Fiction writer Neal Stephenson will launch his own blockchain Lamina1, focused on metaverses and augmented reality.
Former Bitcoin Foundation president Peter Vessenes is also involved in the project. In his words, the first iteration of the blockchain will be something between a friendly fork and a partnership with Avalanche. However, those plans exist only on paper for now.
Investors include Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, PSL Ventures managing director Jeff Entress, billionaire Matthew Roszak, Chief Legal Officer Patrick Merk of Transparent Systems, and DLTx’s COO David Johnston.
It was Neal Stephenson who, in 1992’s Snow Crash, first used the term “metaverse.” The book depicts the metaverse as a virtual urban environment accessed by people via the Internet and VR headsets. The work touches on themes of social inequality, totalitarianism, advertising, and virtual real estate.
Today the author admits that 30 years ago he did not foresee all the developments in metaverse visualization.
«When I was writing Snow Crash, I did not anticipate the emergence of video games. It was they that made 3D graphics cheap enough to reach a mass audience», – Neal Stephenson said.
He also suggested that most metaverse spaces would be designed for monitors rather than VR headsets.
A testnet and beta version of Lamina1 are planned to launch by the end of 2022. The developers’ ultimate goal is to create an immersive 3D metaverse inspired by Stephenson’s novel.
In April, American rapper Snoop Dogg said he would create digital cannabis farms in the MOBLAND metaverse.
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