Infiniverse is a blockchain-based augmented reality platform:
Frankly, this is nothing more than a slickly-produced promotional video, a purely imaginary artistic concept of what Infiniverse is supposed to be. (It reminds me of that equally imaginary Decentraland promotional video I keep seeing people refer to.)
The reality is probably very different from what is portrayed here. Who knows what the actual technical state of the project is? According to this Medium article, Infiniverse is currently in development and scheduled for a public beta release in the fourth quarter of 2018. (I’ll believe that when I see it.)
According to their white paper:
Infiniverse is a decentralized augmented reality (AR) platform and persistent virtual world on top of the real world, powered by the EOS blockchain and InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). Users can bring digital content into the real world, allowing it to be seen and interacted with by any other nearby users. The platform also allows users to place persistent content in the world, which remains in the same physical location even after the user has left the area or quit the application. However, due to the scarcity of real world space, users must purchase or rent “land”, the digital layer of real world locations, in order to place persistent content there.
Infiniverse has its own economy and virtual currency: Infinicoin, an EOS token. Infinicoin is used to register land and make transactions on the marketplace. The marketplace allows users to sell their creations, trade unique items, and buy and rent land, all without percentage-based commissions. The blockchain gives users full control and security over their virtual currency, land ownership and assets, while content is duplicated and distributed across the IPFS network.
Initially, the platform runs on iOS and Android devices that support AR frameworks with positional tracking, such as ARKit and ARCore. In the future, support will be extended to smart glasses when these devices are more mature and widespread, appropriate for outdoor use, and include GNSS chips for geographic location tracking.
The goal is to create a rich parallel universe that users can seamlessly switch into, allowing them to experience diverse AR content and applications, all co-existing and interacting, and a thriving virtual economy that allows content creators to create real economic value, while keeping all of the proceeds.
If you’re interested in Infiniverse, you can follow them on Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn, and Medium. Or you can just visit their website.
Since it’s not yet clear how social this platform will be, I am not adding this product to my List of Social VR/Virtual Worlds. But it is interesting, nonetheless. I wish them luck!
UPDATE Oct. 26th: Someone from the Infiniverse team named Neb reached out to me via Telegram with the following video, in response to my question about the current technical state of the Infiniverse project. This three-minute video shows how Infiniverse would look using a smartphone: