A Deep-Dive into Somnia's Quest for the United Metaverse of Web3

What steps can we take to guarantee that the metaverse – once imagined as a Disneyland we can carry with us – achieves its ultimate goal of becoming a flawlessly interconnected, collaborative and equitable virtual space?

Despite reaching over $34 billion in market cap, today's digital asset metaverse landscape remains highly fragmented. Numerous isolated platforms building separately and competing for users' attention begs one important question: How can we create a truly unified metaverse that bridges these siloed and traditionally fragmented virtual worlds – all while encouraging collaboration among creators and benefiting all participants? Somnia believes it has the answer, with its new layer-1 and omnichain protocol having the potential to connect a large chunk of the total TVL from the blockchain gaming, metaverse and NFT sectors. Combined, these sectors account for almost $100 billion and are expected to grow exponentially in the coming years.

Tackling challenges head-on

According to Somnia, a project founded by Virtual Society Foundation (VSF) and led by Improbable, several key challenges must be addressed to create a truly open and valuable metaverse:

• High development costs associated with interactive digital experiences with millions of users, such as centralized massively multiplayer online (MMO) games
• Long gestation periods required to generate substantial usage of metaverse platforms
• Lack of composability and interoperability among existing metaverse platforms
• Large number of users interact with same on-chain state simultaneously (the "hot state" problem) leading to network congestion and high gas fees

Somnia’s team also argues that enabling creators to build upon each other's work is crucial for facilitating development of a valuable metaverse. But the economic realities of creating a successful metaverse are daunting. Complexity and risks involved in developing necessary technology for multiplayer and interoperable experiences can be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming. And even if a metaverse gains popularity the prospect of allowing others to build upon it and potentially "steal" its value can be unattractive to developers. This reluctance — combined with the fact that most infrastructures don't support the level of shared state, rules, and required data — further prevents interconnected metaverse from becoming a reality.

While a centralized solution might seem like a tempting fix, Somnia cautions that it often leads to misaligned incentives and unfavorable structures for a system intended to create value for its participants. Centralized platforms by their very nature can curtail economic freedom by imposing high take rates and absorbing value that should ideally be generated by participants. This can stifle innovation and limit economic benefits for users and creators. That's why a more open and decentralized approach may be the only way forward. Even though blockchain is an obvious foundational solution — current infrastructures face scalability challenges as far as supporting large-scale virtual worlds are concerned.

Somnia is proposing a set of solutions to tackle these challenges head-on and support hundreds of thousands of transactions per second with sub-second finality. At its core is a layer-1 blockchain designed to support the unique needs of the metaverse. This network layer has various components working behind the scenes. They ensure fast transaction speeds and low gas fees when interacting with metaverses — two of the major pain points that most general purpose monolithic L1s and EVM-compatible chains struggle with.

Innovative Architecture for Enhanced Efficiency

Somnia aims to set up a unique L1 to achieve the necessary performance and desired costs to fuel the project’s future ambitions. What Somnia appears to be doing differently here is the use of independent data chains. In Somnia’s architecture, each validator operates its own blockchain which allows for independent block production. This approach can streamline data processing by eliminating the need for a consensus mechanism within individual chains. A separate blockchain is used to handle consensus, which aggregates heads of all data chains though a modified HotStuff algorithm (a way to achieve consensus in distributed systems). This way it can decouple data production from consensus processes — thereby enhancing network efficiency.

Somnia's architecture also seems to optimize execution speed, bandwidth usage, and storage. By translating EVM bytecode to highly optimized native code, Somnia claims to achieve faster execution speeds. Further combining the compression and custom data ingestion layer helps minimize bandwidth requirements while going beyond other bandwidth limits. In addition to this, cache-friendly Merkle trees help reduce storage overhead. In addition to infrastructural enhancements, Somnia is also working on a set of omnichain protocols. This will facilitate unrestricted commerce and accelerate composability of metaverse experiences. All of this is achieved with the help of two major protocols: SOM0 (enabling interoperability of assets and their commercialization) and SOM1 (enabling composable virtual assets and experiences).

Empowering the Creator Economy

All of these technical milestones will be useless without a thriving creator economy.

For instance, "Object Protocol" allows users to create virtual objects that can exist and move between metaversal experiences within the Somnia network. This not only enhances portability of assets but also opens up new avenues for collaboration and innovation. Creators can also leverage Somnia’s "Attestation Protocol" to verify authenticity and ownership of virtual objects — while the soon-to-come "Marketplace Protocol" provides a global liquidity layer for buying and selling NFTs across metaverses.

It then creates a framework for highly composable and interoperable virtual worlds. By enabling creators to move the data and the logic of virtual objects on chain, this will empower them with tools to build and monetize their work, Somnia aims to create a more equitable and sustainable metaverse economy. This focus on composability and interoperability ensures that value accrues to actual innovators rather than being captured by centralized platforms.

Somnia also makes it possible to bring in existing NFTs, breathing new life into them by rendering them as 3D avatars in the metaverse. With it comes new opportunities for creators to engage with their respective communities, while creating new revenue streams.

Bridging Gaps Between Web3 and Metaverse

Somnia is also actively seeking to bridge gaps between Web3 and the metaverse with a suite of user-friendly tools and interfaces — such as Metaverse Browser and Playground sandbox environment — to make the metaverse accessible to a broader audience.

Through partnerships with platforms like MSquared, Somnia is ready to enable exciting and high quality metaverse experiences. From virtual concerts with K-pop sensations to official MLB ballparks — these collaborations showcase the potential of its infrastructure to support engaging large-scale events, complete with 3D avatars based on user-owned NFTs. It goes without saying that Somnia's compatibility also ensures seamless integration with the vast EVM ecosystem — paving the way for new possibilities for developers and users alike.

Only by providing an affordable and scalable foundation can we enable the development of a vibrant creator economy within the metaverse — complete with creator royalties and microtransactions. Somnia is poised to play a significant role in shaping the future of the metaverse. By providing a scalable, interoperable foundation, and empowering creators, Somnia is set to create a virtual society that benefits all participants—a metaverse that's not only technologically advanced but also inclusive, collaborative, and truly open.

Stay informed about Somnia's latest developments and join its growing communities. Be sure to follow its updates on social media.

Find out more about Somnia by visiting following channels:

Official Website: https://somnia.network/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/Somnia_Network

Telegram - https://t.me/somnianetwork

Discord - http://discord.gg/Somnia