 My name is Uchi. I always like to say Uchi as in Gucci because it's easy to remember. And I'm really excited to be here today to talk to you about utility in the metaverse. And a little bit about me, I live in Toronto but I'm originally from Nigeria. I'm also a big foodie. So I'm taking recommendations for restaurants in Vancouver if you have anyone while I'm here. And before now, I worked at Shopify, Royal Bank of Canada, and IBM. And I'm also the founder and CEO of Chew Money. So I've been in the blockchain space for a few years now since 2016. And today I'm gonna talk to you about how we can enhance utility in the metaverse using open technology. And I'm gonna walk you through a use case that we did in five different blockchains. So, I mean, as most of you know, in today's Web3 world, there are many, many tokens out there. But the truth is that most of them are not really useful. You can use them to buy real products and services. And this creates a problem for not just people in the Web3 space, but everyone. So it reduces financial inclusion and also for us to solve this problem, we basically need to make tokens spendable in the real world. In this talk, I'm gonna explore the concept of utility. And I'll look at it in relations to mass loss hierarchy of needs. Most of you already know what mass loss hierarchy of need is. We're gonna bring mass loss hierarchy of need and try to like see how we can measure utility using mass loss hierarchy of needs. So I will discuss opportunities for improving utility by connecting traditional financial systems using open source technology with the work that's already been done in the Web3 space. And then I'll end by discussing a use case of what we did with five different blockchains. So cell of Polygon, Solana, and some of them. We're gonna talk about this at the end. But before we begin and dive into what utility in the metaverse means, let's discuss the mass loss hierarchy of needs briefly. I know most of you are already familiar. But mass loss hierarchy of need is a motivational theory in psychology. And it explains how human needs are arranged in hierarchy from the most basic needs that's the ability to have food to eat to the complex needs like the ability for self-actualization. We're gonna talk about all of those in a bit. So in the bottom of the hierarchy, we look at physiological needs like food, clothing, shelter, and things like that. And then it's followed by safety needs, social needs, and then esteem need and finally self-actualization needs. So using this mass loss hierarchy of need, I've come up with something. I'm calling the UCHI's hierarchy of metaverse utility. So I use this when I'm evaluating crypto projects. So I advise a couple of crypto projects and when I first speak to the team, I try to understand how that project meets one of the mass loss hierarchy of needs. So I mean, as you might know, utility refers to the usefulness or value of something. Right, so when we take a look at what utility means in relation to the different mass loss hierarchy of needs, we're gonna see that for physiological needs, both tokens and NFTs, they have the potential to help us meet those needs. And they only do that if they enable us to purchase basic necessities of life. So like for example, food, clothing, shelter, and a token for example, could be used to purchase goods and services online while an NFT can represent ownership of a fiscal house or ownership of a car. So when a token helps us meet this need, the ability to purchase products and services that meet our basic need, then we can say that that token is useful, it has utility. But more than that, when we move up to the safety needs, both tokens and NFTs also have the potential to help us meet our safety needs, right? So for example, we have stable coins that are pegged to the US dollars. And this provides a sense of safety or stability because the US dollars cannot be recognized by most countries. And when you talk in respect to that currency, basically makes sense to provide stability. And then finally, for NFTs, right? NFTs can represent ownership of something very, very valuable. So for example, an artwork or collectible, which can then securely be stored on the blockchain. When tokens and NFTs provide this value, we can say that they are meeting the safety needs in the mass loss hierarchy of needs. So that we can say that those tokens are useful. But I think what's more important is what's in the top side of the mass loss hierarchy of needs. It's pretty obvious that a token should be spendable in reproduction services. What was less obvious is how can a token help us achieve our self-actualization need, right? So I mean, tokens and NFTs can help us pursue things that we're passionate about. So our passions and aspiration, for example, they do that when they give us access to exclusive experiences, right? So if we've made lots of money, we can basically buy an NFT that potentially provides access to an exclusive event and exclusive experience like backstage access to a concert or meet and greet with an artist that we're really, really passionate about. But more importantly, tokens can help us to solve bigger problems in life and also NFTs. So if there's a cause that we're really passionate about, we can potentially use tokens and NFTs to donate to those courses and that would make an impact in the world. That brings satisfaction, that brings fulfillment and tokens and NFTs that basically help us do that have utility. And so, I mean, when we understand and look at utility in the metaverse in this lens, it's basically easier to measure how useful they are and you can start to unlock discussions around how do we build, how do we bring utility using open technology? So I'm gonna jump into that in a bit. So, but the challenge is that the current state of Fairweb 3 or the blockchain ecosystem, it's really, it's interesting. That's kind of how I'll describe it, right? Because there are so many tokens out there. In fact, there are over 220,000 unique tokens, but the challenge is that they are not spendable on reward products and services or experiences and most of them are for speculation, right? So it's estimated that about 90% of transactions in the Bitcoin network are for speculation purposes and this limits the utility of these assets and basically it reduces financial inclusion because when people are interested in getting into this space see that there's this speculation going on, they don't wanna like jump in and regulators are also kind of worry about basically supporting the ecosystem. So we're gonna jump right into what we did, like something practical that we built at Chim Money and we built this product called Unispens. It has some open components to it and it's all available on GitHub if you wanna check it out. But at Chim Money we believe that when we're able to connect traditional financial system to the work that is being done in Web3 we have the potential to basically unlock more utility for the metaverse and that's why we built Unispens. So Unispens is a crypto to commerce protocol. Currently Unispens supports over 500 million products and services from Amazon and Shopify, gift cards and things like that. But when we're gonna focus on all that, we're gonna focus on like the open components that we built to make it happen. So basically Unispens, it's a way to bridge between metaverses, tokens, NFTs and things like that to real world products and services. And we've been able to build this in such a way that their open APIs, open SDKs and also local tools that any developer can integrate with today. So without jumping deeply into this, at the moment you can offer or cash out from five different blockchains to one of these products. So over 500 million products from Amazon, gift cards, over 2,000 different gift cards and even offline payment systems in Africa. So for example, mobile money in Kenya and we're looking at also adding things like WeChat Pay whereby someone that has a token on one ecosystem can basically cash out to there. WeChat Pay wallet. So ultimately for us to bring utility to the metaverse, we basically need to build in the open, right? We need to build and it has to be collaborative, it has to be inclusive. But before we kind of conclude our stop for bits to see if there are questions, specifically around maybe how we build, shouldn't spend or whatever you're thinking. So if you have questions or comment, I'll stop to take them now. Okay, so yeah, so I mean the future of utility in the metaverse is open, right? And what we did with shouldn't spend was we use a couple of things to make it happen. So as most of you know, the different chains out there have open ways to send transactions to them, right? So what we did, we started with the SRP ledger ecosystem and we used two things in that ecosystem. We used the transaction SDKs and also we used something called the path finding. So it's basically a way to route transactions across multiple tokens in the SRP ledger ecosystem and allow users to pay a certain token why you get like a stable coin. So that way you are kind of protected from the speculation that goes on in the ecosystem. So we use the SDKs to basically initiate a transaction when the user has signed a transaction, we're able to then confirm it and a product is delivered to the user based on the payment that they've made. Again, this is opposed to us on the two months GitHub report if you like to check it out. And once we've done that and we were able to process a few transactions, we then scaled on to the seller blockchain. So on the seller blockchain, Unispend is also available there. And after that we scaled on to EVM chains. I mean, as most of you are familiar, EVM chains are the standard for EVM chains are basically the same, right? So once you're able to support one EVM chain, it's easier for you to scale across multiple EVM chains and let users buy products and services, sign transactions, you confirm your transactions and basically deliver a product to them. But what we're looking to do is getting more developers to contribute to the Unispend ecosystem. And there are a couple of ways to do it. So the first way is doing a full API integration. So to do that, it's more, there are some open elements for it, but it's not fully non-costal there because you kind of have to work with Chimoy to do that. But the interesting one, I think this audience might be interested in is the low-code approach where it's fully non-costal there and it's clear to pair between the user that is signing a transaction and the service provider. So you add a single line of code in an iFrame on a web app or if it's in a mobile app, you can add it to a web view. Just a single line of code gives users the access to the Unispend marketplace, which they can browse across multiple products. And when they add an item to cart, they check out, they are basically signing a transaction from their wallet in the non-costal their way. So there's nothing for them to create an account and things like that. Once that transaction is confirmed, that product is delivered to them. So the wallet developer doesn't have to build any relationship with Chimoy to offer that. It just works between the user signing the transaction and then the merchants and also Chimoy that's delivering that product to them. I think that's where I wanna go. And I mean, for utility to be enhancing the metaverse, right, it's something I've been thinking about is there were three space specifically, there is this idea that we're disrupting the existing status quo. Whereas the fact is, most of the tools that are being used are things that have been worked on for years by open source developers out there. I think more collaboration would do the space more good than ham, right? Whereby, yeah, so we're not disrupting basically the existing standards that have been out there, but collaborating and speaking in a way in a humble way that acknowledges the work that I've been doing. I think that could really go a long way. And I'm happy that I think the discussion is moving from disrupting the existing status quo to collaborating. I mean, previously, like in 2017 or so, it was just like the way of two world wasn't the right way to do things. But now I believe the discussion is shifting between like that, like collaborating between like the different existing technology with like this new stuff that has been built that actually depends on those existing technologies. So I'm gonna stop there for a bit for maybe questions or comments or thoughts. Like we hear what you think, if you have questions. Yeah, go ahead. So if you think that most of the money in cryptocurrencies is speculative, why would people want to use the money? That's a good one. So if the money is speculative, why would people want to use the money? Okay, that's a good one. So I mean, when I think about speculation, I think about it from the angle of a lot of users or a lot of developers create new tokens with the aim of doing pump and dumps. They try to like get those tokens to rise in value and then sometimes they cash out and leave. And some of those tokens and NFTs don't provide real value for users, right? If I have that token, I'm not able to like use it to pay my bills, pay more gauge and things like that. There are a couple of reasons for that. There are technical reasons and also there are regulatory and business reasons for all of that also. I think most of the challenges on the regulatory front. But yeah, so I think what would help is when a token has been developed, building it with the mindset that, okay, yeah, people can speculate on this token, but in addition to that, these tokens should add additional value. So using that, the mass loss hierarchy of neither I described before. So where does this token fit in like this, in this hierarchy of needs? So does that token make it possible to for put a buy food? Or does that token make it possible for the holder to maybe make a donation to a cause that they are passionate about and add value to the world? I think those are the things that we should consider when creating new tokens. Does that answer your question? Yep, thank you. Okay, awesome. Yeah, please. It's very interesting how the pyramid works and all these things regarding the Web 3.0 and all these topics. So I have a question, and because right now we are living this transition from the Web 2.0 to the Web 3.0 plus metaverse, which is really a new thing which is already not established and standardizing the outside world and software engineering. So my question is that according to this pyramid for migrating to Web 3.0 plus metaverse, we should start by creating tokens and NFTs and I should not also cryptocurrency. So would you say that should be a good starting point or there is anything to be considered more important to be able to start bringing the Web 3.0 to the outside world? Yeah, that's a good one. So yeah, there's a transition from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 like you mentioned and also yes, you mentioned that would a good start be creating tokens and NFTs or is there something that needs to be done? So yes, there's definitely a good start. So creating tokens and NFTs. And I think what we're doing that something we should also consider is I guess two things. The first one is what value does this token or NFTs add to users? Is this token useful? Can this token be used to pay bills? Can it be used to make donations? Can it be used to protect one's asset? Can it be used to hold value in something that someone is passionate about? So the utility of a token should be considered and also something that should be considered is the environmental impact of the token on NFTs should be considered also, right? So what blockchain are we building it on and how does that kind of impact the environment? Not really going to go into details of that but I think that's a factor that should also be considered. And something else that I think it's super important is carrying everyone along, right? So the challenge that I was saying is that people that are building, some people that are building the work, three space kind of have this. So I don't know what to use but basically they feel that sometimes the work that has been done is not the right way to do it. Like there's this idea that decentralized and open, yeah, decentralized is the way to go. Whereas there's always been decentralization, right? If you look at the way open source is managed, like GitHub and things like that, issue tracking, pull request process, all of those things. We already had all of those decentralization and I feel like sometimes the Web 3 space is trying to reinvent what already exists and looking down on those that have already been doing this and those are laid the foundation for what's been done in Web 3. So I think the idea of collaboration should also be important, should also be considered greatly when trying to transition or augment what has been done in Web 2 to like this new Web 3 stuff and also the meta vast stuff. That's kind of my opinion. Yeah, you're welcome. Okay, so that's everything I had for my talk today. I think I rush through it. Well, if you have any questions, definitely like send me an email or follow me on Twitter. Happy to connect with folks, especially if you're looking to build stuff on any of the blockchains, I've worked with several blockchains, so I would be happy to support in that regard. Yeah, so happy to collaborate because like I mentioned before, it's only by collaborating that we can unlock utility in the meta vast.