The man who gave the Metaverse its name is launching a blockchain project to realise its potential.
Neal Stephenson’s book Snow Crash originally described the Metaverse. Thirty years later, he is supporting Lamina1’s vision for a blockchain protocol equal to the Metaverse’s original promise.
Described as a base-level blockchain protocol equal to the technical, economic and philosophical origins of the Metaverse idea itself – an open and expansive virtual universe – Lamina1 is a Layer-1 blockchain technology designed for the Metaverse with Web3 principles in mind.
Renowned futurist Stephenson and cryptocurrency pioneer Peter Vessenes, co-founders of the project, are chairman and CEO respectively.
Later this year, the company will launch a testnet and a subsequent betanet. Beyond 2022, the co-founders plan to seed a new immersive environment inspired by Stephenson’s million-selling novel Snow Crash, building infrastructure and releasing tools to support the work of third-party creators who want to build Open Metaverse experiences at scale.
Lamina1 says it is working to ensure the missteps of Web2 are not made. It says the internet perpetuated existing structures of centralised ownership and inequality.
Its alternative, integrated Web3 community and ecosystem is seen as the first building block for a truly open Metaverse. It says the provably carbon negative Lamina1 chain will offer high transaction volume and an economic design with new incentive mechanisms to help create thriving, vibrant economies for creators and entrepreneurs.
“The 30th anniversary of Snow Crash, and recent interest in actually building the Metaverse, has got me thinking about how to do it in a way that’s true to the original concept,” said Stephenson.
“That means creative ferment rooted in a strong base layer of open source tech that provides key services to creators while making sure that they get paid. The purpose of Lamina1 is to provide that, using the best and most up-to-date ideas from the industry.
“We’ll build first-and second-party experiences just to make sure it all works. But we’ll know we’ve succeeded when Lamina1 is adopted by third-party creators.”
Vessenes is known in the cryptocurrency industry for a series of firsts, namely launching the first VC-backed Bitcoin company (2011) and forming the Bitcoin Foundation (2012) – today a blueprint for the way the now $1 trillion+ blockchain industry engages communities and manages and creates cryptocurrencies.
Joining the team is Metaverse pioneer Tony Parisi, former head of AR/VR at Unity. He was also an early leader in Web3D and virtual reality, the inventor of VRML (the original standard for 3D graphics on the web) and co-creator of glTF, the open file format that today powers millions of 3D objects. Rounding out the Lamina1 leadership team is advisor Rony Abovitz, founder of Sun and Thunder, Magic Leap and MAKO Surgical.
Initial Investors in Lamina1 include Rony Abovitz, Geoff Entress, Jeremy Giffon, Bing Gordon, James Haft, Reid Hoffman, David Johnston, Joseph Lubin, Patrick Murck, Matthew Roszak, Tihan Seale, Peter Vessenes and Wu Ying.