Lamina1: The Foundation of the Open Metaverse

Lamina1 is a Layer-1 blockchain purpose-built to empower the Open Metaverse. The Co-founders, Neal Stephenson and Peter Vessenes, are subject matter experts in their fields, where Neal brings the creative metaverse storytelling and Peter the Blockchain know-how. The team has recently revealed the first issue of its whitepaper and I had to dig into this exciting document. As the unofficial Lamina1 Writer, I will provide the highlights of the document and my analysis of what Lamina1 will bring to creators and developers alike. Check out my first article on Lamina1 below!

The team sets the tone with its Mission Statement which has been reiterated by its founders since its inception; “To provide a layer 1 blockchain, interoperating tools, and decentralized services optimized for the open metaverse, while providing communities with infrastructure”. The plan has always been to deliver the best-in-class SDKs and environment for creators to build in the metaverse.

The team will lean on the Metaverse vision of Neal Stephenson, the author who coined “Metaverse”, as Lamina1’s technical foundation. The team will employ stories and storytelling as a powerful tool to contextualize and drive the creative and technical development required to build a virtual universe inspired by humanity.

Lamina1 will approach the Open Metaverse with a multi-pronged approach including a Layer 1 Blockchain, Metaverse-as-a-Service (MaaS), Community Economic Participation and Incentives, and Original Content. We will dive into each of these deliverables more below:

As an overview of the blockchain, Lamina1 uses a high-speed Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm, customized to support the needs of content creators –– providing provenance for creatorship and enabling attributive and behavioral characteristics of an object to be minted, customized, and composed on-chain. The team has noted before that they will use the Avalanche blockchain as a starting point, which will give Lamina1 the most flexible architecture for expansion.

Let’s get into the nitty-gritty! What should you expect in the Mainnet Lamina1 blockchain and how will it differ from existing blockchains? First off, the team wants to supply the community with all the Open Metaverse Data you would ever need. It should be easy for developers to access metaverse metadata from the Storage Layer, opening up the composability of digital objects in the same way that ERC-20 enabled composable fungible tokens, which is exactly what will happen.

One of Lamina1’s core values is Environmental Sustainability, which is why Carbon Token Staking is essential to have a negative carbon footprint. For each node operator, the team will assess energy requirements and verify that each step in the PoS validation process includes retiring an appropriate number of carbon credits, tokenized on Lamina1.

One of the most important factors in building the open metaverse is “Being Open”, or Interoperability. Lamina1 will offer Cross-chain Integration and be easily forkable at the Mainnet launch to support cross-chain data and value transfers from existing layer 1 blockchains.

With enabling creators to earn and receive the economic recognition they deserve, the metaverse will need a high-functioning system for paying one another. Lamina1 is prioritizing High-scale Payments and is currently in the early stages of building out a highly performant, high-scale payment subnet. This will allow users to easily create a rights payment group of hundreds of thousands of recipients, safely pay them, and allow these recipients to cheaply receive their payments.

Another big question that surrounds the Metaverse is, Who will you be? With Open ID Connect, all users will have the opportunity to be distinguished by the following four identity categories:

1. Personal Identity: One’s self as a human being.
2. Sovereign Identity: Diver’s License or Passport ID, given by nation/nation-state
3. Self-Sovereign Identity: Twitter or social media identity, given by a centralized entity
4. Self-Sovereign/Permissionless Identity: Decentralized identity like an Ethereum Address

The team plans to use zkSNARK technology to make associated proofs about these identities in the future as research is ongoing. The latter three are in the short-term goal timeline, while Personal Identity will be a longer-term goal.

The Lamina1 blockchain will also offer EVM Quality of Life Improvements; essentially, more technical enhancements to the Ethereum Virtual Machine to further empower the Open Metaverse. These improvements include Cross-Chain Support for Proof-of-Work & ETH2 validation inside Solidity and Self-Hosted Gas Inside Smart Contracts to help in the onboarding process.

Most of us have heard of SaaS, Software as a Service, but have you heard of Metaverse as a Service(MaaS)?

Lamina1 will foster the creation of a set of interoperating decentralized services to support virtual worlds. MaaS and ecosystem technologies will ideally be enhancements to/integrations of existing open source solutions, and/or directly provided by third parties. In short, the team will take existing technology and configure it for Metaverse applications and use cases.

One of the focal points of MaaS will be the Storage Layer since there will be a need for exabytes of rapidly-delivered data with *reasonable* safety, availability proofs, and relatively low latency. The asterisk was for a reason as Lamina1 will prioritize latency and bandwidth concerns over “perfect” safety.

To further the point about being interoperable and composable, Lamina1 will work with technology providers to offer decentralized services that fit any World State and will manage state changes that are synchronized among all participants. Whether it be a small number of participants using a lower bandwidth or a state with a larger number of participants with more complex gameplay that will need lower latency, Lamina1 will stay persistent.

When it comes to visuals, Lamina1 will enable virtual world creators and operators to use Cloud & Hybrid Rendering with pixel streaming to deliver photorealistic scenes, or they may opt for a combination of local and cloud-based processing to achieve the best combination of high fidelity and interactivity. I can see $RENDR coming into play here.

Gaming has already taken blockchain by storm, which is why the Metaverse will need to be accompanied by the top Game Engines & Web Integration. Lamina1 will provide feature-rich software development kits (SDKs) for the Unreal & Unity engines to make it as easy as possible to get started and be successful in integrating Lamina1 into games, immersive worlds, digital twins, simulations, and other content. Lamina1 will also provide the same feature set to web developers.

With respect to the web, Lamina1 will explore metaverse-enabled browsers and wallet tech that will push the UX of blockchains, including 3D content for avatars, objects, and scenes directly in the wallet (versus just static or video thumbnails), and creating fun utilities and widgets for increased UX.

As a founding member of the Metaverse Standards Forum, Lamina1 is committed to driving open specifications for the Open Metaverse to support the interoperability of assets, identity, payments, and spaces across all networks. The team firmly agreed that there can’t be several metaverses; instead, the Metaverse will be open for all and will need a set of foundational guidelines that new participants can follow.

It can be seen throughout the document that the team values Neal Stephenson’s vision and places the community as a fundamental factor in Lamina1’s success. The following quote speaks to the Lamina1 team and their commitment to building the foundation of the Metaverse, and rather providing for, not controlling, the creators that will eventually build the Metaverse.

“Lamina1 believes two things will power expansion and growth in the Metaverse –– a straightforward and principled approach to serving a diverse, open, and self-sustaining community of makers, and a powerful ecosystem of content and experiences that will drive fans and funding directly to the platform”

We have gone through a lot so far, but now is the time to really listen up! Lamina1 outlines its Original content & Creator system, which will, in some capacity, impact you. The Lamina1 infrastructure will spur a flourishing ecosystem of content, where economic incentives will motivate those innovators to build and expand the open metaverse. The team will of course include Neal Stephenson’s THEEE METAVERSE, which promises a richly-imagined interactive virtual world with an unforgettable origin story.

Furthermore, the team has a strong focus on Creator IP and providing grants & investments for those community members that are constantly innovating and creating. Lamina1 is also actively working to help IP holders and production studios, as well as establish key collaborations. Key community members will receive:

• Early access to Alpha/Beta/Test networks
• Support in launching live experiences for Mainnet
• Expedited support for high-impact projects
• Direct feedback channel to the engineering team
• Co-marketing, PR, and promotions across Lamina1-owned content, social and community channels
• Introductions to advisors and investors

In addition to its Creator IP program, Lamina1 will incorporate a Technology Grants Program, where Lamina1 tokens will be deployed to community members building on the chain. The team provides the following key goals to help motivate highly inventive and technical members. Key goals include:

• Providing token incentives to build on or port over to Lamina1
• Enhancing core capabilities of Lamina1 and targeting new audiences
• A broad remit of our grants oversight committee, including creator tooling, applications, Metaverse-specific technology & services, and blockchain protocols

Lamina1 will also host events & conferences to gather the community and spur creative development for the blockchain!

Finally, we will take a look at Lamina1’s Key Values that will be persistent in driving its governance and ecosystem growth:

• Creator Focus: Building a home with more favorable economics for those who create the content we consume. Providing creators the opportunity to gather funding independently and have more ownership of their creations.
• User Centric Design: Lamina1 wants to fix the current Crypto UX issues and make it intuitive for users to participate. Lamina1 believes in the value of design cycles, testing, and frequent feedback from diverse groups to deliver successful products to the market.
• Environment Sustainability: Lamina1 will have a zero or negative carbon footprint. The near-term answer is to code accountability directly into the chain. For each kind of node operator, Lamina1 will assess energy requirements and ensure they are retiring an appropriate number of carbon credits. The team also intends to enable the tokenization of carbon credits on-chain.

I have included the entire Technology Roadmap below with the boldedbeing most important to me:

2022

V1 Litepaper Release September 2022

Engine/web SDK & Wallet Alphas October 2022

Testnet November 2022

Browser MVP Alpha December 2022 EVM + ⍺ December 2022 Initial Studio Demos December 2022

2023

Engine/web SDK & wallet Betas January 2023

Blockchain Recompose January 2023

Original Game Pre-Production Begins Q1 2023

Betanet Q1 2023

MaaS MVPAlpha Q1 2023 Studio Launches Q2/3 2023

Mainnet Q2/3 2023

My thoughts: Ever since I read Neal Stephenson’s novel, “Snow Crash”, I became fascinated with the idea of an Open Metaverse and how it would all work. This whitepaper gave me a glimpse into what we will be seeing and living in the next 5-10 years. I love their overarching approach of laying the foundation and providing the disruptors and innovators with the tools they need to create and grow the Metaverse. With all of the intelligent and creative members in the Crypto community, I feel that Lamina1 has taken the right stance on how the Metaverse should be created; by US! The COMMUNITY! We will BUILD with each other and LEARN from each other during this process. At the end of the day, we will be saying that We Built The Metaverse, and not some company *cough *cough Meta *cough *cough. Join me in building Lamina1 and I promise you will never look back!

Thanks for reading and of course drop a like and a follow if you enjoyed it!

Yours Truly,

72099.ETH

Source: Whitepaper