网络与信息安全学报 (Aug 2022)

Application and prospect of blockchain in Metaverse

  • Xiaoling SONG, Yong LIU, Jingnan DONG, Yongfei HUANG

DOI
https://doi.org/10.11959/j.issn.2096-109x.2022045
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 4
pp. 45 – 65

Abstract

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The metaverse is a new ecology that seamlessly integrates the virtual digital world and the real physical world, and has recently attracted widespread attention from all walks of life.With the maturity of various new IT technologies such as blockchain technology, artificial intelligence technology, VR/AR and sensing technology, mobile communication technology and ubiquitous computing technology, the further development of the Metaverse is possible.At present, research on the Metaverse mainly involves industrial projects, infrastructure, key technologies, privacy and security, etc.Although blockchain technology is covered in these studies, the specific points about the advantages of blockchain applied to the Metaverse are still lacked.Blockchain technology can not only provide an open and free decentralized environment for the Metaverse, but also act as a fair and reasonable digital asset distribution mechanism.The digital identity and digital asset management in the Metaverse empowered by blockchain was studied.The development process and characteristics of the Metaverse were analyzed.And the core technologies and challenges faced by the development of the Metaverse were discussed.Meanwhile, the key technologies of the blockchain were studied, and the feasibility of applying the blockchain to the Metaverse was analyzed from two aspects: the essential characteristics of the blockchain and the advantages of other technology integration.The Metaverse ecosystem architecture was further proposed, and the blockchain-based self-sovereign identity management model, blockchain-NFT workflow and its application in the Metaverse were analyzed in detail.Furthermore, combining the latest research progress of blockchain and the Metaverse, it was pointed out that the application of blockchain to the Metaverse will be from four aspects: infrastructure, communication and computing resource management mechanisms, regulation and privacy protection, and blockchain scalability and interoperability.Then the related challenges ahead and future research directions were presented at last.

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