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The metaverse has a lot of uncertainties, but one thing is for sure: the future of our online lives will not be based on closed, controlled and proprietary systems. Within the metaverse, a new mode of online experience emerges, recognising our individual rights to own our personal data. Yat Siu, Co-Founder and Chairman of Animoca Brands, certainly believes so.

Animoca Brands is a Hong Kong based firm specialising in digital entertainment and blockchain gaming. It started as a traditional gaming company, but soon found itself entering the fast-growing market of blockchain economy, and forming an impressive portfolio of more than 150 blockchain-related companies including Opensea, the Sandbox and CryptoKitties.

Popular gaming technologies like VR and AR are simply different ways of experiencing the digital world. According to Siu, what is core to the metaverse is the access and ownership of the world's most valuable resource, data.

Most of us go on the internet every day. Some cannot go an hour without it, from the very minute they wake up until they go back to sleep at night. The amount of data created and the energy involved is unimaginable. However, without blockchain and the metaverse, the ownership of all the valuable data created does not go to individuals. Instead, they are owned by the platform.

We have been so used to not owning our own online data that the idea of getting the ownership back seems foreign. However, as Siu puts it, "a digital asset can have a legacy, the same way we have legacy in the real world." Decentralized ownership of digital assets makes sure your data is not used or manipulated against your own will. Social media platforms will no longer have the rights to delete your account or preventing you from modifying your own data.

In the physical world, we have our self-identities. We constantly purchase items to complement and get closer to the identity we aspire to become. Not much has changed in the digital world. According to Siu, we also buy things to create social identities, such as skins and clothing in certain games and weapons in others. With the metaverse in place, these products should be able to transcend game borders and be the purchaser's property on any platform in the metaverse. NFTs can also be seen as non-fungible self identifiers. When it comes down to the question of real and virtual value. Siu says: "Bored Ape is the same price as a Birkin bag. Same as the Bored Ape NFT, you're paying for an entirely virtual value with the Birkin. Everything you purchase today is 99% virtual value."

As we gain more control over digital assets and our digital identity, we cannot help but realise the metaverse has led us into a place where the internet is celebrating individual creativity. Technology has fused into our daily lives in ways more seamless than ever. It is no longer an extra school subject, a burden at work or an addicting leisure device. Instead, it has become a part of life, an added layer of self-identity and an extension of our intelligence and creativity. "We can unlock what is natural for us without the need of a computer." Siu says.