Introducing Multiverse
Multiverse.pub
With the launch of minting and auctioning coming to Universe, we wanted to share some of the developments behind the scenes we have discussed internally as we were developing the idea of UniverseXYZ. Universe was never intended to be a stand-alone protocol to create media NFTs. We had bigger plans for the entire ecosystem. We wanted to take on some of the biggest issues we saw in the NFT world in terms of decentralization, in order to create new use cases for the products of the protocol, and build tools for artists to have more control over how they own and monetize content.
One of the first things we did was research the idea of where most NFTs’ metadata points to. Personally we’ve always loved the idea of NFT jpeg art on the blockchain, but when we lifted the hood of NFTs in 2017 we noticed most of this digital media was stored on centralized IPFS servers. This technology model did create interesting companies that are still with us today, but the decentralization maximalist in us couldn’t escape the question, “What happens if those IPFS nodes go down?” We are all disciples of J1mmy and it shows.
After reviewing multiple options for storing assets and what we thought the future role of all the components of the Universe would look like, we decided upon Dfinity. Dfinity offered us solutions to numerous problems the team had been discussing for over a year at that point. This also led us to revisit and combine an idea we had for Universe. The idea was floated to build a mining/render/transcoding operation for a company that ran on using blockchain technology as part of its backend. The company could use the cash flow from the operation to empower a platform for both artists and consumers. More on this later.
In Spring of 2021, before there was ever an XYZ token, we formed a company in Puerto Rico called Multiverse. This company was meant to buy hardware for the Dfinity ecosystem, which is where Universe, in due time, will store the media for the NFTs and run a Gen2 node on the island. This actually turned out to be a lot harder than originally thought, as Puerto Rican data centers still ran IPvs4 back in early 2021. To run a Gen2 Dfinity node, you need an IPvs6 connection. We were in contact with Igor Lillac, who also happened to be an OG Universe member during the time of “the fallen amphibian” period. He worked at the Dfinity foundation, who set us up with Eric and Gavin from MALA Technologies. They also worked with the Puerto Rican data centers to upgrade their infrastructure in order for us to bring the node to the island.
TheWormhole.XYZ | @TheWormhole_XYZ
Wormhole is a streaming app that uses the Live.Peer network to create a decentralized TikTok that you will be able to then save the footage and mint it as an NFT using the Universe Protocol.
With Multiverse contributing to the power of the network that will be storing the media for our NFTs, we were looking for ways to actually use the revenue from the Nodes. The ROI from operating a node on Dfinity will be properly accounted for and controlled by the founding members of the entity. The entity will buy XYZ tokens off the market, which will then be used in the streaming app Wormhole. Wormhole will be built on the Universe protocol and use the XYZ token to power the platform. Artists will be able to connect their media used in a specific NFT and allow consumers to enjoy their art on the platform for a price set by the artist. That revenue will flow back to the artists and the holders of that specific NFT, depending on how the artist sets up their NFT rewards within the Universe protocol. The long term vision is that multiple pieces of media, connected to multiple different NFTs, will form a giant single piece of media that rewards its artists and buyers automatically. This will be a new dawn for artists to collaborate together to create cosmic levels of art while removing the gatekeepers/middle men that syphon the current system.
dGuild.co | @_dGuild
dGuild is the other product we will be releasing in parallel development with Wormhole. The best way to think of it is a Patreon that uses blockchain mechanics, reducing the overhead and creating a system that gives back to the artists/creator and creates a unique bond between fan and artists.
We set out to build tools around the Universe Protocol that helped empower artists and something like dGuild will be a great building block as one of the first tools that combines WEB3 mechanism in ways never seen before. The first point of this is funding and offering a way for artists/creators to jumpstart their world of creation. From there the artists can build a following, produce content for Wormhole, Mint and Auction NFTs using the Universe Protocol smart contracts, and then traveling over to the Marketplace to sell the NFTs or allow other artists to use the content in their own content on Wormhole….and this is just the beginning.
Puerto Rico
At this point, people might be asking the question, “Why Puerto Rico?” The answer is quite simple. We are using the Corporate Tax rate on the island and pumping it back into the crypto ecosystem while also providing jobs and tech revenue to the island. We believe that the island is ripe for a technological renaissance and are looking forward to paving the way. Through working with these data centers, we have found that many people living on the island are eager to invite new technological architecture that facilitates new business models for the island. We can’t think of a better place than Puerto Rico to jump start a decentralization movement.
Structure
Multiverse is a C-Corp where the founding 3 members (Tim, Tyler, and Troy) each own 33.3% of the Series A shares. These shares have full voting power over the revenue generated by the Dfinity node and possible other mining/transcoding operations. Below that there will be Series B shares which will be allocated to employees who come on board and help build our applications that empower artists, all starting with Wormhole and dGuild.
If you are interested in building out tools for artists while exploring WEB3 protocols and architectures we would love to hear from you.
Please DM @Dre_lew8 on Twitter.
LFG 💪
