Lamina1 Partnership to Build Open Metaverse, Execs Say

Global firms, telecos, and companies have continued to rally to build critical technologies needed to develop infrastructure for the Metaverse. Many of these enterprises have joined forces to collaborate on key use cases and applications for key technological solutions for an open, interoperable metaverse.

A key partnership has kicked off a new platform aimed at integrating Layer-1 blockchain technologies on the Metaverse.

The company, LAMINA1, has teamed up with open metaverse platform Croquet and immersive technology solution provider Mira, among others, to realise the full potential of collaborative efforts to build the Metaverse.

LAMINA1 also has a world-renowned team, which includes Co-Founder Neal Stephenson, who first coined the term ‘metaverse’ in his book Snow Crash.

Co-Founder Peter Vessenes is one of the world’s top pioneers of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, digital currencies, and the blockchain, and has founded CoinLab, the world’s first venture-based Bitcoin company. Chief Product Officer Tony Parisi is an early pioneer who conceptualised the Seven Layers of the Metaverse.

XR Today has the honour of interviewing the following executives from the partnership:

Regarding our guests, Barkin carries five years of experience as Vice President of Brand Platform and Design for augmented reality (AR) firm Magic Leap. She also has over 20 years of experience across companies such as Madison Square Garden Sphere.

A graduate of Columbia University, Giroud co-founded the advertising firm Piranha NYC, following a ten-year career in the visual effects (VFX) industry. His experience with visualisation and immersive technologies led him to found spatial computing firm Mira, which develops hyperrealistic open metaverse technologies.

Smith is a veteran of computer science and has an esteemed history of developing Tom Clancey’s Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon game series. He founded Croquet, an interoperable, open metaverse platform complete with reflector networks to facilitate global connections and a working operating system.

XR Today: How is Lamina1’s blockchain platform going ahead of its summertime launch?

Rebecca Barkin: It’s going great! We launched the LAMINA1 Testnet in January 2023, and we’re pressing to get an early Beta out this summer.

Our community of nearly 45,000 metaverse builders and our early access partners have been instrumental in providing valuable insight into the core features and UX that will make LAMINA1 stand out.

Through our network of recently-announced partners like HTC VIVE, Qualcomm, Croquet, Mira, Interverse, Amber Studios, and beyond, we are also building the foundation of a next-generation infrastructure, content ecosystem, and the necessary creator tooling required to bring the future open metaverse to life.

We’re all part of a fiercely passionate collective advocating for a more open, immersive world where individuals — both creatives and consumers — can enjoy both privacy and prosperity as they move through it.

XR Today: Can you explain the collaboration with your partners in more detail? What did each of them bring to the partnership, and how will this facilitate the rollout of your blockchain solution?

Rebecca Barkin: We’ve collaborated with Mira, Qualcomm, and Croquet to develop use cases and solutions.

LAMINA1 – Mira – Qualcomm

Mira is a prime example of leveraging blockchain technology to build rich and robust world economies that bridge the physical and virtual worlds. Mira’s platform of incredibly high-fidelity digital twin experiences and vibrant community of artists and creative technologists around the world showcases the potential of city-scale tourism, gamification, and diverse digital economies that we can bring to the immersive web.

Over the coming months, LAMINA1 and Mira will collaborate on developing novel approaches that leverage blockchain, NFTs, and smart contracts within their world-scale experiences, such as next-gen ticketing and loyalty programs for iconic landmarks around the world.

LAMINA1 has also joined Qualcomm’s developer ecosystem alongside Mira to work on Snapdragon Spaces’ new dual render fusion feature, which enables developers to seamlessly add XR experiences to existing 2D mobile applications as a way to bring more high-fidelity metaverse experiences to the masses.

LAMINA1 – Interverse

Regarding Interverse, we love this project because it’s fun, family-friendly, and brings valuable, beloved intellectual properties (IPs) to the blockchain.

Together, we will be working with Interverse in the LAMINA1 Early Access Program to bring future entertainment and sports experiences to life for users, brands, and enterprises through the power of interoperable assets and experiences across the metaverse.

The collaboration will kick off with us exploring the integration of in-game NFTs and IP partnerships with eight top European Football Clubs, starting with Benfica, inside Interverse’s Degen Royale gaming property.

In exchange, Interverse will get priority access to the LAMINA1 blockchain and creator tooling, and have the opportunity to be a featured experience at the LAMINA1 launch.

LAMINA1 – Croquet

Furthermore, LAMINA1 is creator and developer-focused. This means working with next-gen content creators to build the infrastructure they need to support world-scale metaverse experiences and collaborating with the services, tools providers, and developers who will help bring more open metaverse creators into the fold.

Our partnership with Croquet is instrumental, particularly with Web3 gaming, as it will allow game developers to build perfectly synchronized multiplayer games without the hassle and complexity of managing networks, writing code, or setting up servers.

This partnership signals a significant step forward in building out LAMINA1’s offerings for builders, developers, and storytellers looking to create scalable online experiences and allows us to leverage the work & innovations of some of the best tool-builders in the business to help bring the L1 platform to life.

XR Today: What are the use cases and features you want to explore via your partnerships?

Rebecca Barkin: We are committed to developing a fair, safe, and user-friendly (for companies and the consumers they serve) ecosystem that prioritizes user experience, from user onboarding to experience deployment.

Right now, we’re building out our core infrastructure in a way that will allow game developers and music, fashion, and film creators to build and deploy their experiences within a reliable, performant blockchain. This allows them to easily track asset ownership, exchange, and interoperability across the open metaverse.

We’re also building up a vibrant community of open metaverse creators and service providers across our Early Access Program and Discord so that when we launch, a variety of tools will be available to help streamline the process of bringing an open metaverse experience online.

This covers game engine software developer kits (SDKs) that make it simple to link up world-scale experiences, the L1 blockchain, and automating processes around node set-up that we know are major pain points for metaverse builders today.

One of our primary use cases for the L1 chain is also to ensure creators get paid — fairly, adequately, and seamlessly — no matter the size or scope of their projects.

In other words, The solution would ensure that creators making valuable contributions to the Metaverse are rewarded as directly and transparently as possible. The blockchain is great at that, and a number of our partners, like Rensa, Immuse, and Crucible, are making incredible innovations on the payments and governance fronts that we’re excited to dive into together.

David A Smith: We have a shared belief in the importance of the open, decentralized metaverse. Open extensible systems and standards are essential to a healthy ecosystem. Like Croquet, LAMINA1 provides a foundation to foster and enable this ecosystem.

Croquet is developing a fully decentralized multiplayer platform, where anyone will be able to host Croquet Reflectors for their community.

In return, the hosts are compensated with tokens that can be powered by LAMINA1 infrastructure. Croquet for Unity is a simple, but very powerful multiplayer development platform. It is also written in Javascript for full Web3 integration. Croquet is looking to include the LAMINA1 API as part of our developer offering.

Gaspard Giroud: Mira decided to partner with Lamina1 because it believes in the vision of an open metaverse that contributes to limiting the “walled garden” effect and allows for a better redistribution of value.

Our common goal is to promote the creation of digital content owned by their citizens, builders, creators, and consumers who deserve ownership, autonomy and privacy.

Mira and Lamina1 are already working on arts, luxury, cultural heritage, automotive and sports projects. Together we are testing and applying these joint principles to the features, gameplay, tokenization, and monetization.

XR Today: What is your stance on metaverse interoperability? How will this partnership with L1 help make that vision a reality?

Rebecca Barkin: The beauty of the ‘open metaverse’ concept is that no one entity controls or owns it. It is a vibrant virtual space built by and for the people. The end goal is to evolve beyond the “walled garden” frameworks we’re all used to –– those that own our identity, the worlds we’ve invested in, and the valuable data we generate.

However, building that kind of online world will require intense collaboration across the industry. We’ll need to establish standards, new business models, and new experience design.

We’re currently working on it with top standards bodies across the industry, including the Metaverse Standards Forum, Open Meta, and Open Metaverse Alliance (OMA3), to help make it happen.

At LAMINA1, we are strong proponents that citizens of the future metaverse should be able to move between one experience and interaction into the next seamlessly. For example, why should it be constrained to only one place if you have an avatar, accessory, or ability you have earned or collected in one gaming experience?

The recording of today’s AMA with @onwevr is now available at: https://t.co/dix6rYSFeS

— LAMINA1 (@Lamina1official) June 23, 2023

We’re still a long way off from that being a universal reality across metaverse experiences. However, working with like-minded partners and standards organizations across the industry, to develop the standards and protocols necessary to empower a truly interoperable metaverse, brings us one step further to making this a reality.

David A Smith: The hallmark of ecologies is systems that can evolve. A walled garden is an ecosystem where evolution is constrained and controlled.

If we grow a field of corn, the evolution of that field is very specific to the requirements of the owners. It isn’t a bad thing – but it can’t survive on its own. A healthy ecological system is going to grow in unpredictable ways that always improve its ability to succeed and thrive.

On the other hand, closed, walled gardens will never be able to keep up — they can’t evolve at the same pace. Interoperability is essential to a healthy ecology by driving the entire thing.

Open ecosystems need resources to thrive. Rain, air, and minerals — these all provide the materials for the elements of the ecosystem to develop. We believe decentralized collaboration through multiplayer interactions and Web3, particularly blockchain, are critical resources to create a healthy metaverse.

Croquet and L1 provide these in a way that ensures access and scalability, with no strings attached and no constraints on the development of these new worlds. Our company, aligned with Lamina1, provides a firm foundation for the evolution of the shared spatial computing future.

The metaverse we envision is one where citizens can freely navigate between different worlds and experiences. Together, with @Metaverse_Forum, we’ll be working to make #interoperability a reality in the next online era.

Find out more at: https://t.co/WtJKCmUjH2 https://t.co/x14jYLYHeV

— LAMINA1 (@Lamina1official) June 21, 2023

Gaspard Giroud: Interoperability is desirable and necessary. We hope many 3D worlds will be developed with different purposes, look and feel, colors, personalities and communities. The standards that exist in the 2D digital world, like HTML, do not yet exist for 3D, real-time worlds.

Solving that is a challenge, especially for the visible layer of the metaverse: the 3D graphics you navigate as a user. Visitors of the metaverse need to travel from one world to the next with their digital assets. Resolving that may take years and require an international effort involving the pioneers of spatial computing.

Lamina1 helps make interoperability a reality: a foundational layer, below the visible 3d data, that secures and anchors the rights, privileges, and operations of these worlds.

XR Today: Any thoughts on the recent Apple Vision Pro announcement? How do you see this product contributing to an open metaverse?

Rebecca Barkin: The openness of the ecosystem aside, the arrival of the Apple Vision Pro is undoubtedly a net positive for those working in and around the Metaverse.

Especially with a player like Disney joining the XR content game, two global market leaders, ushering in a new era of immersive technologies, signals unwavering trust and preparedness for mass market adoption.

We can continue to bicker about definitions and degrees of spatial intelligence, but Apple did the only thing that matters: they provided an approachable platform for consumers to grasp and are now experimenting with a new computing paradigm.

While the form factor is a bit more cumbersome than expected and faces many of the same hurdles early headsets have encountered, I am excited by the emphasis on zero-latency, multi-modal interaction and spatial audio ray-tracing. People obsess about visual fidelity, but nailing interaction and audio is incredibly satisfying and will ignite creativity. I also think it’s great they’re supporting WebXR.

Apple’s “reality-plus” approach is simple yet smart. It’s brief and promises high-fidelity experiences that deliver both practicality and excitement. I’m excited to see how consumers continue to receive the Apple Vision Pro and how other leaders, specifically within the metaverse space, work toward a world that puts creators at the heart of the narrative and improves the pitfalls of Web2-structured ecosystems.

David A Smith: The Apple Vision Pro is a major step forward in human-computer interaction (HCI). Paraphrasing Alan Kay when he spoke about the Macintosh, “the Apple Vision Pro is the first head wearable device that is good enough to criticize.”

Perhaps the most important value it brings to the market is it sets a new standard for capabilities from Apple’s competition and raises expectations from customers. It also further validates the importance of this next-generation interface.

Gaspard Giroud: The opportunity in front of us is a generational and cultural change, much like the birth of the digital age in the 90s. It is a new territory for design, expression and creativity, where new behaviours will arise from interacting physically with data, and a paradigm shift for representation.

Everyone will be offered to step inside the digital realm instead of standing in front of it. The Vision Pro brings the world one step closer to the promise of spatial computing and might also symbolically mark a point of no return.

For the sceptics that doubted the dawn of the spatial computing era, it makes it visible. It materializes big tech companies’ commitments and demonstrates that design matters for software and devices.

If earlier headsets had a prototype or plastic toy look, the Vision Pro has the qualities of a luxury item with its dark curved glass and fabric. Interestingly, no one knows how to use the mouse in spatial computing. Just as there are no interoperability standards, there are no common behavioural habits for manipulating or navigating 3D spaces. Apple could potentially contribute to establishing the basics of these standards.

Finally, it is refreshing to realize that this much ingenuity is still rooted in the work of small startups. The extraordinary Canadian engineer Bertrand Nepveu built a working VR/AR headset acquired by Apple in 2017.