Level: BA /MA
Responsible Person: Dr. Sina Rafati Niya
Keywords: Metaverse, Network Science, Digital Assets, Non-Fungible-Tokens

“The Metaverse is the post-reality universe, a perpetual and persistent multiuser environment merging physical reality with digital virtuality. It is based on the convergence of technologies that enable multisensory interactions with virtual environments, digital objects, and people, such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Hence, the Metaverse is an interconnected web of social, networked immersive environments in persistent multiuser platforms. It enables seamless embodied user communication in real-time and dynamic interactions with digital artifacts. Its first iteration was a web of virtual worlds where avatars were able to teleport among them. The contemporary iteration of the Metaverse features social, immersive VR platforms compatible with massive multiplayer online video games, open game worlds and AR collaborative spaces.” [1]
This project/thesis aims to explore blockchain-based metaverses such as Decetraland [2], Illuvium [3], and Upland [4]. The scope of analytics includes (I) assets such as NFTs, and (II) users address and entity clustering via network analysis of centralization and connectivity of the entities. This thesis/project will cover a different number of platforms depending on the number of team members. Essentially, this project covers three main phases. 1) Field study: Students are expected to overview the current most advanced Metaverses and identify the set of metrics to be collected from those platforms. 2) Collect the required data from the blockchains on which the selected Metaverse platforms are based, and 3) Run the analyses on the data collected and compare the platforms.

Reference:
[1] Mystakidis, Stylianos. 2022. "Metaverse" Encyclopedia 2, no. 1: 486-497. https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia2010031
[2] Decentraland, https://decentraland.org/, last seen: May 22, 2023
[3] Illuvium: https://illuvium.io/ , last seen: May 22, 2023
[4] Upland: https://www.upland.me/ , last seen: May 22, 2023