Metaverse challenges are cropping in areas such as security, privacy, governance, and equal access.
After reading this, you'll understand:
Biometric data can increase the immersive experience of the metaverse, but this brings serious privacy concerns.
Theft and bullying are issues that cross from physical spaces to Web2 and Web3 realms.
Governments haven’t decided how to enforce regulations when collective decisions are made, such as in a DAO.
The metaverse is envisioned as a digital world parallel to our own, where every person has a digital twin. It could be a virtual realm where relationships form, promises are made, and goods are bought and sold. Friends can collaborate to build a home or start a digital business that produces real-life assets. It could revolutionize social networking sites, remote work, and recreation.
People offer different visions of what the future metaverse might look like. Hedera’s definition is “an immersive, virtual space that lets humans interact in ways that approximate how they interact in the real world.”
The internet and the global network of social media took a few years of slow growth to get going, and the metaverse is in its early stages. There are many metaverse challenges to overcome before it becomes the next generation of human connection.
There is great promise in the metaverse, and big plans for it. But several problems must be overcome for the vision to be realized. Let’s look at issues arising as digital worlds develop and then dive into solutions in the next section.
The metaverse must be fundamentally reliable to evolve and expand. Without reliability and security, users won’t feel safe spending time or money in a virtual environment. For now, security breaches continue to happen and must be urgently addressed for confidence to build.
Problems can come from blockchain technology that is weakly designed or at risk of exploitation. Other risks come from smart contracts that aren’t coded consistently and allow for breaches. Lastly, old-fashioned phishing scams and other means of tricking users to give up their passwords work in Web3.
The metaverse has the potential to greatly expand how much biometric data and personal information tech companies collect on individuals. These biometrics are used to increase the immersive experience of technology, offering things like voice recognition and recordings. But they come with serious privacy concerns.
Voice activation, eye recognition and facial recognition also could tighten up metaverse security. However, that level of data collection opens a world of vulnerability to identity theft. Criminals could use voice recordings from metaverse platforms against someone. Bots could be created in a person’s image. Behavioral data could be mismanaged and sold to interested parties, similar to the way Web-2’s ad-based economy functions.
There’s also the entirely separate issue of copyright infringement in the metaverse market. NFTs were heralded as a way for creators to retain rights to their creations and get royalties for subsequent sales. Each NFT minted has a unique cryptographic signature and address linked with it. But if you changed a single pixel of a visual NFT, it could be re-minted as an entirely new NFT. How do these copied assets hold up legally?
Inaccessibility is one of the metaverse’s largest roadblocks. The hardware is expensive and cumbersome, with physical ramifications like eye fatigue and nausea. It depends on internet access, but access is limited in different regions of the world. And even in the 5g-access corners of the planet, virtual experiences are limited largely to the tech-savvy.
For the metaverse to become a globally-used landscape, it needs to be financially and physically accessible to everyone. The costs at present are prohibitive. To build a decentralized world in the metaverse requires a large amount of capital. Any business or exchange established in the metaverse should be crypto-accessible, which brings the stability of digital currencies into play.
Another key question is how different areas of the metaverse are run. There are centralized “gardens” in the metaverse, like Facebook’s Meta, where it’s intentionally walled off. When tech giants build a world, it’s one thing. But how do small developers pool resources to build in the metaverse?
Likely, they’ll operate as decentralized autonomous organizations. But DAOs are also uniquely vulnerable. They need to amass a large enough treasury, which can sometimes be contributed largely by one or few users. This imbalance of power is far from decentralized. It sets up the organization for a “rug pull” or other scams well known in crypto.
Also, litigious issues are complicated with DAOs. Governments are uncertain how to enforce regulations when decisions are made as a collective. As of now, liability can and is falling on individuals within DAOs. If there’s an infringement, regulatory frameworks depend on established policy to deal with it.
Developing robust security protocols. Standards need to be set for metaverse-specific security to protect digital assets. Similar guidelines have been set already in other blockchain contexts, like the Cryptocurrency Security Standards (CCSS).
Ensuring data integrity. Distributed ledger technology is the best means to promise safe data storage. By saving multiple copies of data immutably on blocks throughout a chain, data security is ensured.
Encryption. Some standards for blockchain security will need to be strengthened and adapted for the metaverse. This includes asymmetric-key encryption and hash functions to disguise data.
Enforcing privacy regulations. The current web-2, ad-based economy has privacy standards that will have to be adapted for the metaverse. Europe’s GDPR and California’s CCPA “Right to be forgotten” regulations arose out of criticism of commercial data exploitation. This is complicated by the immutable nature of the blockchain, because data can’t be tampered with.
Developing strong user authentication. Eye and facial recognition, voice activation, fingerprints, and other biometric data are the personalized security methods needed to authenticate users. However, as we've mentioned before, that data must have strong protections, too.
Ensuring privacy of user data. Assurance must come in the form of regulations and policies that give users confidence that their data isn’t being exploited. Trust is foundational to building a user base in virtual worlds.
Allowing for easier access. Internet access limits virtual world development and engagement. 5G networks have the potential to connect millions with wireless data streaming. This would provide internet access sufficient to host real-time interactions between users, world-wide.
Physical barriers. Broad usability is the key to a growing metaverse. VR headsets are continually being streamlined and refined. The current issues of eye strain and nausea will hopefully be remedied by new haptic technologies.
Reducing costs for entry. At present, significant metaverse growth is coming from developers with established wealth. Over time, decentralized solutions like DAOs can allow small-scale developers to collaborate and build their envisioned virtual reality. Producers and developers will be pivotal in making the metaverse software and hardware cost-effective.
Encouraging inclusion. The vision of the metaverse is a parallel micro/macrocosm of the physical world. As such we want practically everyone to access their digital second life. This will take time and technological advancement, as well as increased user trust in the security of the programs.
Establishing clear rules and regulations. Human issues that exist in the real world are going to translate into the digital space. Theft and bullying are two examples of issues that cross from physical to Web2 and Web3 spaces. Metaverse development must ensure their spaces are safe from these activities by installing effective rules and regulations.
Resolving disputes fairly. When disputes occur in a decentralized Web3 space, how are they resolved? Within DAOs there is space for democratic resolution of issues using proposals, voting, and governance tokens. A dispute against an entire DAO would be a legal pursuit. Outcomes may depend on whether DAOs observe federal commodities laws or not. The legality of DAOs and governance of Web3 spaces will become a more common question for court systems. Familiarity will come as the metaverse develops and precedents are set.
Implementing monitoring systems. The metaverse continues to blur the boundaries of identity, nationality, and locality. With such fluidity, the future may require an international body to oversee societal issues in Web3. Similar oversight is already established as the Coordinating Committee for the Governance of Artificial Intelligence (CCGAI).
Hedera is committed to the betterment of both physical and virtual worlds. We see immersive technology as the new frontier, where equal access is critical for developers and other users. The HBAR Foundation and Hedera Network developed a robust, global Web3 ecosystem on an innovative and environmentally sustainable public ledger. In 2022 alone, HBAR funded over 70 grants to metaverse development projects.
There’s a long way to go before we reach a fully realized metaverse. It’s still in its early stages. But as new technologies emerge, nuanced verification methods develop, and the virtual universe exponentially expands, we’ll get there.