Zines

Iron Man ≠ Man in Iron Suit

We are excited to announce the release of the Wilder World Metaverse Market (WWMM) on the ZERO Protocol. This has been a epic journey through the crypto abyss. One of challenge, growth, humility and love.

Yesterday, on August 26, 2021 at around noon PST we launched the WWMM at wilderworld.com. The existing Wilder World site has moved to info.wilderworld.com and the WWMM is now 'officially live'. Bidding for our first NFT is currently at 25,000 WILD (~$55k USD). Bidding will close next week with a prior announcement and countdown.

In conjunction with the launch, we felt it would be wise to share some of the driving ideas that have led us to this moment. In particular, we would like to contextualize the WWMM, our strategy, and to collectively prepare for what is to come.

WOW: World Origin Wilder

Marshall McLuhan famously said: "the medium is the message". In essence, McLuhan showed us that content (a message, poster, artwork, etc.) is a byproduct of the substrate it is created on. YouTube gives rise to different types of video content compared to Television. Twitter creates different types of narratives than traditional newspapers. Meme culture on Reddit is different than the culture on a Ham radio.

Over the last six months there have been many brands that have attempted to break into the NFT space with relatively low success. Part of the reason for this is that the narratives behind these brands, however great they may be, were created on a different medium. If you do not understand this medium, then you will not understand the cultural nuances that are an emergent consequence of it. The substrate has changed, and we are now witnessing a collective phase shift in the cultural norms, content and narrative arcs that define our reality.

The power of story is often overlooked. With the transition from single creator drops to more elaborate procedural creations (Crypto Punks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, etc.), we are beginning to witness an emergent narrative layer take shape. Holding a Bored Ape is not the same as holding a sack of US Treasuries (but it might be as powerful as them). It represents membership in something special that none of us quite understand yet. It is something in which we can collectively form a meaningful relationship with; it has purpose, intention, and belonging.

My sense is that we are starting to recognize how we as human beings actually value things. How we value art, stories, relationships, experiences and memories. This is one of the reasons that left brain TradFi cannot make sense of what is happening. Our values are changing because the medium has changed, and therefore the things we place value in are in the process of changing as well.

World Origin Wilder, or WOW, is exactly this. It is an attempt to not only show Wilders the importance of creating high quality art, but to remind us of the power we hold to collectively reimagine the stories and collective realities that define us. Iron Man is not equal to a man in an iron suit. They are different. One is human. One can sustain a relationship with many. Participating and co-creating the collective lore of the Metaverse will be as important as the creators and technology itself. Not from an ivory tower. Not from a pre-written script. But through working in concert with each other. That is the mission of WOW, and that is why it is the first drop on the WWMM and ZERO.

zNS: The ZERO Name Service

If you've followed our Zines over the years you may have a sense of what zNS is. zNS is a fundamental part of the ZERO Protocol. Wilder World is the first and 'official' Universe (or root domain: '0://wilder') being launched on ZERO. Working as a single DAO-mesh, ZERO and Wilder World are able to vertically integrate nearly every aspect of our stack, from 3D art, to the game engine SDK, to the social network, DAO layer, DeFi layer, and ultimately connectivity layer to L1 Blockchains. Not dissimilar to Axie, we've chosen to vertically integrate our stack in union with existing best in class technologies (Ethereum, Unreal Engine 5, IPFS, libp2p, etc.), to ensure that we can create the best possible end-user experience for Citizens of Wilder World (and future ZERO Universes).

One way to think of zNS is a mashup up between ENS (The Ethereum Name Service) and Nifty Gateway. All content in zNS and Wilder World is addressed with a zNA (or Zero Name Address) that enables you to easily reference content globally. An NFT is not simply minted at a hash (like 0x0...) but has a human readable address, such as '0://wilder.guild.frank'. This zNA certifies that Frank is a member of the Wilder Guild, which is a member of Wilder, which is certified on the ZERO Protocol (and Ethereum).

zNS is a powerful idea. Not only does it enable you to reference content by visiting a normal domain-like address, DAOs can begin to form all different types of collaborative organization structures to create, sell and trade content at certain addresses (or fractals within the zNS tree). You can think of these addresses as locations in the Metaverse, similar to a coordinate system in the real world. At any point could be a market, a creative studio, a company, a house, an apartment building, a shopping mall, a store or a church.

Here are some of the DAOs creating different industries inside Wilder World:

0://wilder.wow— The Original Wilder Story: A never ending rescue mission to other worlds in danger.
0://wilder.fashion.airwild — A procedural collaboration with the Wilder Fashion Guild and Pet Liger for 3D wearable sneakers in the Metaverse.
0://wilder.guild — A private creators guild of the highest caliber artists building Wilder World. Guild membership gives you the ability to mint any NFT of your choice inside of Wilder World.
0://wilder.wheels — 10,101 procedurally generated 5D Vehicle NFTs with dynamic gameplay abilities that are fully drivable in the Metaverse. Wheels will be the first drop using zXP, ZERO's protocol for creating mini-games and associating dynamic gameplay abilities with specific NFTs in the Metaverse.
0://wilder.cribs — This will be the first real estate play in Wiami, Wilder World's first city. The initial sale will be individual condo units in Wiami's most exclusive building (and Wilder World HQ). We decided to sell condos before raw land.
0://wilder.totems — Totems are game play accessories you can capture in Wilder Quests in both real life via ZERO AR and within the Wilder World Metaverse. Totems can include level ups, XP, new quests, and surprise bundles of $WILD.

There's more, but with that you should understand that zNS and what released yesterday is much more than an NFT marketplace. It is a 'scarce' coordinate system for a universal set of tradeable objects (NFTs, games, DAOs, avatars, apartments, identities, etc.) in the Metaverse. One in which address space, coupled with the objects inside them, are sovereign and controlled by their owner, irrespective of third-parties, including Wilder World.

Death & Taxes

They say that there are only two things that are certain in life: death and taxes. Despite the (potential) negative association with these certainties, both do make life great. Life would not be the same if time was not scarce and great nations would be hard to build without a revenue stream. We know taxes generally suck. What if however, taxes were not managed by your drunk uncle Sam, but managed directly by the people. Increasingly we are thinking there should be a tax when trading items within the Metaverse that is contributed directly to the Wilder Nation (the Wilder Community DAO). This would directly benefit and intrinsically align incentives between all Wilder World Citizens.

As you begin to understand the power of zNS, you begin to see all of the things that can be built and transact on top of it. Not just domains that have references to websites, but domains that have references to objects. You can also imagine different coordinates (zNAs) or different layers within the Wilder World namespace having different tax systems and economies. Perhaps there is no global tax for Wilder World, but you do pay taxes on objects that reside in Wiami, for instance (or for that matter a neighborhood in Wiami).

In addition to tax revenue, by default creators in Wilder World receive a 10% kickback on every future sale of their creation in Wilder World. This is of course, huge. Let's say you create an amazing pair of sneakers that become the coolest in the Metaverse. Or you create a new spoiler for your vehicle that increases the handling capacity of whatever vehicle it is added to. This is a direct revenue stream from content created and funded by the Wilder Nation, or directly back to independent creators.

The first creator DAO to launch on Wilder World is the WOW DAO. This is an internal DAO of Wilder World. It has a hybrid organizational structure. It is founded and funded by Wilder World, but maintains its own sovereignty and operates according to its own rules. It is a 'Tier 2 DAO', meaning that it has a JV-like royalty structure with the Wilder Nation. More will be released on this soon. Royalties of content created by the WOW DAO for instance are split: 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 between the Wilder Nation, the WOW DAO, and the artists who worked directly on the content, respectively. If you take this idea and you extend it to everything in the Metaverse it will take you to a place where sovereign groups of creators will have a game theoretic advantage over traditional corporations and studios. It eventually flips the existing economy.

In Closing

We thank you for your support. Hopefully as a result of this post you have a deeper insight into how we're thinking of Wilder World; not just from the perspective of technology and aesthetics, but from first principles.

Why you build will determine what you build. What you build will determine how you build.

In our particular instance, the only way to create a Metaverse on the scale of Wilder World is to fundamentally rethink about how we build things today. Not just from the perspective of technology, but from the perspective of everything. The coordinate system. The coordination system. The culture. Etc.

Congratulations to Wilders far and wide for achieving the major milestone reached yesterday.

We salute you.

From Zero to Infinity,

n3o