One Ring to Rule the Metaverse?
Plus, what is the difference between Layer 1 and Layer 2?
I spent part of last Friday on a phone call from Bruges, Belgium. Stefan Colins was on the other end, breathlessly telling me all about the project he’s spent countless hours on—the MetaRing.
“Everyone is talking about metaverses these days, but with this ring and the wallet, you can go to all of them,” he said at the start of the call.
Stefan and his employer, Venly, are in the final push before the launch of the MetaRing project in a few weeks. He’s currently in the middle of a marketing blitz, evangelizing about how the MetaRing promotes cross chain interoperability. He believes users will want that kind of seamlessness as the world adopts this technology.
“At the end of the day, there will be a lot of metaverses,” he said. “We want to showcase what you can do with an NFT.”
Working in this space feels like a natural fit for Stefan, who says he first got into cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in 2017. It wasn’t long before he was reading everything he could about Bitcoin and beyond. He simply couldn’t stop.
“I caught a virus,” he said with a chuckle. “A good virus.”
Realizing the potential of gaming on those platforms helped Stefan see possibilities that others might not, and he believes finding his way to Venly was inevitable. He likes the company focus on making metaverses more accessible to consumers.
“The metaverse is really another name for web 3, and web 3 is another way that we can communicate with each other,” Stefan explained. “The blockchain is all about ownership. It’s a transparent way of making transactions.”
MetaRing owners will be eligible for exclusive perks, in-game utilities, rewards, events and more. Price starts at $1000 in USDC coin (the stable coin) and sale begins March 3rd.
“This is a project that is here to stay,” he told me. “It is not a cash grab. The money that we make from this sale, we are going to reinvest in the metaverse.”
MetaRing’s origin sale will be limited to 1,000 products. The project has already announced some major partnerships, including with The Sandbox and Polygon.
Plus…
CRYPTO 101: Layer 1 vs. Layer 2
With so many projects out there, keeping track of what’s what can get confusing. This is especially true with regard to the distinction between Layer 1 and Layer 2 projects.
So what’s the difference?
As always, let’s discuss this in simple terms. No need to get too technical—that’s for the mathematicians and tech geniuses out there. Here at The Crypto Connection, we keep it easy.
In crypto, the Layer 1 term refers to the “actual” blockchain being used. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, and Algorand are all Layer 1. There are others out there as well.
The term Layer 2 refers to a project or network built on top of the original chain. These projects often take the baseline network and have it do something different.
For example, Polygon is a Layer 2 scaling solution that operates on top of Ethereum. Polygon has it’s own token ($MATIC) but relies on Ethereum for its baseline. In a way, any investment in $MATIC is by default also an investment in Ethereum, because an investor is signaling they have confidence in the Ethereum blockchain.
Layer 1 vs Layer 2 can be hard to understand at first. Hope this helped!
Finally…
Yes, the market looks awful. No way to hide that—you’re going to need grit, sobriety, and a pair diamond hands to get through 2022. Anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t being honest. As Warren Buffet famously said about the stock market, “When the tide goes out, you get to see who has been swimming naked.” Unfortunately, there are a lot of naked swimmers in the crypto ocean right now.
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The Crypto Connection is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to be financial advice. Please do your own research before investing in any asset class. Sara Celi is not a financial advisor, and holds several cryptocurrencies. To purchase her books on Amazon, please click here.