First Look at High Fidelity Commerce in Action

Today at VR Days, our CEO, Philip Rosedale, previewed High Fidelity’s upcoming commerce feature.

As discussed in previous posts, High Fidelity’s virtual goods transactions will be backed by a consensus blockchain. A consensus model allows for speedier settlement of transactions while preserving the public, open ledger that has made blockchain currencies like Bitcoin and Etherium so successful.

As an open, decentralized system, we are committed to democratizing as much of virtual reality as possible. Open ledger technologies like blockchain move transactions, and potentially identity management, out of centralized databases and into the hands of the community.

Our preview today focused on how a blockchain-backed system will integrate into the virtual environment, providing simple interfaces that will allow users to purchase virtual goods. You can see some elements of the experience below.

We all know that digital assets are hard to protect in any context; the certification of assets (using a hashing function to uniquely identify each one) alone cannot protect against the distribution of works. However, a decentralized system that uniquely identifies and tracks the provenance of assets represents an important step in the creation of new, more viable forms of ownership for digital content.

In the coming months, we plan to provide additional details on the blockchain infrastructure we will use to secure transactions. In the meantime, please check out our Digital Asset Registry FAQ, which we’ll be expanding over time. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback and thoughts over on the High Fidelity forum.