MetaMirror AMA Recap — Feb 2022

On Feb 28, we hosted the first MetaMirror AMA of 2022. In this event, we discussed MetaMirror’s vision, our latest roadmap, and 5 questions our community care most about.

Introduction to the AMA

Hermas: Hello everyone! Today, I have shay, our Director of Products, to join us and answer all your questions. @Shay can you briefly introduce yourself?

Shay: Hi everyone! Really excited to talk together! This is Shay. I’m the Director of Products at Auth3 Network.
At MetaMirror, we build the foundation & entrance to a safe and fair Metaverse. I’m really happy to be part of this future-shaping project!

Section 1: Vision & Roadmap

Hermas: Thank you for introducing yourself. You mentioned MetaMirror is the foundation & entrance to a safe and fair Metaverse. How is the current Metaverse not safe and not fair?

Shay: Of course! As I mentioned, MetaMirror is a foundation & entrance to a safe and fair Metaverse. Metaverse is the next iteration of the internet and everyone wants to dive into this fascinating world. However, at the current stage, this virtual world is entirely separated from the real world. Users can’t leverage on the existing valuable data while exploring the Metaverse.
On the other hand, the traditional way of extracting data value is neither safe nor fair.
In the traditional internet, our personal data is controlled by the internet companies, not by ourselves. This is not safe because our virtual identity can be easily attacked and modified.
Besides the safety issue, there’s also an unfairness issue. Unfortunately, our data today is almost always used to serve the interest of internet companies, not ourselves. This is not a fair model to extract data value. For example, a retail store may pay Google to send users ads. In this case, users’ data is used to match the retail store’s preference, benefiting the retail store. And for Google, users’ data is used to make direct income.
We believe that the current data ecosystem is overall unhealthy. As Metaverse develops, users invest more and more into the virtual world. The damage caused by safety and fairness issues becomes more severe. And this is why we are in urgent need of a solution

Hermas: I see your points. So how does MetaMirror solve these issues? What’s your vision?

Shay: We address these problems through a data-backed & blockchain-based identity, we call it MBuddy. MBuddy is a user-managed identity that serves the user’s interests. This ensures that our virtual identity is safe and in control, and users’ data value is extracted in a fair way.
MBuddy is a safe Metaverse identity as it’s entirely under the user’s control. This means that the user controls what identity traits shall be added to their MBuddy. They also own all the source data that are backing their identity as personal data assets. This system is built upon a blockchain-based TEE application (Oasis Parcel) and no centralized parties can modify or attack your virtual identity.
Through MBuddy, we also establish a fair Metaverse data ecosystem. In this ecosystem, data values are extracted to serve users’ own interests. ( In the example of AI ROSE airdrop, users extracted the “Oasis Loyalty” identity trait to serve the interest of getting the airdrop.) This model rectifies the fairness issue.

Hermas: That’s very clear. Thanks for breaking it down.
Let’s move on to the next topics of the AMA. We have the latest roadmap of MetaMirror!!!

Hermas: I’m really excited to share the MetaMirror roadmap with you all. We also have received a lot of questions regarding the roadmap and the future of MetaMirror, both near term and long term.

Shay: Happy to explain!

Hermas: A lot of our community members are curious about MetaMirror’s plans regarding the Marketplace. Could you give us a brief overview?

Shay: For sure! As listed in the roadmap, we will release a feature-complete version of the MetaMirror Gallery marketplace in early Q2. We hope it to be the first dedicated NFT marketplace on Oasis Emerald. After that, we will continue to empower the MetaMirror Gallery with a launchpad that’s integrated with the MBuddy tool.
Empowering NFT release is the first use case of MBuddy. Due to the absence of data-backed audience insights, NFT launches are often very inefficient. MetaMirror Launchpad will make it easy for NFT projects to be released based on users’ identity traits. It will optimize the NFT launches towards a more wise, community-oriented, and insightful manner!

Hermas: Cool! As you mentioned before, MBuddy is MetaMirror’s core product and it is the core reason why we all believe MetaMirror will take off. My question is, what’s our plan around promoting MBuddy?

Shay: Thanks! We made a curated plan to gradually introduce MBuddy to the blockchain industry. Starting off, we will release the MetaMirror whitepaper/documentation in Q1.
In Q2, we will release the MBuddy Portal. This portal will allow you to manage MBuddy attributes across events to support your Web3 engagement. This may include community-specific loyal indexes for Oasis Network, MetaMirror, and some of our collaborated projects and artists. You may also see NFT fever index, blockchain expert index, etc.
Q3: After releasing the Portal, we will focus on widely applying MBuddy in NFT releases, through integrating MBuddy with MetaMirror Launchpad.
After scaling the MBuddy application in the NFT field, we will focus on pushing MBuddy to the rest of the blockchain industry and explore more scalable landing use cases.
In Q4, As the size and application range of MBuddy adaption continue to grow, we will then move on to a utility-based token release plan to facilitate the MetaMirror ecosystem.

Hermas: Wow, the timeline is Packed! Thanks for explaining how MetaMirror will realize its vision step by step, following the roadmap. I see that the future is concrete and very promising!

Section 2: Community Questions

Hermas: Now let’s move on to answer 5 questions we selected from our community.
AI Rose is the most successful project on the oasis ecosystem and holding it means holding a blue-chip. Could you share AI Rose NFT utilities which you already have planned or considered to add?

Shay: We hold great appreciation towards our early supporters. This is why we have integrated AI ROSE holders and our early supporters as the first-order beneficiary of the development of MetaMirror and MBuddy. The community benefits fall into two categories: The MBuddy-based benefits and project-specific benefits.
The MBuddy-based benefits are unlocked along with MetaMirror’s major milestones. For example, as MetaMirror Launchpad integrates with MBuddy, users with AI ROSE holder and OG supporter attributes will be listed as prioritized whitelist communities for all Launchpad NFT projects. Users with these special roles will be automatically whitelisted, or otherwise have a much easier way to get whitelisted than the general community. This priority will take place along all the MetaMirror milestones, including the MBuddy Portal launch and more.
As we continue building the next-generation blockchain identity infrastructure to support individuals’ data rights, we also stay active in collaborating with specific NFT projects to benefit our community with high-quality NFT airdrops and whitelists, as AI ROSE holders represent the most passionate and faithful NFT community in Oasis ecosystem. Currently, we have 3–4 projects coming soon and we expect to have more in the future.
We are actively looking for more NFT collaborations to give AI ROSE holders more short-term benefits, before the MBuddy-based ecosystem benefits gradually roll out. We also highly appreciate the support from our community in helping secure such collaborations!

Hermas: That’s so great! Glad to hear that!
Next question. How can we promote MetaMirror?

Shay: That’s a big question, and we wish to work with our buddies to figure this out together. The prosperity and progress of Metamirror are inseparable from the immense support of our buddies. In order to encourage involvement, we have prepared the MetaMirror Gold Rush mechanism to reward our buddies for both big and small contributions.
As our short-term goal is to strengthen MetaMirror’s impact in the NFT ecosystem, we encourage our community buddies to promote us to new users, NFT projects, NFT influencers/whales, blockchain YouTubers/KOLs, including those outside the Oasis ecosystem.
We are thriving to build a bridge between the oasis ecosystem and other blockchain ecosystems. We hope to be a platform that can embrace more partners with excellent projects. We will try our best to achieve that and we also need our community’s support. Thanks all in advance!!

Hermas: AI Rose is so cool! I love the designs so much!! I want the world to see it. Will it be possible to get my Rose on OpenSea so that I can display it in my profile with a blue check mark?

Shay: Thank you! We’ve also been closely following the possibility of listing AI ROSE on OpenSea. However the fact is that OpenSea doesn’t support Oasis Emerald Network at the moment yet. This is because the Emerald NFT ecosystem is still at its very early stage and the overall size is small compared to the general industry.
We are at the beginning of a blockchain that’s about to take over the world! Stick around, and I believe that as Oasis’s NFT ecosystem grows, this will one day become true. : )

Hermas: How do you feel about the Galaxy project and how do you differ from them?

Shay: Very interesting question! Glad to answer. For those who aren’t already familiar, Galaxy is another project that builds identity credentials. MetaMirror and Galaxy Project are different in vision, technology, and product scope. I will explain briefly.
In a concrete form, the product scope is different. Galaxy derives identity credentials from the existing blockchain chain data that are publicly available. These data are aggregated into ready-to-use forms. MetaMirror builds identity credentials from a much wider range of data sources. This includes both on-chain data and users’ private data from web 2 services. It ports the vast amount of data value in the traditional internet directly into the Web 3 world in a decentralized manner.
In terms of shaping a better internet, Project Galaxy enhances data availability, whereas MetaMirror supports individuals’ data rights. To be more specific, Project Galaxy extracts on-chain data value into an open data network. Whereas at MetaMirror, you establish your data owner rights and beneficiary rights. This means you get to decide what value shall be extracted, and you are the beneficiary of these data values.
While we focus on applying MBuddy in the NFT field, these values take the form of “easy pass to whitelists and airdrops”. As we push MBuddy towards the general blockchain industry, the data value may take other forms such as cryptocurrencies

Hermas: The last question.
Since AIROSE was launched, it has been very popular with many fans. Until now, it has cooperated with Swarm Teddies. I would like to know whether the fixed mode of MetaMirror is to cooperate with NFT project to launch on MetaMirror’s official website, and then reward AIROSE holders with whitelist? Now MetaMirror’s roadmap has been completed. What is the follow-up plan?

Shay: Yes, you may have found that we’ve been very careful in introducing collaborations. In my opinion, the Oasis NFT ecosystem is at its very early stage, and the art & operation quality varies drastically from project to project.
We want to bring the best to our community and avoid leading you to cash-grabbers. But our power is upper bounded and we can not screen all the projects that come to us. In general, we consider the following factors:
1) Whether the project is officially endorsed by the Oasis Foundation.
2) Community size and activeness.
3) The long-term plan and roadmap of the project.
4) NFT production quality.
5) Our community opinions, reflected in polls.
At the current stage, it’s challenging to secure a consistent stream of high-quality projects. We sometimes accept projects that don’t meet all these standards to allow more participation. So please Do Your Own Research while involved in these 3rd party projects.
Also, we encourage our community to reach out to high-quality projects and introduce them to us, including those that are outside the Oasis network. As we are a cross-chain identity service, we thrive to be a bridge that connects Oasis with the NFT ecosystems of all other blockchains. Let’s make this happen together!

Hermas: Cool! Many thanks to Shay for sharing so much information with us. I believe our community buddies now have a much better understanding of what MetaMirror will do in the future.

Shay: Thanks for having me!

Hermas: We are going to have to wrap up the AMA for today. Thank you for your participation and support.