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The meaning of virtual presence in the metaverse
An in-depth look at the key elements related to our virtual presence in the Metaverse: Digital Embodiment, Asset Economy, Creator Economy and much more.
More than just avatars
When we talk about virtual presence, we immediately think of avatars. But virtual presence is way more than this, and it involves many topics that will become relevant in the future.
With the avatar itself, new technology when it comes to embodiment will be needed in order to map our real-life body language and gestures, as well as to mimic best our virtual representation, so that we feel as represented as possible when getting into interpersonal interactions with others on Metaverse platforms.
Towards Decentralized Digital Identity
Today, there are a lot of avatar systems available on the market. The challenge we will be facing with all these avatar systems is the centralized nature of the current Metaverse platforms built by large tech companies.
The avatar and the identity are often linked to the platform where they were created, which means users will have to create avatars for each platform individually. But what users really want is open interoperability with persistence foremost on the avatar level, so they can take their digital human visual presence with them while surfing different Metaverse spaces and platforms. Decentralized identity systems based on blockchain could be a solution: structures in which platforms don’t own the user’s identity, but the user himself is the owner.
At Reply, we conducted an analysis around current avatar solutions to deepen the market environment.
Asset economy and security issues
If more and more of our activities happen on metaverse platforms, digital goods of any kind will gain more relevance and importance to end customers as they will start to customize their digital environments more and more. To fuel these new growing markets, dedicated assets and content are needed: we expect, then, the uprise of the asset economy.
In this context, to tackle the challenge of the missing interoperability of avatars as well as digital assets, blockchain and similar decentralized protocols are becoming increasingly important, not only to ensure user ownership of their digital presence, but also to grant creators control over their intellectual property.
The road to a safe and confident metaverse
With the growing hype around the concept of the metaverse, it is crucial to clarify the key elements to be considered in the roadmap to develop a safe and confident space for all human beings to act and behave freely with our virtual presence.