The world of blockchain was changed completely when Ethereum became known to the public. Different from the previous-gen of blockchains where most cryptocurrencies were just sent for cross-border transactions, Ethereum enabled a world of possibilities where people can create their own tokens for various purposes.

Ethereum introduced the concept of smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) to the crypto space. Since then, many newer blockchain projects started to realize the true potential of blockchain and distributed LEDGER technology (DLT).

Considering Ethereum itself had many problems with scalability and speed, all the newer blockchain companies were trying to steal the cake from the main man in the show (Ethereum). They were all trying to prove that they were the “faster” public blockchain network that’s suitable for dApps and adoption.

Metaverse is one of those challengers. Founded by one of the NEO co-founders, the Metaverse team believes the project can compete with more popular smart contract platforms. Is it worth it to invest in Metaverse’s native cryptocurrency (ETP)? Let’s find out together about Metaverse’s technology, the team behind it, and then we can decide together!

Metaverse is quite similar to most other dApp blockchain platforms, but it utilizes different mechanisms and foundation. While developers need to write their own smart contracts in order to issue dApps on other blockchain platforms (i.e., on Ethereum), but dApp developers on the Metaverse ecosystem wouldn’t need to do that. 

The smart contract system in Metaverse is built-in by default and is divided to three different categories, which are asset exchange, tokenization, and avatar. And the smart contract is used to issue blockchain-as-a-service, also known as BaaS.

Metaverse’s service is also separated into four different categories. They are digital identities, digital assets, on-chain crypto exchange, and oracle intermediaries.

So, in the Metaverse ecosystem, digital identities are defined by the Metaverse Smart Token or MST. The concept is to tokenize all the built-in smart contracts by using MST easily. 

Then, we have digital assets that are issued by different individuals through their digital identities. In the Metaverse ecosystem, digital identities are connected to each avatar’s unique index before they get encrypted for data privacy. This management system for digital identities is called the Metaverse Avatar.

The third important part of Metaverse service is the oracle intermediaries. The oracles here are basically the “trust point” to check processed information on Metaverse blockchain. Any individual or company or group of people can become oracle, but you will need higher credibility (based on your own history) before the blockchain can trust you more and give you more tasks to verify the information on the chain. 

Last but not least, we have the on-chain exchange. Imagine it like a decentralized exchange on top of a public blockchain network such as EOS, Ethereum, or NEO. Just the difference here is that everything is built-in from the very beginning without any third party creating the DEX (decentralized exchange).

And to accomplish its vision, Metaverse uses a mainstream consensus mechanism, which is a Ethash Proof of Work (PoW). The metaverse team also envisioned that the blockchain would eventually migrate to Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) once the PoW mining rewards are almost finished.

Analyzing The Team Behind Metaverse

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Of course, when it comes to crypto investments, we also need to know the team behind the project. This is quite important because cryptocurrency investment is about believing what the crypto will be able to do in the future (not just what it is able to do today). For that reason, we should analyze the core team’s background before we invest in the cryptocurrency.

How about the core team behind Metaverse?

The biggest name in the Metaverse team is the Chief Executive Officer Eric Gu. For your information, Eric was also the co-founder of NEO, which is one of the most popular Chinese public blockchain projects. Eric Gu was also the Loopring LRC advisor and was one of the early investors of Bitshares. His previous job was being a senior programmer at Haier.

Then, we also have a Chief Technology Officer, which is also one of the co-founders, Chen Hao. Chen Hao was the winner of ArchSummit 2017, where he had to compete with more than 200 other businesses. Chen Hao has strong C++/Python programming skills. If you want to check his programming skills, you are free to check his Github page.

And the third co-founder (which is also the Head of R&D) is Michael Jiang. He has solid experience with analyzing Big Data as well as application development.

Last but not least, we have Hon Lung Tsoi, who acts as the Business Analytics Manager at Metaverse. He is also the Chief Operating Officer at ViewFin. Just a side note, ViewFin is the blockchain enterprise that has been developing the Metaverse project and has about 60 staff. Most of the core team of Metaverse are also part of the higher-ups at Viewfin.

Obviously, there are more names other than these four important persons I wrote above. But, basically, the directions of the project are decided by these figures. And, judging by their background, I say they actually have a pretty solid background. 

Use-Cases Of Metaverse’s ETP

Now we know who is the team behind the project, and we know the fundamentals of the blockchain. But, how about the use-cases of the blockchain’s native cryptocurrency? After all, we want to invest in the cryptocurrency itself, right? 

So, Metaverse’s native cryptocurrency is called Entropy or ETP. It is a normal utility token, and its use-cases are to reward the miners and developers in the blockchain. Transaction fees are paid with ETP, just like how Ether works in Ethereum blockchain. And ETP here also works as collateral.

While ETP’s role is crucial in the Metaverse blockchain ecosystem, but ETP itself is not one of those ERC20 tokens. And thus, it’s not very easy to hold ETP coins. You cannot use your favorite multi-crypto wallet applications for ETP. Hopefully, when ETP gets more popular in the crypto community, there will be more and more multi-crypto wallets that support this coin.

Metaverse Future And Potential Roadblocks

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The future of Metaverse would depend on various factors. Unfortunately, it is targeting the exact same use-cases like Ethereum and NEO. There are too many players in the same space, and it will get harder every year to “breakthrough” to the top 5 dApps platforms. 

Even NEO, which Eric Gu was part of the team, struggle in its competition against Ethereum, Tron, and EOS. It will be an uphill battle for Metaverse to try to convince both the developers and dApp users to switch to Metaverse. Most people live in their own “comfort zone,” and unfortunately, that comfort zone is already conquered by Ethereum and several others.

If Metaverse wants to get some market shares and slowly get some parts of the cake, it needs to introduce groundbreaking technology as well as good incentives for the developers to come in. Without that, the competition is too fierce, and it is hard to see where Metaverse will end up in the next five years or so.

External Factor And ETP Price

Well, we have studied a lot about Metaverse and ETP, but is it enough? Unfortunately not. When it comes to altcoin prices, there’s one huge factor that can affect the entire market. That factor is called Bitcoin price.

Yes, since many years ago, Bitcoin price has directly affected altcoin prices. Whether we like it or not, ETP price won’t be any exception. Basically, when Bitcoin price goes up, altcoin prices go up. When Bitcoin price goes down, altcoin prices go down as well.

So, what’s the theory about Bitcoin price? Well, there are divided opinions about this one. Some analysts predict Bitcoin price would go up in 2020 following the next Bitcoin mining reward halving. 

However, many other analysts predict Bitcoin price would keep going down after recently it has been slowly going down from above $10,000 to below $7,000.

Either way, you always need to pay close attention to Bitcoin price, as it will certainly affect ETP price if you decide to invest in ETP. The next few years will be crucial for Bitcoin as many people start to feel that the blockchain hype has been going down a little bit recently.

Conclusion

Metaverse is a decent project with a solid team background. The technology presented by this blockchain network is strong enough, and they might be able to break the domination of Ethereum and other altcoins in the world of decentralized applications.

However, the competition is very tough, and they need to have a solid marketing and branding strategies if they truly want to become one of the top dApp platforms. Whether they can do it or not, unfortunately, only time will tell.