The metaverse isn't some far-off, sci-fi fantasy anymore. It’s here, it’s ugly, and it’s still under construction at the moment. And as with any new frontier, there are land grabs afoot. Except this time, the land is digital, and the stakes are your very identity.
Potentially SNS snatching up “sui.eth” might look like one of those not-so-interesting headline grabs, a penny-ante domain name purchase. In fact, I believe that it’s actually a flashing neon sign that is pointing to something much, much bigger. I’m Eloise, and I’ve been writing fiction for many years, world building. But now, for the first time I’m experiencing it in real-time, a story about control, who owns you in the metaverse.
Who Controls Your Digital You?
We’re hurtling into a world where our digital identities are increasingly becoming inseparable from our real world selves. Our avatars, our online reputations, our whole virtual representation of ourselves, might soon be more important than our physical self. And what gives those identities meaning? Names. Addresses. How to discover and authenticate you in the sprawling digital deep.
SNS receiving “sui.eth” isn’t only about making wallet addresses more user-friendly. Which is to say, it’s all really about staking a claim in that burgeoning identity landscape. We’re building the home base for your adventures on the Sui blockchain. This central point will further reach outside of it.
Today, SNS points to better user experience and greater accessibility, and which is wonderful. They’re delivering a taste of what’s to come—creating an all-around friendlier, more intuitive way to navigate the complexities of blockchain. Easier address, argue proponents, will get more people through the door. And ok, a human-readable name is more convenient to remember than a long string of cryptographic characters.
This is about more than convenience. It's about control.
- Convenience vs. Control: A Slippery Slope?
- Centralization's Hidden Costs.
- The Power of a Name.
Are we trading convenience for control? Are we seriously allowing these platforms to own our digital lives? While these platforms lure users in by promising a seamless experience across platforms, what they are really doing is building walled gardens.
ENS Integration: A Trojan Horse?
The most interesting piece of SNS taking advantage of the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is that they’ve claimed a standardized “.eth” domain. It’s cross-chain compatibility, they argue, a pledge to move the space forward. But is it really? Or is it a strategic move to tap into the established user base and network effects of ENS, essentially building a bridge to a larger pool of potential users and potential data?
Picture this dystopian reality as you stand in the metaverse. It is all very fragmented among different blockchains and different platforms, all of which use different naming conventions and verification processes. It’s a beautiful disaster, to borrow a phrase from the tech industry, but a decentralized one, where no single entity holds complete power.
Now, imagine a reality in which the true leaders—like SNS—carry the day. They unify selfhood and shore up divides as they produce collective social accounts that interlink various networks. Now you’re in a much more centralized, much more hierarchical system. Your entire digital life is tied up with literally a handful of companies.
And what do you do when those very same firms decide they want to change the rules? What happens when they choose to de-prioritize some identities, or erase some entirely, in favor of others? Or rather, what happens when your best corporate PR effort is upended by the corporate algorithm that now owns your digital self? That is the fear that truly gives me insomnia.
Cross-Chain: A Double-Edged Sword
Oh wow, this sounds incredible. A unified identity across different blockchains? Sign me up! Here's the rub: cross-chain functionality isn't inherently good or bad. Like any tool, it can be used for good or bad.
Think of it like this: the internet connects the world, allowing us to share information and ideas freely. Yet at the same time, it creates an environment for conspiracies and hate speech to flourish. The same technology that gives us power can be turned against us as a tool of oppression.
Who will control this cross-chain identity layer? Or will it be a corporate-run, highly centralized, closed-source cash grab that reduces us all to mere data points? Or will it be more like a proprietary system that is controlled by the same dozen or so corporations? This creates a system where profit trumps privacy.
I too want to believe in the potential of the metaverse. That’s why I believe it has the potential to be a hub of innovation, collaboration and limitless possibility. We can never let our guard down. Let’s just not be surprised and dismayed when the power grabs are occurring right under our noses.
What we have to do now is ask for transparency, accountability, and a real commitment to decentralization. To get the metaverse right we should make sure the metaverse returns us to a more individual liberty-based, not corporate-controlled society. We’re doing it, though, because the future of our digital selves depends on it.
