Matrix World - Flow Ecosystem Vol. 8

A Programmable 3D Multichain Metaverse

Introduction:

The innovation race in blockchains continues to evolve at an incredible rate. Last year, we witnessed the summer of Solana, and we have also seen dominant Layer 1s such as Polkadot, Terra, and Cosmos IBC have their moments too. Messari’s Ryan Selkis recently explained in his 2022 Crypto Theses that we will live in a multichain world and that in the battle for blockchain dominance there will likely not be hundreds but maybe a handful of L0/L1/L2 standards. 

The Matrix Labs team is trying to solve one of the inherent problems for creators: building a dApp in a single-chain metaverse results in limited liquidity. A dApp built for only one chain suffers from fragmented traffic, making it difficult to build a network effect. Successful Layer 1s do a great job at incubating projects on their own platforms, but ultimately the user base and liquidity ends up in separate data islands. This is why Matrix Labs is aiming to build a Turing Complete and multi-chain supported cyberspace for metaverse creators. This multichain metaverse will allow developers to amplify network effects by connecting users to multi-chain dApps and immersive resources at a lower marginal cost for both creators and users.

“Our ultimate goal is to create unlimited possibilities and opportunities in the metaverse by eliminating the boundary between blockchains and building a next generation 3D open-world dApp platform on top of Matrix World.” ~ Matrix Labs

For three years, the Matrix World team has been developing blockchain infrastructure and development tools. Here is an overview of where this project is in its roadmap as we approach the end of Q1 2022. 

Executive Summary:

• Team

  • The Matrix Labs founders come from the Ethereum ecosystem and include former tech leads at Amazon and Alibaba

  • One core team member developed Cell Evolution, a blockchain game that won the first NEO Game Development Competition

  • Matrix Labs assisted in the development of ChainIDE, a cloud-based multi-chain integrated development environment 

  • Matrix Labs was a technical partner behind the release of Phanta Bear, a collection of 10,000 digital collectibles and Ezek Club membership cards 

  • Matrix Labs and it’s team of 50+ members is developing Matrix World in collaboration with academic research labs and industry partners

• Revenue Model

  • Revenue from selling 10,000 Lands

  • Revenue from a marketplace for trading Matrix World digital assets

• Financials

  • Closed a $5.5M angel round at $50M valuation in January 2022

• Strategic Partners

  • Dapper Labs 

  • Flow

  • OpenSea

  • Blocto

  • Animoca Brands

  • Phanta Bear

  • ChainIDE

  • Game Creator

  • Mask

  • Multimedia Research Centre

  • Rivermen

  • Rhizome DAO

  • Hashkey Group

Product Overview:

The main objective of the Matrix Labs team is to build unlimited possibilities in the metaverse by erasing the boundaries between blockchains. Matrix World is a multichain metaverse that allows users to build 3D immersive dApps on top of several blockchains. Matrix World consists of Lands, issued as NFTs, which exist in perpetuity on the blockchain. Matrix Land owners retain full control of the creations built on their Lands. The Matrix World metaverse has its own compute and storage resources, which allow Landowners to control every aspect of the visual appearance and inner properties of their creations. These Lands can be traded and transferred in several blockchains.  As of today (March 21, 2022) Matrix World is currently supported in both Ethereum and Flow; and it plans to eventually be supported in Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Solana, Avalanche, and more. In short, Matrix World is a programmable 3D multichain metaverse that will provide programmable objects, multichain connectivity, and convenient tooling. Let’s review these attributes. 

Programmable Objects:

Matrix World integrates apps into the metaverse by programming objects as living entities. These are known as Matrix Objects. A Matrix Object can be composed of nested child objects attached to it. 

“The next generation of blockchain-based 3D open-world platforms that we envision should have a dedicated computational layer that allows all platform users to build visualization and computation-intensive applications. As developers and creators we want such a platform in place which is why we are kicking off this project.” ~ Matrix Labs Team

Creators can program the behavior of their matrix objects and build complex 3D and decentralized apps that consist of various matrix objects interacting with each other.  The appearance, actions, and life cycles of Matrix Objects are managed by the Space Virtual Machine (SVM). 

All the Matrix Objects in a Land are managed by a canonical virtual machine called the Space Virtual Machine (SVM). Since every object in Matrix World is programmable, users can use the SVM to define the attributes and methods that modify their objects’ behavior. Creators can simply program object actions by using the Matrix Object and a Scene Editor. 

Multichain Connectivity:

In Matrix World, users can maintain their identity across blockchains, connect matrix objects to smart contracts in different blockchains, and connect to external services in Web2.  This level of multichain connectivity enables a more immersive social network experience. Matrix World users can connect to dApps and resources across blockchains. 

Here is an excerpt from the Matrix World Whitepaper:

“For instance, game developers and content creators can build a 3D Uniswap ATM by crafting its appearance and defining the action that invokes Uniswap's swap function in Ethereum. Furthermore, they can place such an ATM in a virtual NBA Top Shot museum that features a 3D video gallery powered by the Flow network. In addition to blockchain networks, Matrix World can also connect to external services. In the first instance, we propose integrating NFT marketplaces on multiple blockchains such as OpenSea, Rarible, MyNFT, as well as storage protocols like IPFS and Arweave, and streaming services such as Twitch and YouTube. To this end, creators can directly connect to the aforementioned services using both programmable 3D objects and API endpoints. Notably, the entire system is designed to be extensible, allowing for the continuous addition of new services to enrich the world.”

Convenient Tooling:

Matrix World has a tool in development called What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG), an editing tool that will allow users to edit a 3D model’s attributes including geometry, material, lighting, and shaders. They’re also developing a scene editor that will allow users to import their 3D objects into an augmented reality scene. There is also a third tool in development that will allow creators to create scenes using pre-defined blueprint templates. Creators will also be able to trade and monetize their blueprints in the Matrix World marketplace. 

There are also tools in development for the NFT Ecosystem, including NFT importing, programmable NFTs, and creating NFTs from Matrix Objects; and a Space Name Server for users to register their own Lands and dApps in it.

Conclusion:

Matrix World is a Turing Complete metaverse, which means that each object can be programmed as a living entity. Matrix World will provide developers and creators with tools and services to aid in the production of scenes and dApps that they will be able to monetize in the Matrix World marketplace. Thousands of 3D applications will operate simultaneously in the form of fully programmable objects and will be decentralized. That is how Matrix World will integrate apps into the actual metaverse.

"We are honored to be a metaverse project that supports the Flow Blockchain. We've now established a few NFT projects and made a few community contributions to assist additional users and developers in joining the Flow. In our experience, due to the resource-oriented nature of cadence, we believe it is a better language for web 3.0 definitions than other traditional smart-contract languages. When something is labeled as a "resource" in resource-oriented programming, the programming environment is told that this data structure is something tangible, and all code interacting with it must follow a set of rules that will keep the data structure's value. As a result, this programming model is ideal for digital assets. We believe it is a good fit for our Matrix World concept, in which all objects in the world could be digital assets backed by the blockchain." ~ Matrix Labs