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