[DAO:fdd4cb3] Open up discussion for a Metaverse Layer 2 that developed by DCL

Governance
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by 0x05060fa97e54a812d1e15cec6c34e79f74ebd0b3 (MetaDoge)

Disclaim: This is not a grant proposal and the proposal aims at opening up discussion at this very moment.

Decentraland is facing serious challenges. In 2020, DCL was the one who led the narrative of both the Web3 & Web2 metaverse and people were incentivized to trade to play and build in DCL. However, we can see a declining trend with fewer users, and developers and shrinking market capitalization.

For the competition layout, In Web2, we have metaverses like Roblox or Fortnite that have excellent user experience (since they are huge teams and have years of experience…) In Web3, new metaverses emerging like Nifty Island on ETH or Bitmap on Ordinals have a strong economic hook to Web 3 users, and they all have posed huge threats to DCL.

My worry here is If we only follow the traditional route of product development, and before we have a “good” platform, the market cap of DCL will be squeezed by its competitors, and that will consequently affect the price of MANA as well as the budget of both foundation and DAO. If that happens, it is logical to believe that the development speed will be slower and slower due to the shrinking budget and put us in a weak position on the market (imagine the foundation cut more people and the DAO can fund fewer and fewer projects.)

Thus at the very moment, we might need to think of some measures, and this brings us to the topic of ** A potential Ethereum Layer 2 that focuses on Metaverse, developed by DCL Foundation and the DAO. And it could potentially become the infrastructure of more projects like Decentraland. **

Why a Layer 2?

1/ New Story

It provides a new narrative for Decentraland that fits the trend of launching Layer 2. Which can easily cause more attention from the public. ( Last cycle our Metaverse story was pretty effective and successful)

2/ New Tokens as incentives to attract contributors and players.

By launching a Metaverse Layer 2, we can have a new token (think about ARB, OP or Blast), and use part of the token as an incentive for people to play and develop in both Decentraland and this Layer 2 as a whole. I have thought about directly using MANA as the incentive, but the truth is that we don’t have enough MANA in the DAO to use, using a new token means it can be more sustainable. Plus, a new layer2 token can trigger more expectations from the users.

3/ Sensibility

For so long, we have relied on Polygon as the side chain for wearable trading, so if we have a chance, why we do not use a layer 2 chain developed by us? And if more metaverse projects are developed on this new layer 2 chain, **Decentraland will truly become the infrastructure of web3 metaverse, as we will have a layer 2 chain for transactions, and we have open-source reference clients. **

Is this feasible?

Yes, I believe with the help of the Foundation and the DAO, this will be feasible. The foundation got direct resources from key investors like Grey Scale, DCG etc which could be potential backers of the scheme. Both the foundation and DAO have gathered a bunch of top talents who know about Web3 and Metaverse. Good backers plus a good team will form a good foundation for this layer 2.

Risk?

The risk here also lies on the application side as there are full challenges along the way with a lot of uncertainties, both technical and operational. However, with the resources that DCL and DAO accumulated for years, it already has a better chance than others.

Last, I want to emphasise that layer 2 should not affect the current efforts on platform enhancement by the foundation and the DAO, ideally, they should be working in parallel. And if we could raise more funds, and with more people, this would be possible.

I do not want to get into too many details as this proposal is here to gather community consensus, for now, the only ones who care about DCL are the DAO and the community, any decisions should be pushed by all of us to make it happen. If there are people who are interested in this idea, we can create a channel on Discord for further discussion and invite some people from the foundation to join as well.

  • Ye, Create a dedicted channle in DAO discord for this topic
  • No, it’s not a priority now
  • Invalid question/options

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

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I was doing this but got funds revoked… :+1:

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An other big risk is also narrative ( maybe bigger than the ones you mentioned )

I can see all the critics saying this looks like desperation for a sinking ship. In addition to alienating the existing user base on L1 by confusing everyone on the connection between the 2 platforms and devaluation of the existing MANA , Land , names, emotes . Unless all users get these airdropped in L2 but even then it’s riddled with risks all over it .

Also keep in mind DCL is struggling on all fronts particularly the platform category. What will be the perception if suddenly the foundation and DAO pivot to make a L2 metaverse ? I guarantee it will make it look like DCL is getting abandoned for the new shiny thing .

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The truth is that I am very captivated by the idea of capturing the interest of users again, in the last 3 months Decentraland has lost 50% of its visitors and I think we are at an extreme situation.

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@PunkPink Facts. Maybe if the community didn’t spend much of 2022-23 in- fighting , trolling , doxxing and bigoting among themselves , driving whatever user base was left away from DCL . We could have kept a good welcoming vibe for new users . Alas …

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A L2 using similar code is possible…
I had the architecture half completed for deposit/transfer via substrate pallets/withdraw…
I’m not spinning up this project again without proper funding though…
It’s costly to run a L2…
I could be earning $15k a month doing this for another project…

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:100:
I have witnessed things like this on Discord, for better or worse, I have been more actively involved in the DAO for a few months now and I have not had to experience these disputes firsthand, but I suppose that conflict is part of life.

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Not a bad idea, but not sure how large of a priority this would be by the foundation. This would require some serious planning, funding, design & implementation of the tokenomics (and legal considerations).

I’m abstaining for now, but I’m curious how these conversations would go.

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Hey @SugarClub, I have 3 things to clarify
1/ To be clear I was proposing a Metaverse-focus Layer 2 instead of a Layer 2 metaverse, which has significant differences. DCL can operate as usual, just use this new layer 2 to replace Polygon/Matics. And they will be mutually beneficial as a part of the new token can be used to attract players/contributors to DCL which is sensible since DCL will be the goat in this layer 2 network.

A similar example would be the relationships between “Axie Infinity” and “Ron Network”, Axie still operates on its own regarding the experience side, however, it will use Ron as its main chain for on-chain transactions. And the truth is that Ron network did help AXS to thrive longer compared with if they didn’t have it. OFC there will be new problems introduced, but that sth to be considered after 2-3 years, which should theoretically give enough time for DCL to improve itself,

(it is a little bit different because Ron is an independent chain, and a Layer2 chain is attached to ETH, and thanks to many new tools like OPstack, it is much easier now to launch a layer2)

2/ As I mentioned in the proposal, the foundation and DCL DAO could do whatever they are doing while creating a new team for this new layer 2. It is technically possible, but it requires deep collaboration between the foundation and Dao, and a newly formed strong team (but luckily we have talents in DAO, and they might not decide to leave DCL if they can be hooked into this new opportunity), needs to co-fund raising, and execution, which is a challenge as @maryana said.

@maryana

ye… since this is a DAO proposal, only if the DAO come together, we can then influence to the foundation, if we are not aligned, then it is hard tbh. But the call to action here is just to create a channel on Discord, to open up a discussion

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It may be so , but the reception of such a endeavor could very likely backfire in terms of perception and narrative as I already discussed.

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Again the example of Axie and Ron, I think the existing of Ron did help the AXS growing instead of dividing the consensus. It is still rely on how to implement it, if doing it well, it could be a huge booster.

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thats why needing foundation + DAO to do fund raising, youself obviously dont have the credibitliy as the foundation do, and to co execute, the tech is not that hard, but the hard part is to run it properly, which need endorsements, marketing, economic design etc , all the complex stuff to launch a layer2. But the return could be huge as well

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ye… things could be better when bull 100% got back, DCL will get back as well i believe, but there should be sth to be done if we want to really bring it back to the glory old days

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Correct me if I’m wrong but if I recall the Axie and Ron bridge were implemented at the peak popularity of Axie game ( before the major hack ).

You are drawing parallels with DCL which is in its deepest struggle for survival at this point compared to the newer metaverse narratives and communities . Taking resources away from the development of DCL to make a L2 layer with it’s separate assets and token is still a very big risk in terms of reception and no guarantee that it will gather the success you are expecting.

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It is correct, they used the new L2 to create a new narrative for their game, which is the same thing challenge that we are facing. Lack of narrative and incentives as i mentioned. The timing now is good since we are at the beginning of the bull market, and layer2 is a hot trend, if we can catch the trend while achieving what we want.

Plus, i want to re-emphasis again that this will not take too many resources from the foundation, as the foundation and Dao should work together to do fundraising, might need some time from @yemel in the beginning, but once the fund rasing is finished, and we can create a new team, recruiting those who have been cut from the foundation, or select the talents to form the DAO, using the money we raised.

I want to mention again, the challeng here is on the execution side, but theoretically it works, so here to just open up dicussion

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Just to add also that the Ron bridge suffered a terrible hack that completely destroyed the project and its treasury back then . So there are also risks associated with building a new web3 layer with the increasing security failures of many projects as exemplified.

Managing these new infrastructure will definitely add vector attacks for hackers specially when new tokens and assets will be implemented and or bridged .

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YES, there is risk, both technical and operational, so here I’m just to open up discussions to kick-start the topic. I also agree this should not be a pure community-level project. Need a strong hand who has previous experience leading, and is backed by famous investors like Grey Scale to support. Currently, I can only see foundation ppl like @yemel Estaban might have that drive and ability. Thus i kept mentioning need deep collab between the foundation and dao

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the tech is the hard part… Running it is easy if the tech is built right…
I think this should be built/maintained by someone who knows does this in their sleep…
But development costs would be in the $x00,000s…
I was going to do this for $20k even though I was paying someone $8k a month to help…
Polkadot was a good option because it was easy to launch a parathread and customize a pallet to manage NFTs… There was not a great NFT bridge solution at the time so I designed one… Although my funding was cut the team I was working with on this are building it anyway because they see the value in my designs…

There’s a lot of things to think about when it comes to adding an L2…
If I had to do this on a foundation level it would basically be building a completely new project from scratch. Using something like Phala’s phat contracts or rndr to account for catalyst runtime expenses and in-game server connections… also probably include a paid service for increased performance. But realistically that’s not gonna happen. Because it would need a new token.

The real problem is users…
We don’t have enough…
So there’s no point in building a completely new L2 that only a few scenes would have the technical ability to interact with…
Even if I was to follow through on my design and you would of been able to wrap NFTs/trade them. The application becomes a problem as well… There’s not a killer dapp on decentraland that needs a L2 at the moment…

This is something that i’ve been saying we should of done 2 years ago…

TLDR
IMO it’s not worth it now…

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This is what I proposed from the beginning, a new layer 2 focus on metaverse, not bridging polkadot or any other chain. The aim of this proposal is not to attract other chain users but to create a new chain to form a new narrative and new incentives. (Even though I think it is a good idea to do bridging, that is a different topic than this one)

I said a lot of times, I propose to build a new team led by the foundation, followed by DAO’s talents, because the foundation has the credibility to raise new investment from institutions like GreyScale, and I am talking about 500m+ investment which is pretty common in layer 2 fundraising. As for the tech side, we can easily use new tools, for example, OP stack, to create a new chain like the Base chain has done.

Regarding how to attract users. The new token would be the key to attracting them, as we can use part of the new token as an incentive to invite ppl to build, and play. (ofc some of the tokens will be used to incentive new projects to build on this new chain) Please check the story of Arbitrum, OPtimism, ZKSync, Starknet and even Blast of how they attract users, I know we are different, but the common thing is they provide a token to incentivise users to do what they want, this is the takeaway points.

And here it comes to the operation part which is they are capable of making that token valuable. This comes back to my point of why running a project properly is more challenging than the tech side itself, as we need a lot of things like investor endorsement, marketing, economic design etc to achieve it

Now the only challenge I see is A/ if the foundation or even DAO want to do this, as @maryana said, this is a big idea that needs big implementation, if we are divided, then it has no chance of being done. B/ Many and many realistic things to consider along the way…

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How will we use the L2 within decentraland though?