[Coinlive Talk] Taming the Metaverse Beast

• Blockchain technology has unlocked unprecedented levels of accessibility and liquidity for everyone
• However, there still remains obstacles to be dealt with, especially within the realm of the metaverse – racism and abuse are still rampant
• Better regulatory framework and more effective DAOs may help to remedy this very problem

At the core of blockchain technology and crypto alike lies the ethos of decentralisation: the ability for governance, power, and control to be redistributed across a network as oppose to being consolidated within a single entity or authority. It is this very ethos that has led to the rise of crypto over the past decade, wherein this new standard of autonomy and liberation from intermediaries has found reverence by the masses.

With more and more individuals aiming for liquidity and access, blockchain technology has seen unprecedented growth over the past few years. Just a few days ago, a US$10m artwork by famed artist Frida Kahlo was destroyed in a bid to transition it into the metaverse. The priceless drawing was burned in a martini glass by crypto-businessman Martín Mobarak, who claimed that the move was a way of “immortalizing” the painting. Now fragmented into digital tokens hovering around 3ETH, this controversial move is but one of many radical “fragmentations” of priceless art pieces, watches, and even cars that have been scrapped in favour of their transcendence towards the metaverse.

“Everyone shoots for liquidity,” Yoshi, the game partnership lead at Klaytn, tells us. “Where in the past, very few were privileged enough to participate in an investment opportunity like purchasing an expensive painting, even if they wanted to. But now, everyone can have a shot at this with blockchain technology.”

First starting out as a public blockchain platform, Klaytn boasts an impressive portfolio of partnerships with prominent firms such as Binance, Netmarble, and Kakao. Their aim, as Yoshi says, is to be able to incentivise more into the crypto space and the metaverse by having low gas fees while maintaining decentralisation. Having an integrated wallet within Kakao’s messaging platform for instance, has not only allowed many to gain access to the crypto space with ease, it has assured many users in South Korea of Klaytn’s level of decentralisation, as Kakao is a public listed company.

Yet as glamorous as decentralisation sounds, reports of racism and toxic behaviour on the metaverse are becoming increasingly common. Recently, a South Korean man was even sentenced to four years in prison for producing and storing sexually exploitative content involving minors on the metaverse.

Clearly, decentralisation may not necessarily be the best, or safest way to go.

“I don’t think we can necessarily change the way individuals behave,” Yoshi says. “There has to be some degree of regulation or intermediary to censor certain behaviours so that individuals can remain safe while on the metaverse”.

Coinlive’s interview with Yoshi, Game Partnership Lead at Klaytn

Yoshi suggests that one way to go about this would be to have blockchain technology come into the regulatory framework. Just this August, South Korea’s Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) released the first draft set of ethical principles for the metaverse, believing that the “protection of young minds, personal information protection, and copyrights protection were needed to be addressed”.

Yet even with this, there remains questions as to the establishment of concrete regulations that are capable of maintaining order within the metaverse, as regulations often take a long time to establish, and the state of the metaverse is currently incredibly fluid without a fixed form. In addition, anonymity on the metaverse also makes it incredibly difficult for accountability to be established.

Regardless, Yoshi is firm in advocating for at least some degree of regulation within the space. “I can’t imagine a world that is run completely in an autonomous manner,” he says.

“There are rules and consequences that have been optimised for us since the human race began. Going against these rules and proven concepts is basically anarchy.”

All hope is not lost just yet however, as Yoshi predicts that in the future, there will be fewer Layer 1 (L1) blockchains in the market and the industry would instead be dominated by a few prominent L1 chains instead. “My thesis is that there will be a few dominant chains, and no other entity will be willing to launch an L1 because it will be too big of a fight and too costly,” Yoshi explains. “I’m not fully supportive of complete decentralisation, because it might not be the optimal form of how services are run. You still need someone to do the necessary QA, ensure quality of services, and interconnection.”

Indeed, if Yoshi’s prediction were to be true, that the future of blockchain lies in the hands of a few established institutions, then it would stand to reason that it would be nigh impossible for the metaverse to ascend to complete decentralisation, especially if some degree of centralisation is necessary to maintain quality standards and operationality of the space.

Ethereum’s transition to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus protocol recently has also underscored this trend of L1s moving towards greater centralisation. With 30% of total staked ETH in the hands of Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken, it would seem that Yoshi may be right in his prediction for the future.

Even then, there is still a long way to go before a reliable regulatory framework for blockchain can be firmed up. In the meantime, Yoshi points out that there are alternatives that the metaverse can pursue in order to protect users.

“There’s laws, and then there’s operational solutions,” he says. “Maybe it’s a DAO where everyone votes on who to exclude from the metaverse, or cracking down on their Decentralised Identity (DID). This model may seem idealistic, but if the metaverse is still growing, this is one way of governance that may work.”

Yet there is no easy quick-fix to anything. DAOs, or Decentralised Autonomous Organisations, have been criticised to be only capable of handling code-appropriate tasks, such as bookkeeping and digital signature verification. While indeed revolutionary, DAOs in their current state are still fairly nascent and may not have the full capacity to replace centralised governance.

However, because blockchain technology unlocks new possibilities of governance, there are active and rigorous experiments taking place that seek to advance this technology and take it further.

While we may still be in a period of uncertainty, Yoshi is confident that with time and the right mindset, blockchain technology and the metaverse will eventually find themselves in the mainstream.

“Everyone is constantly shooting for better connectivity, liquidity, and mobility,” he says as we close off the interview. “Blockchain technology is the innovation that I was looking for over the past years.”

This is an Op-ed article. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. Readers should take the utmost precaution before making decisions in the crypto market. Coinlive is not responsible or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the article or for any damage or loss to be caused by and in connection to it.