Increasingly, cutting-edge platforms like blockchain technology and augmented reality are overlapping, forging new digital frontiers that promise to change the way we interact with the virtual and the real world.
The latest effort in this area features blockchain startup WAX, in partnership with VR entertainment provider Terra Virtua, in a move that looks to blend the world of crypto with augmented reality via gaming.
WAX (The Worldwide Asset eXchange) is a blockchain-based platform that allows users to create, buy, sell, and trade digital items. For the uninitiated, blockchain technology allows digital assets to be securely stored and tracked across a distributed ledger. That means that everyone has access to a digital log of what every other user on the platform owns.
Using public-key cryptography, the distributed platform ensures that a digital asset remains distinct and unable to be copied. Access to and control of these digital assets is made possible via a private key. This dynamic -- making digital assets essentially immutable -- is what allows digital items to be traded on a blockchain as if they were unique physical objects.
Using Terra Virtua's augmented reality app users can now interact with their WAX digital assets in the real world. The first type of WAX collectible to be made available through Terra Virtua are VGO skins.
These are unique digital weapon skins (think custom graphics/paint jobs) that people can own, trade, and even play with inside compatible games.
The two companies are planning to bring more WAX collectibles onto Terra Virtua's platform in the near future. With blockchain and AR together, the lines between what's real and what's digital really begin to blur.
For example, if you own a pair of Air Jordans on WAX, now, through the company's partnership with Terra Virtua, you can have your online gaming avatar wear the shoes, display your kicks in a virtual collection you designed, and later trade them with another WAX user.
Currently, the Terra Virtua app is only available on Android devices. The iOS version will be made available in the coming weeks.
While blockchain technology makes owning and trading digital assets a more secure, reliable process, it's still just part of the bigger picture of humanity's progressively digitized future. And by integrating AR with blockchain, digital assets will become even more tangible.
This development should be nothing but beneficial to buyers and sellers in the coming years as this blockchain-meets-AR dynamic becomes even more common.
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