A Government Backed Metaverse – Who’s In? Anyone? No? Ok.

TL;DR

• Today we’re taking a scary concept and using it to learn – specifically, about the benefits of decentralization.

• The Chinese gov. has enlisted a handful of other academic institutions in order to develop it’s own, custom built metaverse.

• I.e. a government backed tech product that will track users’ eye movements and immediate surroundings at all times.

• And that’s why folks in the blockchain/Web3 space are so bull-headed when it comes to building on decentralized systems.

• Decentralized systems don’t require trust in any central authority, whether a nation state or private entity.

Full Story

We’ve all learned some hard lessons through scary experiences (it’s a part of the human experience).

It could be the reason you:

• Learned to knock before entering your parents bedroom.

• Learned the IRS doesn’t accept iTunes gift cards as payment.

• Learned to check the interest rate on a credit card, before flying to Cancun and treating the entire bar to shots (three nights in a row).

And that’s the model we’re using today: we’re taking a scary concept and using it to learn – specifically, about the benefits of decentralization.

Enter: China’s government backed metaverse.

The Chinese gov. has enlisted the help of Nanjing University of Information and Science Technology (NUIST), along with a handful of other academic institutions in order to develop it’s own, custom built metaverse.

I.e. a government backed tech product that will track users’ eye movements and immediate surroundings at all times.

Yikes!

Ok…but, isn’t every other country in the world adopting a similar technology?

Fair point! And, yeah, kinda.

Although, the ‘metaverse’ that the rest of the world is playing with has one thing on its side:

It’s a complete mess!

Right now, these early metaverse concepts are a tangled web of siloed experiences, coming from a bunch of different/competing companies – each with a wide/varying range of data security measures in place.

This hodgepodge of technology sucks when trying to create a smooth/unified user experience…but it makes blatant and broad reaching government surveillance just a little harder to pull off.

If we were betting folk, we’d wager that a CCP backed metaverse would have a bunch of surveillance specific backdoors built in to it.

(Ok. Ready for the call-back to decentralization? Here it comes…)

…and that’s why folks in the blockchain/Web3 space are so bull-headed when it comes to building on decentralized systems.

Decentralized systems don’t require trust in any central authority, whether a nation state or private entity.

Very cool!