision that they have in this meat world, over a 14 day period. I think, you know, brands, and sporting franchises and communities in general will explore this virtual world in ways that we won't see today, it's like, yeah, me playing a game, And learning the mechanics and becoming very good at something that was just traditionally not meant to be played the way that it was, in the end, you know, like, it's, it's empowering in different ways to know that communities in blockchain have been built, that never existed 12 months ago, and, you know, like, you look at board ape yacht club, and that membership in that community, it's mind blowing to think that that type of value is what someone would buy in at 100 Ethereum the full price today, and you know, like, you could have bought that at 0.08 Ethereum.

Aliya Das Gupta  

And back when Ethereum was not even,

Adam De Cata  

like, you know, somewhat $200 or something back then. So, you know, like $200 for an Bored Ape, a probably plus gas transaction fees, but, you know, like, what can be built in what can be created and how that community can engage. They've got their yacht club, that you can go into, they run events in there, you know, you can they've, they've had parties and poaps to be collected, rewards and wearables that are airdrops to their holders that they can wear there's so many different ways to explore,

Aliya Das Gupta  

to engage. Yeah. I mean, we're, we're really overtime at this point. But maybe one last question is when how do you see the evolution of the Metaverse... I know this is like looking into a crystal ball. But between ready player one's world or the matrix, and where we are today, there's you know, hopefully you Many, many, many steps. But what do you see? How do you see this evolution panning out? Let's say next five slash 10 years.

Darius Mouktarzadeh  

I mean, as Adam said, like Metaverse is already here, in a at a very, very early stage, let's say maybe we are now in the proof of concept stage. We have some elements of it, which which are here. But till we make it to the Matrix matrix, I would say it's still another 10-20 years. And that's mainly because we have just from a technology point of view, not here yet. So just like just having like, let's say, a million people in the same virtual room, it's currently not possible. So if you're like playing games like Fortnight, and there's a concert and there are a million people there, actually, there are like, there are each 150 People in like, let's say 1000 copies of the same virtual world... they are not actually in the same virtual world. many people are actually not aware of this because it's technically not possible. Then there are other things that say, VR glasses or other IoT devices, they're still kind of expensive. I mean, Oculus glasses, they're getting cheaper and cheaper, but they're still I think, now at 400. US dollars each, probably when they're around $100 $200, one can say it's the retail can also like mass adoption of those types of device will will also happen. So I would say like to have like the full Metaverse experience of like what we imagined, it's still another 10 to 20 years, just because of technical limitations that we have doesn't mean that we that there's no Metaverse yet, as Adam said, we already have it now to some degree, but full Metaverse at least a decade, probably more. 

Adam De Cata  

we need something like, you know, but the smartphone was to the internet, in many ways, you know, like, and then without that, in, you know, cameras, and then, you know, like, it just wouldn't exist to what it is today, in many ways. But yeah, like, it's hard to know, you know, technology tracks in many different ways. But I do feel like we will be experiencing things at a higher quality and a high definition. And, you know, my hope is that it's super engaging and enjoyable. But you know, we also have peace between what we do in the digital world and, and our physical meat world lives. So I hope for a blended life. One that's super efficient and super effective. But you know, we'll see... I will hold you to the decade thing, let's let's review in a decade. 

Aliya Das Gupta  

oh no... the the matrix decade! 

Aliya Das Gupta  

Really, really good to speak with both of you guys today. Thank you so much for taking the time. To our listeners. If you have ideas for who might be an interesting podcast guest or topics you would like us to cover, please write into podcast@sygnum.com and again, thanks a lot, both of you and I look forward to the next time. Ciao! Thank you. 

 [RS1]Why name Adam again, if he is just continuing to speak?