Totem: A New-Age Ecosystem For Web 3.0

The crypto landscape is shifting and taking new forms in ways we never imagined. New market sectors dominate the industry by driving higher capital efficiency, enhancing user experience, and removing entry barriers for unlocking mass adoption. 

While the majority believe these innovations will help evolve the financial system from a technological standpoint, blockchain is enabling something much bigger, i.e., Web 3.0. The new breed of the Internet, though we are yet to witness how it will come to light, will likely change the world order with disruptive innovation in the cryptoverse. 

With so many decentralized applications built on top of different blockchains, we are getting glimpses of what web 3.0 could be like in the future. We are slowly shifting from a data-monarchy-driven web ecosystem to a data-democracy. 

So, although we are uncertain about the future of the Internet, there is something we can be confident about. And that is the evolution of NFTs. What started as trading cards and sports highlight reels has now become a global sensation with close to $25 billion in trading volume over the last year.

The parabolic growth of NFTs is mainly attributed to their ability to create economic models, add utility to owners, and most importantly, give true ownership and identification. Every single element put forth by NFTs is important for web 3.0, as it forms the foundational layer for a bigger vision in the metaverse.

Metaverses Take the Main Stage 

We have seen the metaverse concept go mainstream in recent months, but its development started years ago. Many projects have been working to build a metaverse that allows users to derive value in multiple ways. Some of them are the Sandbox and Decentraland.

Everyone is grabbing a piece of land in the metaverse, from celebrities and entrepreneurs to companies and countries. Brands are using metaverse as a new marketing channel.

Virtual real estate is in the form of NFTs, which can be bought and sold on secondary marketplaces. Over the last year, we saw unique projects that tapped into this trend and launched NFT collections. One of them is NFT Worlds. By plugging the blockchain layer into Microsoft’s Minecraft game, NFT Worlds, created a play-to-earn metaverse. Seeing its impressive utility with staking and earning consistent daily income, the price of its land NFTs shot up to 15 ETH at its peak. 

In the first quarter of 2022 alone, the gaming and metaverse sectors raised more than $2 billion in funding rounds. Recently, the famous electronics producer Sony and the toy production company, LEGO Group, joined forces to invest $1 billion in Epic Games. This will immensely help Epic boost its metaverse plans. 

So, every big tech company is betting big on the metaverse. Some believe it could be a multi-trillion dollar business, making metaverses the perfect point of intersection of gaming, social networking, and financial incentives. 

What Role Did NFTs Play 

NFTs showed the world what crypto could do without any complexity and out-of-reach DeFi applications. Anyone can create, distribute, and monetize their creations on the blockchain, where everything operates in a trustless environment. Without any middleman tax, all creatives and developers from anywhere on Earth can leverage the true ownership given by non-fungible tokens (NFTs). 

It is more than just an art revolution or a game of flipping for traders. It has become a market-expanding technology that will eat into every major industry in the world. Why? because it allows companies to target unique niches and form capital to kick-start development. This might be the most popular option of all—it gives social status with scarce supply. 

The latest example would be Adidas selling NFTs in partnership with Bored Ape Yacht Club and its extension — Mutant Ape Yacht Club. In less than two weeks, the company embraced NFTs and launched its own collection, collecting more than 6,000 ETH(~$24 million). We expect this trend to continue as more mainstream companies, entrepreneurs, sports players, and artists release their own NFT collections. 

As a result, we will have several micro-economies built on the blockchain that offers greater transparency and utility to all members. And that is exactly what web 3.0 is all about. People can directly interact and use digital ownership to represent their personalities.

It is clear NFTs and metaverse align with Web 3.0 vision. But what’s it going to take to onboard the next billion people onto the blockchain-driven internet world?

What’s Needed to Onboard the Next Billion 

NFTs and metaverses will drive the biggest public wave of interest towards the blockchain and crypto ecosystem. So for these new non-crypto users, we need a set of tools and ecosystems to simplify NFTs and show different opportunities one can explore in a metaverse. 

An all-in-one ecosystem providing the gateways to the metaverse while making value accrual as easy as possible. To take it a step further, we need a plug-and-play arrangement for users to customize their experiences in the metaverse. Also, the tools need to maintain digital ownership, data integrity, and interdependence with the community as three main cornerstone functionalities. 

The Web 3.0 tools also need to have a single access point or a dashboard where users can easily browse and access their interface. With a complementary toolset, users should be able to express their creativity in the open metaverse on their own terms. 

Enter Totem — An OS Forged With Web 3.0 Tools & Metaverse Utility 

Totem is building a one-of-a-kind inclusive web 3.0 system where users can access different tools and tap into diverse, gated communities to explore the infinite realms of the metaverse.

In addition to that, Totem also makes sure to incorporate two key elements into the open metaverse: composability & interoperability. Many of the current tools lack these functionalities, making it difficult for creators and users to create new use-cases by connecting different tools on the same platform. 

Cornerstone Elements of Totem 

AXIS: A Social Dashboard & Toolset 

AXIS is the community dashboard of Totem. Users can directly use this interface to chat with community members and participate in various tasks. For example, members can add new functionalities to the smart contract through governance and voting on the AXIS platform. 

Xela Earth: Your Gateway to the Metaverse 

Xela is a 3D environment for users to create, deploy, and discover NFTs with zero restrictions. The first NFT drop for Totem citizens, XOiDs, can be used to explore virtual space right now. In the future, we can expect more functionalities from Xela with harvesting resources and play-to-earn. The implementation will be done in three phases, with community dashboards and XR quantum utility being the first two. The final phase is NEOS Earth-tEk integration, which will enhance the ultimate virtual world experience.

Totem DAO 

With so many communities onboard, it is important to have a DAO, distributing governance power and voting rights. Totem earth is taking this approach because a community-led OS will benefit all stakeholders in the long term. 

Totem believes this to be the right way to approach DAOification. In the beginning, no project can achieve complete decentralization. It happens overtime with placing a large emphasis on community building and active governance participation. 

Obtainable NFT Marketplace

Obtainable is an all-around NFT marketplace with high-level utility inside Totem’s open metaverse. If Xela Earth is the gateway, then Obtainable is the place where users find their digital representation. 

Users can buy and sell NFTs, including luxury art, and add them to their Totem earth dashboard. Totem also offers NFT forging that streamlines transforming real-world artifacts into NFTs, making it more compelling for new users and artists to explore the metaverse with more freedom. 

The marketplace is going to get even better with upcoming features. Obtainable will introduce a layer 2 solution for lowering the entry barriers to Totem. And it will also soon feature Totem profile integration. Artists will be able to build customized profiles that will allow them to access virtual galleries, gameplay forging, and many curated collections. For citizens of Totem, the marketplace will add a drop calendar, altering all the collections dropped on the Obtainable marketplace. 

Obtainable: NFT Artifacts 

Progress Made So Far 

Totem is inching closer to bringing a new set of Web3 tools and forging them to create the ultimate open metaverse. 

Tthe team launch its first XOiD NFT collection, giving holders access to its XR/VR metaverse and other tools on the Totem interface. You can check out the NFTs on secondary markets like OpenSea

After the NFT rollout, we witnessed the XELA XR social metaverse launch. The first mission, namely INITIOS, is already underway, and citizens have to stake three XOiDs to participate. It involves a unique story testing players’ observational and decoding skills. The winners of this mission can potentially get up to 16,000 CTZN tokens. With the Obtain tool up and running, citizens can directly claim rewards in their Web3 wallets. It also has the functionality of forging NFTs and displaying them on dashboards. 

But wait! There are more exciting things coming. 

Roadmap for 2022

Totem Earth is successfully past the first two phases of the roadmap. With the Citizen token, Totem OS, and the launch of XR metaverse out of the way, it is time for further expansion of the Totem ecosystem. 

The next upcoming milestone is the AXIS application. When the third quarter kicks in, we will see more action on metaverse integrations, play-to-earn developments, and NFT commerce expansions. 

Our Investment Thesis

GravityX Capital is always on the lookout to support projects with the potential to disrupt emerging market sectors. We believe metaverse and NFTs will be one the main drivers of the web 3.0 movement. Keeping that in mind, we have confidence that Totem has a sound ecosystem to aid in creating new tools and communities that promote mainstream adoption by extending the functionality beyond the crypto landscape. 

Considering Totem is built on Polygon, users will have a great experience interacting with the platform and exploring an interoperable metaverse with fewer entry barriers. On top of that, they also enhanced their NFT functionality by integrating the OS with Vera’s NFT DeFi platform. This opens up many new opportunities for users, such as NFT rentals and mortgages. 

NFTs and metaverses will play a huge role in decentralizing the web. In addition, they serve as the foundation for driving more adoption outside the crypto-verse. So a project like a Totem will create significant market demand as everyone starts looking for web 3 tools and communities

Though the project is still in its infancy, we see many promising things for a purpose-first platform. 

If you want to deep-dive and explore more about Totem, you can follow their website and read the White Paper

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