Enjin Co-Founder: Establishing Standards Will Be Key to the Metaverse's Future Success
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Enjin Co-Founder: Establishing Standards Will Be Key to the Metaverse's Future Success
The decentralized internet can currently be understood as an independent nation, rather than a unified territory.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
Author: Witek Radomski, Co-Founder of Enjin
Translation: TechFlow
Universal programming standards are nothing new in the digital world—after all, the internet itself was largely built upon them. The development of one of the most influential, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), began in 1989 with Tim Berners-Lee at CERN. It was designed to simplify data exchange. This thoughtful design lowered the adoption barrier for Berners-Lee’s other groundbreaking invention: the World Wide Web—and his strategy can be considered successful.
Before reaching its first standardized version, HTTP/1.1, in 1997, HTTP underwent multiple iterations. This standardization became a cornerstone for the expansion of cyberspace and enabled the seamless communication we now take for granted. Interoperability on the web allows information to transcend borders, devices, and infrastructure limitations.
The evolution of the World Wide Web offers critical lessons for the development of decentralized metaverses and token standards—particularly how they can drive long-term adoption and success. As the industry matures, a multi-chain landscape—not a single chain—appears increasingly likely to define its future. Token standards that prioritize interoperability across these diverse blockchains and metaverse platforms will be key to sustained success. But what exactly should these standards include, and how can consensus be achieved among communities in such a diverse industry?
Establishing Standards
Standards come in many forms—they can be physical, like the EU’s USB-C directive, or abstract, like those underpinning the internet. For blockchain, standards are especially important because they enable effective communication between protocols.
Blockchain protocols are beginning to resemble nations. Large chains like Ethereum have their own populations, economies, and token standards such as ERC-20, ERC-721, and ERC-1155. Within Ethereum, these function effectively and fulfill their intended purposes. However, transferring assets between different blockchains remains extremely difficult—akin to cities without highways connecting them.
The decentralized internet today resembles a collection of independent nations rather than a unified territory. For example, Decentraland and The Sandbox are distinct virtual lands, with no direct way to communicate between these two ecosystems, let alone the numerous other decentralized metaverse platforms. Without a common framework enabling value transfer across these diverse metaverse ecosystems, their potential remains isolated and fundamentally constrained.
Shared Foundations
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) represent provenance of ownership. But without proper methods to track their journey across chains, it becomes impossible to know whether someone has tampered with your token. Metadata standards address this issue by governing the gray areas between chains and providing guardrails within which builders can exercise creativity.
Take HTML, CSS, and XML as examples—they all allow developers to build unique websites atop HTTP. This means that while web pages may be written in the language of a particular digital domain, they share the same underlying foundation. Metadata on HTML, in particular, enables users to define characteristics of datasets, such as author or keywords.
Cross-chain (metadata) standards will ensure that the ownership economy of NFTs adheres to universal principles of transparency, flexibility, and individual freedom. Metadata will eliminate the need for trust, as it can encode regulatory approvals, intellectual property rights, privacy laws, and other critical attributes.
Technical Standards
The spirit of Web3—the vision of creating a more democratic, equitable, and user-owned version of the internet—also faces challenges when establishing universal token standards. First and foremost, Web3 standards must be community-driven in their design.
Organizations like the Web3 Foundation are pioneering this approach. The Web3 Foundation now includes over 450 members, ranging from nonprofits and universities to government entities and an increasing number of individuals. It serves as a bottom-up counterpart to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which develops specifications and guidelines for interoperable Web2 technologies.
Crucially, developing appropriate Web3 interoperability standards can complement domain-specific languages (DSLs), enabling practical portability across chains and ecosystems. This is particularly important for Soulbound NFTs or platforms like POAP, which reward users with unique digital assets representing achievements such as completing game milestones or attending virtual events. Embedding metadata into these types of assets and pairing them with decentralized identifiers (DIDs) will be key to achieving a successful, interoperable decentralized metaverse, enhancing synergy between different blockchains and their communities.
For instance, Ethereum Name Service (ENS) names can function as DIDs—an excellent example of a privacy-preserving, trustless identity network. ENS domains operate under the EIP-721 standard, meaning ".eth" records move similarly to NFTs and can provide the secure foundation and robust data sovereignty needed to build "smart cities." However, without an interoperable token standard, such a "smart city" would only function on Ethereum, unable to transact with cities built on Polkadot.
This is just the beginning of what token standards can enable in the metaverse. Another significant benefit lies in adopting the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) standard. By embedding MIME information into metadata of audio files or 3D models on-chain, we could customize in-game item exchanges—such as sound effects or digital clothing—across different games and metaverse ecosystems.
Moving Forward Together
Until an interoperable token standard is established, the transfer of metadata across different blockchains, metaverse platforms, and gaming ecosystems will remain fundamentally limited. The Web3 industry possesses a deep and diverse talent pool capable of collaborating to successfully develop such a standard.
As demonstrated by the evolution of other technologies like the internet, interoperability standards are crucial for integrity and widespread adoption. In an industry centered on community and collaboration, jointly developing such standards is indispensable for progress.
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