Bitcoin Forum

Second life is the largest virtual reality simulation right now and the team is pushing beyond with successor High fidelity..

The team is seriously considering bitcoins blockchain tech , they could even develop their own cryptocoin

https://highfidelity.com/blog/ (https://highfidelity.com/blog/)

I seriously hope what they create is much better than 2nd Life...
...so much potential, yet such a waste. 

I agree, I tried second life about 8 years ago and it was kinda funny for a day or two, but then it basically filled up with spam and weirdo porn and I dunno what else.  As you said, unfulfilled potential.

Are these highfidelity folks associated with Linden labs or is it a competitor?

I also played it for a while, and it makes perfect sense for them to go that route. I can also see why they would want to create their own coin for doing this.

This might just be the thing that push BTC to mainstream adoption... There are a lot of people, that are playing this game as a full time job.
{Selling properties, goods they created in the game etc. etc.} They get paid in Linden Dollar. See:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Making_money

If they get paid in BTC, they would not have to jump through hoops to get Linden Dollar exchanged ....they can use BTC as a original currency and buy things directly with BTC.  ;D

This is some more good news for Bitcoin. If they do accept BTC as a payment, im sure that will bring a lot more people to the BTC world :)

I think far bigger implication would be to use bitcoin as the official in-game currency. I don't know how that would work out but I can imagine since second life tends to copy exact real life situation, the developer can actually consider allowing the avatar to actually contribute hash rate and perform mining like in real life. The coins can then be traded or in a way or another, the players are allowed to transfer bitcoin to their avatar to be used as a normal currency to purchase in-game items.

The will probably have a POW scheme of some sort.

"Payment Options:  As mentioned in our prior posts, we will probably initially tie asset payments to credits earned sharing computing resources with others (which is not yet enabled but also coming soon).   Then real-world currencies.  And yes, we are thinking about crypto-currencies and blockchains."

If the developer was a big bitcoin enthusiast then yes, the game might be built revolving around btc.  But in his case he is building a new game with a currency to be issued for it.  Although he can use bitcoin, it doesn't mean btc should be the one to be built around with.

And yes, I wish he does use bitcoin because this will open possibilities for other alts to be used as well.

The founder of Highfidelity also founded SceondLife.

The Linden exchange for buying & selling SL in-world money "Lindens" turned into one of the earliest BTC exchanges. you could trade your lindens for btc and litecoin and other cryptos, no fiat to crypto though. I believe it still exists, cant remember the name...

Anyway, yeah, SL fizzled pretty quick, its mostly a desolate uninhabited wasteland these days. I played for a few months, but my primary goal was to troll the hell out of anyone who had the great misfortune to encounter my AV. lol. good times.

ahhh, here she is now... nice goggy
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c0-43ukv-gM/VSCc0wtkYbI/AAAAAAAAM9g/UzqeczHWWyE/s1600/gog_Mannonen.jpg

I have to chime in on this one and hopefully offer a bit of clarification to the misconceptions.

Philip Rosedale's HiFi project is positioned to be far more awesome than Second Life ever was. As of now, because they're still on a beta level, and even though I've followed the progress since I heard about it, even I am not entirely sure what they're doing beyond developing a true multiverse platform. Philip Rosedale is a big proponent and supporter of bitcoin, he's as much an eager transhumanist as I am, and if you follow him and his ventures then you'd understand better what the point of Second Life ever was.

Firstly, it's not and never was a game. It's a platform for building in 3D, and while the viewer is still limited by the technology's current stage in the overall evolution of technology, it is a superbly easy (however basic) method of creating 3D virtual reality. But unlike the more graphically appealing 3d content used in video games that are static and preprogrammed, what makes SL phenomenal is the fact the technology renders the environment 100% live. You literally watch the world or environment being created before your eyes via the viewer you use. Nearly a decade ago the viewers were coded to render 3d mesh and in fact, all of the components are low poly mesh anyway and that changed things tremendously as 3d modeling is a huge money making industry now. If you've ever wanted to jump into 3d, there's a totally free way to do so and learn the ropes (small learning curve) that's much more appealing than the learning curve for learning Blender or Maya or the high end, expensive 3d modeling platforms.

The other phenomenal thing about the platform running SL is the built in social network option that allows you and others to enter the same environment real time, build or play or whatever you're into, and not even Unity or Unreal can pull that off effectively without enormous costs.

Add to the above the built in economy - Linden Lab already incorporated micro payments and digital currency, and was a pioneer in the whole thing so millions of people are now well primed to embrace things like bitcoin and Square Cash and micro payments. This is a good thing. I don't know today what the exchange rates are in SL but about a decade ago about 250 Lindens was the equivalent of a dollar.

A simulated plot of land was being sold - and still is, apparently - through Linden Lab for a whopping $1600 set up fee and another 295 bucks a month...and you might think people who paid that had no first lives but you'd be oh so wrong. There were millions of people across the world who had several sims - meaning they forked over 1600 bucks per set up and were paying nearly 300 a month for each one...so losers with poor first lives they were not...they had a shit ton of money to even be able to afford one region, let alone dozens. Losers with no lives don't have the ability to fork over nearly 10 grand a month on a glorified chat room just so they can pretend to be a furry.

There's a bit more going on here than the superficial accusations leveled seem to bear out.

Oh, and bitcoin's already been traded in SL and has been for a few years already. Dollars exchanged for Lindens that are then exchanged to bitcoin. The problem is with Linden Lab's current CEO - they want to be a virtual world facebook, they are a closed system and started locking down on third party systems so they can be proprietary. They are losing their asses these days because of it.

Second Life also provided content creators the option to make money and keep their money, so these 'no life having losers' were more along the lines of clever entrepreneurs, creating remarkable textures, builds, clothing, skin/shape, hair and accessories for decorating the avatars, scripting and all sorts of components to make the environment more immersive than a glorified chat room.

In a decade, though it's all still "cartoon like" (not SL's fault, it's current technology's fault), the graphics capabilities have gone from this:

http://s12.postimg.org/qbxxynfnd/sl1.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/qbxxynfnd/)

to this:

http://s1.postimg.org/4957rru57/sl2.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/4957rru57/)

and there's been an amazing upgrade in the physics engines so that warfare, combat, transportation/movement, and other effects become seamless and realistic.

But it's still not a game. You can create games to play in the environments but the platform isn't a game. It's a 3d environment builder.


Now...the point of it was inspired by the book Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson) and you can find details on all that in various videos from/of Philip Rosedale but the bottom line was 3D Internet itself. The "multiverse" in 3D...websites in 3D...the world wide web in 3D but each hosted independently and peer to peer instead of a central location allowing or disallowing access to the interwebs.

With 3D tech exploding and evolving, getting into 3D world building is a lucrative business to venture into. There is at least one viewer that has been developed to work with Oculus Rift when it's officially released to the consumer so these very virtual worlds can be accessed as an experience. With the evolution of WebGL and HTML5, and the modification of this very platform (and the intro of new tech), the day is coming soon where instead of static, flat, one dimensional web pages, your online experience will be an offline experience, porting into whole environments, grids of worlds in the metaverse, but with the ability to interact and engage with others also there at the same time, to trade information, currency, goods and services, do business, learn, and even create things that can be ported directly to your 3D printer that you'll inevitably end up getting.

Decentralization at its finest.

Granted HiFi domains are a little non intuitive and the avatars look like Saturday morning toons had sex with the homunuculus but they're just getting started. Philip Rosedale handed Linden Lab off after making a gazillion dollars and what he's working on now is an evolution of what he'd wanted SL to be...but SL ended up being a commercialized chat room with enormous drama from crackpots.

Don't underestimate it though...there is some serious creativity happening and a shit ton of money being made and traded in SL even now.


I got my feet wet in SL, I spent thousands of dollars myself but ended up leaving because of the reality that anything I created became sole property of Linden Lab and I couldn't take it with me or take ownership of it.

I moved to OpenSim - exactly the same platform *base* used for Second Life, but modified and evolved and 100% free. It's "hypergrid enabled" meaning I can run the server on my machine and others can "visit" the environments created...and this is the current foundation for independently owned and operated metaverse 3d web...bitcoin is just now being incorporated in creative ways by a number of people running OpenSim grids and within a couple more years when the VR headsets and tools have hit the market and people are developing their own world domains that are replacing web sites and static profiles, we'll all be doing things far differently than we're doing today, and with much more real privacy.


What sold me on Second Life back in 2006 was the rendering of these worlds before my eyes. I was hooked, and forking over hundreds of dollars my first month because I saw the potential, where this was going. It was like walking around in other peoples' dreams...and when you approach the platform that way, the world expands and you see all sorts of delicious opportunities for this technology.

OpenSim, the devs behind it, Rosedale and HiFi are all compatible with the entire foundation of the blockchain and bitcoin - peer to peer web experience, real time virtual and augmented reality that's under individual control, not a centralized agency.

Now...look at the potential applications from a fresh, better informed perspective :)

This here is the sort of drama and nonsense encountered in SL...but people who had much more to offer left SL for OpenSim and the griefers basically faded into oblivion because they were the no life having losers with no real creativity to speak of just causing drama. Real content creators saw the point of the entire platform, dug out a niche, and went on their ways to earning thousands of dollars a month from content sales.

So the losers without a life are the trolls and griefers...not the ones with the financial capacity to spend 1600 bucks on a glorified chat room.

FTFY...

errrr, I beg to differ. I participated heavily in SL at first, was part of an SL art collective that was displayed in RL at various art galleries internationally. I built stuff and played a lot and created mirth and fun for any and all who managed to come onto SL with a SENSE OF HUMOR. Sad thing is, in the world where "the only limit is your imagination" I was confronted again and again by people like you (I'm assuming) who merely wished to create an online simulation of the real world with its heavily enforced moral codes and myopic views. I was always careful to approach these people politely and respectfully at first, and true to millennial fashion, they were rude and ignorant. I didn't fit into their narrow idea of propriety, often the first thing they would say is "you're ugly!" I kept altering my AV's appearance to look as far from the barbi/ken esthetic as possible, and you wouldn't believe how offended people are by this. Disneyfied babies. So....BOOM... I trololololo'd.

I must say, those that did actually "get" it, became fast friends and i sometimes wonder where they are at these days, sadly when I log onto SL it looks like the suburbs where Walter White lives. Reeeeeaaaaallllllll exciting.

here's an article that includes some of my interactions with the art collective http://wirxliflimflam.blogspot.ca/search/label/gog%20mannonen (http://wirxliflimflam.blogspot.ca/search/label/gog%20mannonen)

what have you done on second life? played goth dress-up at a casino/dance club?

Hardly. I built entire regions, local community gaming events, hunts, scripting...I'm a content creator. If you read the other post I pointed that out. And you've confused me with the drama queens of SL. I was pro copybot. I ran 3 adult sims. I'm not mentally unstable enough to fall in love with a cartoon. I didn't recreate reality. My interest was and still is creating interactive immersive virtual environments for a variety of purposes. I was too busy making money to be trolling and griefing.

Try again.

too serious for me. i just went there to have fun. but hey, it takes all kinds! that was my point anyway, sorry to rustle yr. jimmies.  :)

All good.

I wanted to help clarify the point of SL and platform running it as a 3d building environment and not a game, and that it has a lot in common with bitcoin, as much as potential evolution.

There's opportunity there for those who are so inclined to venture deeper. Open Sim is free. Download a copy of sim on a stick - simonastick.com and explore.

Two things I did not know and learned today.... thanks for this info... I thought Linden could only be traded for dollar.  ;) ... I already looked into OpenSim and it looks very good.

A system with more privacy are always welcomed.  ;D

I used to play Second Life in the past...even spent a lot of money to buy myself a land area of my own...paid a builder to build me a couple of buildings...wanted to do some virtual estate business...but the problem was...that I had to leave the country for a while which mean't I didn't have time to focus..and I kind of forgot about it...when I got back my account was suspended..and they asked me to pay extra money just to retrieve and reopen my account. Which kind of turned me away from Second Life.

I didn't know about High Fidelity, but it looks like pretty amazing tech: http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/531751/the-quest-to-put-more-reality-in-virtual-reality/

The sad part is that hey actually did not mention bitcoin at all in that article on their blog. They just said: And yes, we are thinking about crypto-currencies and blockchains. That may indicate they want to create their own HiFidelityCoin and use it as payment for that game. I would be a shame really if they really discard bitcoin.

It's exciting. Exciting times. In one interview Philip Rosedale talked about a vision or wish for the metaverse to be explorable by anyone, much the way we already do with static websites, instead it's through virtual reality and immersive 3d environments. I'm not on a private network for the time being so I can't download or run the HiFi package...but I am eager to eventually get to check it out. If anyone here does, please report back on your experiences and get screen shots ;p

Is it just me or is technology in a rapid evolutionary stage with everything gaining momentum, faster and faster, more disruption, more discovery, etc. Seems like there's so much happening and leading us into a beautiful new age yet most people are oblivious to what's going on. So many have no idea whatsoever 3d printing is even a thing, or that Google bought freaky cool robots and is into AI and curing death, and solar drone powered wifi...

I've owned a couple of sims/islands in SL until I finally opted out in 2010 and looked into OpenSim but I know what you mean about spending a ton of money on it. Even virtual world hosting (SL) is being disrupted. SL charged 1600 per set up and 295 a month and made millions. OS came along and offered it for free so VW host now have been forced to drop their prices because it's possible for anyone to run a grid on their home computer and port into the hypergrid. It's gone from 300 a month for 1 region to options like 5 regions for 19 bucks a month! Now with OAR and IAR (inventory/object archive) downloads. Most of the content has become open source, full perm freebies.


Gotta love disruption of monopolies, eh?  ;D

I'm always running cheap-o hardware so I think I never had the best experience on sl for that reason too.  Although, I never spent any money on it, I just popped in when I pleased and had a litle fun.  Still, yes, I agree you that disruption of monopolies is awesome and if I had better hardware, I'd probably be looking into some of that opensim stuff you're talking about.

http://simonastick.com/

Try that and check the specs. You can run it offline and it defaults as a closed grid option so it's a blank slate that will run on anything, really.

Sorry. VW fangirl. :P

I basically only run GNU/Linux these days.  I was surprised to see "for windows" after PHP, MySQL.  :)  What does VW have to do with it?  There must be some advert that I didn't see or something.

Virwox. I remember only because that was about the time when I was figuring out how to acquire my first BTC. Ah, the memories.

VW = virtual world fangirl :)

Shit, I thought it was a volkswagon or something.  I was trying to figure out how what you said had something to do with a volkswagon :)  HA!

Crypto Kingdom (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=819073.0) is a 6-month old project now, created to use and support Monero.

During the game (playing started right at launch), it has reached 10% of Monero's marketcap.

What does this have to do with Second Life or VW games?  I've heard of Monero (one of those altcoin circus scams) but why are you pushing it here?

Sorry if I"m misunderstanding you.

I am also promoting others' games in the CK thread. IMO, one mention does not pushing make. Sorry for offending you nevertheless.  :-X

Alright, I'm not offended, I just didn't see the connection to VW and I'm quite suspicious of anything related to altcoins because I usually figure they are just scams ready to collapse on people.

that exchange named Virwox still exist. But you cant pull lindend from Secondlife anymore directly to that exchange. You need to exchange it on SL exchange, for a nice fee and then pull to paypal for a nice fee and then, ...

The title thread is a bit misleading, it should be printed as considering blockchain technology and not bitcoin itself, plus with the info that they are considering creating their own cryptocurrency for High Fidelity.

This was on here awhile ago - he's definitely a fan of bitcoin. Granted, doesn't mean he won't create a HiFi version of the L$ but even if he does, it'll be an evolution of the micropayment and will almost certainly be compatible on some level with exchanging bitcoin. He's already done it and knows the ropes.

http://www.btcnn.com/2011/08/kevin-rose-and-philip-rosedale-discuss.html

It would be stupid, if they going to create a NEW Alt coin for SL. They already have a Crypto Currency with a huge demand, in the form of BTC.

A new Alt coin based on the Blockchain simple makes no sense. The only reason why they would need to develop a NEW coin, would be if BTC does not offer features they need in the coin.

In Batmud we had different smaller units within the currency.. 1 x silver / 1 x bronze / 1 x Mithril etc. ...like we have pennies etc.