[Theory] VRChat could have had a market cap of ~100B by now without effort

This is not a propaganda thread nor a proposal.

Some of you might have heard of the recent metaverse hype and how it boosted blockchain projects from a couple 100 millions to multiple billions and all that just due to a facebook announcement.
It’s crazy to think about it, because those projects had zero retail and media coverage while VRChat completely blew up everywhere and it is essentially the same type of product.
If, for instance, VRChat had decided to implement optional tokenized collectibles (worlds, avatars, models, consumables, etc) based on a digital currency back in the early days, chances would have been high for the prices to skyrocket.

Most of the old players or creators would probably be rich by now without even investing into anything.

Right, let’s shoot this out of the air while we still can.

Ignoring the tech jargon, since some of these buzz words don’t even make sense.

A meta verse can never be owned by a single company. That’s literally the definition of a metaverse. A free and open world anyone can develop on.

Which, vrc gets close to that definition since it’s free and relatively open. But it’s still owned by a single entity.

Second of all,
Digital currency.

I won’t be the grumpy guy telling people that digital currency is bad. It has it’s use cases. And I think the vrc devs are working on something themselves.

However the notion that vrc should have a digital currency or tokens is just wrong.

It won’t help creators nor users. not in the slightest.

In fact, it would likely actively harm the vrc community.

For the uninitiated, a token, or as it’s likely aimed to be in this topic, an nft isn’t an actual item. It’s essentially a piece of paper that says you own an item. Nothing more, nothing less. If I copy the item that pice of paper references then there isn’t much you can do to stop me.

NFT’s don’t make things protected. It simply indentifies an “owner”

Which is where my point of harming the vrc community leads to.

The vrc community is built on free and open creativity. Creators working together to make amazing things. Sharing works and assets to help others learn new things and in general being awesome people.

NFT’s and Currency would harm this freedom of expression as people will undoubtedly copy some ones work and put it up for sale as their own.

Now, you could argue that this is already the case with marketplaces like Booth, where you can buy avatar models to use yourself. But, the difference is that booth is highly regulated. With stores being shut down for selling other user’s works. Additionally, it doesn’t sell NFTs, just a copy of the work that you can use to make your own.

Even if vrc implemented something similar, it’s not the focus of vrc to develop a storefront. It’s focus is making a kick-ass social game. Running an online store takes a lot of time, effort, rules and regulations, money and people. It’s not a set it and forget it thing. And there’s a lot of laws that you have to abide by when offering things like token currencies.

Which moves me to the final point,
There is a reason things like decentraland (blockchain based game) doesn’t really work as a game. Just because a block chain is used, or there is an nft market. Doesn’t mean the developers earn anything from it.

Block chain and nfts for that matter generate value by creating arbitrary scarcity. There’s a finite amount of both. Which ultimately limits the growth potential of a platform.

VRC has it’s charm exactly because there’s an unlimited amount of worlds you can visit or create. It’s amazing because we can all pretend to be CyanLazer and run around as his “clones”. And there’s an endless amount of creativity and possiblity to be had with vrc as a platform.

Something things like crypto, tokens, nft’s etc ultimately undermine.

Which is why I called the post “filled with buzzwords”. Since if you understood how it worked, you’d also understand why it’d never work for vrchat.

Sure, there are issues, like copyright infringement, low effort content and people stealing things to name a few. But, crypto and nfts won’t solve these issues. Copyright for instance is a legal issues and I don’t think a court would recognize the owner of an nft to be the copyright holder.

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Hi,

I think you have misinterpreted the point of this thread, I was referring to the idea of tradable virtual assets in general.
Crypto is obviously just a catalyst for those things to grow exponentially in value based on mlm schemes, market depth and trend but all that only adds up to the conclusion of the comparison I projected. To put it simply, it was all just a conjecture.
Anyways, thanks for those valuable insights!