adidasunveiled its first collection under the adidas Originals umbrella that mixes real and virtual objects. It is called “Into the Metaverse” and consists of real garments and their digital version in the form of NFT, developed by Bored Ape Yacht Club, gmoney and Punks Comic.
The collection was launched in mid-December while the assets-physical and digital-purchased will be available during 2022 (to understand exactly what the Metaverse is and what NFTs are read below). The physical ones will be wearable like any other piece of clothing while the NFTs will be usable in the most popular gaming platform using this technology, namely The Sandbox. As time goes on, and if these new tools related to cryptocurrencies and the Metaverse catch on (although it seems very likely that they will, if only judging by how popular they have become and how much commercial interest they have), the “virtual objects/heads” purchased by these brands will also be usable in other parallel universes. Demonstrating how attractive they are to brands, one need only mention Nike, which recently acquired the RTFKT brand that designs virtual sneakers distributed as NFTs.
adidas’s initiative is also interesting because it demonstrates the brand’s attention to new technologies, but it does so by offering customers a hybrid of real and virtual: in fact, by buying a garment from the Into The Metaverse collection, one buys both the physical and digital versions.
The virtual world, in which we have actually been immersed for years to the extent that it has now become an integral part of the real, physical one, now takes on new nuances and dimensions. And if you think about it, people who use Zwift or Fulgaz to ride rollers on virtual but real trails or engage in races with other users are already doing so.
In the Metaverse we are already in it, at least with one foot.
What are the Metaverse and NFTs
If you ever expected to read the words Metaverse and NFT on Runlovers know that you are not alone. And if you don’t know what they mean, I’ll tell you right now.
The Metaverse is the virtual reality (as it would once have been called) that Mark Zuckerberg says is the evolution of Facebook: a place populated with avatars of ourselves and others interacting with each other. If in Facebook we connect only with the written word, the Metaverse promises a more integral and engaging immersion. A viewer is needed to experience it, but a computer or cell phone will also suffice, although the effect is less immersive.
Remember when the net and social media were once summarily called “virtual reality”? Here it is: the Metaverse is a kind of virtual reality 2.0. I am simplifying a lot, but it is for the sake of understanding.
This new reality was announced months ago by Zuckerberg, and it exists only partially. Especially in the gaming world, this is nothing new, and Minecraft is a perfect example.
Since it is an alternate reality, however, it has rules: perhaps those of physics do not apply but others do, such as that all buying and selling is done by exchanging virtual currency. In the specific case, the most popular one is Ethereum (I won’t go into the explanation of what it is and what cryptocurrencies are, but let’s talk about that). What do you buy in the Metaverse? There are those who already buy land (digital) and those who buy objects (also digital). An example of items you can buy are so-called NFTs, or “non-fungible tokens.”
Breathe a moment and let’s try to understand what an NFT is, partly because you may have heard a lot about it recently, especially after the auction sale of a digital work for nearly $70 million (in Ethereum, of course).
NFTs are precisely not objects but contracts: an NFT is a “digital piece of paper” that establishes that someone owns something.
A particular technology-the so-called blockchain-guarantees that there is only one copy or a finite number of copies of that contract, and that the holders of that contract are Titius and Caius, who purchased it by shelling out Ethereum. Are you still there? Moving on.
Since digital objects are infinitely repeatable, so many have wondered what the point of buying an image or video was. The whole point lies in the following logical step: an NFT is not the object-no matter how digital-purchased in the Metaverse but is a contract, that is, an act that establishes that you own it. It’s kind of like if by buying a house you became the owner of the contract and not the house made of walls and roof. In the digital world this makes sense because every digital object is infinitely repeatable (of your house there can be an infinite number of copies) while of property deeds there can only be one.
How does the above relate to the news of the adidas collection? In the Metaverse your avatar will presumably be clothed, right? If he’ll have adidas Originals on his feet and wearing a sweatshirt from the Into The Metaverse collection, it’s because you bought them. In this sense, the physical and digital worlds are perfectly identical and use the same mechanisms and rules. If these concepts seem a bit fuzzy and elusive to you today, fear not: it is because you are not used to thinking in terms of physical/real existence and, simultaneously, a parallel existence, in another universe called, at least in Zuckerberg’s intentions, the Metaverse. Whether it will become clearer and more real is just a matter of waiting.