We had the pleasure of hosting Sona Lee from the Metaverse Alliance for an informative AMA session where we got to know more about them and their exciting Metathon event, a metaverse-centric hackathon supported by Klaytn and some of the biggest names in the crypto space. Listen to the AMA session below or read on for our recap!
Note: Some of the text may have been edited for grammar and clarity.
Date & Time: Dec. 30th at 1pm SGT / 2pm KST
Speaker: Sona Lee from Metaverse Alliance
Host: Sofy from Klaytn Foundation
Introduction
Sofy: A very good day and welcome to our second AMA session and the last one for the year before we ring in 2022 with a bang! My name is Sofy, community manager with Klaytn. I will be your AMA host for today. Thank you for taking time despite the fact that you guys might be caught up with holiday plans and all. Today, I am honoured to have lovely Sona from Metaverse Alliance as our AMA guest.
Sona, shall we start off with an introduction about yourself, Metaverse Alliance and the team behind Metaverse Alliance?
Sona: Hi everyone, I’m Sona, a core contributor at the Metaverse Alliance and Investment Manager at LD Capital. I was in marketing for four years before the metaverse caught my eye and I made the leap. Today, my focus is primarily on finding potential teams and projects that want to build in the metaverse.
We are a team of metaverse lovers and blockchain believers. We are on an adventure to explore the infinite possibilities of the metaverse, and we seek to bring all enthusiasts together. We want to support promising metaverse projects even if the idea is yet to fully take shape.
Sofy: Thank you for sharing about yourself and the Metaverse Alliance. Now that all of us have gotten to know a bit more about yourself, let’s get to the juicy bits, shall we?
Questions
Q1
Sofy: When and what got you into the crypto space in general?
Sona: Back in 2013, I was reading the newspaper after breakfast and there was a story about blockchain and Bitcoin. The article wrote about a mysterious person called Satoshi who created a new form of money using blockchain and cryptography. I did not pay attention at the time because I thought it was science fiction. It was only a few years later when I read Don Tapscott‘s Blockchain Revolution that I got deeply inspired and impressed by blockchain.
Q2
Sofy: What inspired you to focus on the metaverse?
Sona: We think the metaverse could be the future of the Internet, as the world is evolving towards decentralization. In the metaverse you enter a virtual world connecting all sorts of digital environments. Unlike VR which is currently mostly used for gaming, this virtual world can be used for practically anything — work, play, concerts, cinema trips, or just hanging out. The metaverse is a very imaginative track, and there are many things being built.
Q3
Sofy: What inspired you to build the Metaverse Alliance?
Sona: As metaverse lovers and blockchain believers, we wanted to explore the possibilities of the metaverse by bringing all the enthusiasts together and supporting promising metaverse projects. That’s why we built the metaverse alliance and launched the Metathon.
Q4
Sofy: Currently the Metaverse Alliance is in the midst of a hackathon, or rather, a Metathon. Can you briefly describe what the Metathon is?
Sona: The Methathon is an online metaverse hackathon for all metaverse enthusiasts around the world. And it’s bigger than just the Metaverse Alliance — we have partnerships with leading funds, top tier public chains, active DAOs, experienced crypto experts, and project founders that have already made their mark in the crypto space. We believe that the metaverse will create long-term value in the future for both real and virtual worlds.
Q5
Sofy: Can you please share with us more about the process and progress of this Metathon?
Sona: Sure, registration and submission for the Metathon runs from 1 December 2021 to 3 January 2022, with preliminary judging happening between 4 to 7 January 2022.
The finalists will be announced on 8 January 2022, and will need to prepare and submit their entries by 15 January 2022. Final judging will be from 16 to 20 January 2022, and winners will be announced on 21 January 2022.
Q6
Sofy: Who can sign up, what are the requirements and how does one sign up?
Sona: The Metathon is open to developers, entrepreneurs and teams from all over the world. All participants must be at least 18 years of age. Although participants can submit projects individually, they are encouraged to do so as a team of 3 to 5 members. To be officially eligible for the prize giveaway, all team members must provide their CVs as Metathon participants.
To sign up, you will need to submit your team members’ information, a project description and your project deck. If your team makes it to the finals, you will need to submit a Github Repo link, a project demo, and a 3-minute pitch video.
Q7
Sofy: Are there any themes for the Metathon?
Sona: There are five themes for the Metathon, all of which revolve around the challenges of building a viable metaverse ecosystem:
- Metaverse infrastructure: Decentralized identity, productive tooling and cross-chain transfer of NFT/FT assets, etc.
- GameFi: This includes any and all kinds of GameFi projects.
- DAO stack: The manual management of DAO assets is grossly inefficient and untransparent, and current DAO tools have relatively high barriers and are not user-friendly.
- SocialFi: This involves high-quality, on-chain content sharing.
- Financial NFT: The use of NFT specialties to generate more flexible financial products.
Q8
Sofy: Can you elaborate more on SocialFi?
Sona: SocialFi is a fusion of social, Web3 and finance that provides rewards and benefits to users by tokenizing social influence. Mass adoption has been a long-standing goal for the blockchain and crypto industry. With Facebook rebranding itself as Meta and working to build the world’s biggest social media metaverse, the company’s 3 billion users will soon be introduced to the crypto and blockchain space, placing SocialFi in the spotlight.
Q9
Sofy: Now onto the long awaited question: could you share with us a little more about the Prize Pool?
Sona: There is a total of $410,000 in the prize pool. The winners of each of the five themes will walk away with $25,000 each. The second and third runner up for each theme will also go home with $15,000 and $10,000 respectively.
In addition, there are six category-specific rewards: the most popular project will be rewarded with $10,000, and the projects that are the most creative, the most promising, have the best tech, the best design, and the best prospect will each receive $8,000.
There will also be sponsor grants worth $110,000, which will be awarded to projects that build on the respective sponsors’ blockchains. The grants are distributed as follows:
- Klatyn sponsorship grant of $50,000
- Cradles sponsorship grant of $40,000
- NEO sponsorship grant of $10,000
- Multiverse sponsorship grant of $10,000.
Q10
Sofy: Could you share with us how the judging mechanism works and its different stages?
Sona: There will be two rounds of judging. First, our judges will select the finalists based on whether the submissions have all the information required and whether the projects meet the challenges of the Metathon.
The finalists will then be judged based on the following criteria: Potential Impact, Functionality, Novelty, Mass Usability, Design, and Technical Complexity.
Many thanks to Sona from the Metaverse Alliance for taking time out of her busy schedule for our AMA! To find out more about the Metaverse Alliance and the Metathon, please follow these links below:
