Ready Player One
In the brilliant book Ready Player One written by Ernest Cline, the vast majority of mankind has chosen to spend their lives in a virtual world called the Oasis. The Oasis consists of planets, each planet with its own theme, purpose and social group. Ludus, for example, is a planet dominated by high school campuses, for kids that prefer to attend school virtually. Or Archaide which is a planet filled to the brim with arcade cabinets that run nostalgic games like Pacman and Space Invaders. The possibilities are endless. The Oasis can be accessed using virtual reality goggles, felt using haptic gloves, and traversed using a haptic rig. In this Oasis you can do whatever you please; fly spaceships, build a mansion, fight monsters in dungeons and even attend school. The only restriction is how many credits you possess. Credits are a form of currency native to the world of the Oasis which hold value in the real world. Credits are required travel between different worlds using fast travel stations, to reserve a seat on a commercial spaceship or to buy your own spaceship. One of the glaring problems with the Oasis network is Ownership. If you leave your virtual ship, car or fighting robot unattended, it can be stolen! Furthermore, if the Oasis network goes down, so do your credits which you used real money to purchase. Now, lets imagine this virtual world in a different way. Imagine the Oasis being built on the Ethereum Blockchain and imagine that the native currency is ETH instead of Credits.
The Power of Ethereum
By using the Ethereum blockchain we have already solved two problems. The ship can no longer be stolen, as its ownership is recorded on the public Ethereum Ledger and has been agreed upon by general consensus. The second problem, concerning the insecurity of your funds due to the possibility of network downtime/failure, has been solved by the decentralised nature of Ethereum. You always have access to your funds and you do not have to rely on a third party to keep them secure and provide liquidity when required.
Ethereum as Fuel/Gas
Fast travel stations, ships, arcade machines are all powered by ETH. Do you want to travel 100km in this virtual world from the Planet Ludus to Archaide using a fast travel station? Well, this journey will cost 1000 gas per 10km, and 1 gas is 0.00001 Ethereum. The whole network works flawlessly and is powered by Ethereum.
Smart Contracts and Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAO's)
Maybe you are a graphic design company looking to sell unique ship designs in the virtual Oasis World. You could create a DAO, which is a collection of smart contracts working together to fulfil a specific purpose. The purpose of this DAO would be to display the ship designs on offer and automatically fulfil any purchases from users in the Oasis. These purchases will be recorded on the public Ethereum Ledger, free for anyone to view.
The Possibilities are Endless
This is only one example of what the Ethereum platform could be used for. Ethereum is still in its infancy, and just like the dawn of the internet 34 years ago, the most impactful and popular use cases of the Ethereum network have yet to be conceived!
What future applications do you think the Ethereum network will be used for? Leave your comments down below!