What is the Difference Between Web3 and Metaverse

The terms web3 and metaverse have seen a wide usage lately.

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Web3 and Metaverse both talk about the future of the internet. They are quite different.

2018 is the year of 2nd generation blockchains, validators, and interoperability.

What is the difference between first and second generation blockchains? A first generation blockchain is a sequence of blocks on one blockchain, a second generation blockchain is a sequence of blocks many blockchains � that is, a �multichain�.

The roster of 2nd generation blockchains

�         Cosmos

�         Polkadot

What are the promises of these blockchains?

Well the promised future is very interesting. One could buy Bitcoins with Z-cash proofs, execute Ethereum smart contracts from NEO Gas payments. Basically, speeding up innovation by allowing developers to reuse parts of other blockchains for better, stronger, and more complex applications, while maintaining the decentralized power of blockchains.

But both of these use �validators�

With validators, a transaction is not going between blockchains � a validator acts as a centralized go-between for you, informing you when a transaction on a foreign chain occurs so that you can execute a dependent transaction on your native chain safely. Validators are the most critical part of the these blockchains because, if a validator lies, then the entire chain and subsequent transactions are null and void.

In January 2017, work began on a new member of the 2nd generation blockchain roster, only this member has no validators. None.

Updated roster of 2nd generation blockchains

�         Cosmos: validators

�         Polkadot: validators

�         Block Collider: no validators

How can the states of other blockchains be cryptographically proven and transactions made safe without validators?

To understand this we have to expand our perspective. Picture the entire state of all of the latest blocks from every blockchains, all at once. This bird�s eye view would inherently contain every transaction in each block. Now, imagine a theoretical blockchain made of the blocks in all of these chains. If it existed, we wouldn�t need validators; we could simply sync that one chain, which would be a proof of all of the other chains. It would be a new form of 2nd generation blockchains � one which would be faster and cryptographically safer.

Finding the elusive hidden 2nd generation blockchain with Proof of Edit Distance.

The Block Collider does not use proof-of-authority or proof-of-stake but instead proof-of-edit-distance (PoED), which is a new algorithm in the category of edit distances that requires miners to establish the hidden chain by discovering a block hash that is of a certain similarity distance to the blocks of all the other blockchains.

The similarity distance would behave like the difficulty in Bitcoin, progressively getting more difficult as more nodes joined the mining competition, but also forcing miners to get the latest copies of blocks from other blockchains as inputs to the mining challenge itself.

So what are edit distances?

Edit distances help to compare two or more strings with each-other for example the Levenshtein distance of �cat� and �dog� is 3, or with these block hashes:

0x2a65aca4d5fc5b5c859090a6c34d164135398226

0xb36cbe7f95a39984384e6aa4068b02c1697ef80e

= 36

PoED Blocks on the Block Collider

The Block Collider takes block hashes like the above two and looks for a new block has which is below a minimum distances for all block hashes involved. Therefore a correct block hash for the next Block Collider block would look something like:

Threshold (T) = 36, New Hash = NH

ED(BTC Hash, NH) < T & ED(ETH Hash, NH) < T & ED(NEO Hash, NH) < T & �

2018�s 2nd generation blockchains

�         Cosmos

�         Polkadot

�         Block Collider

�         �always more room for ideas!

While the Block Collider could be viewed as a alternative to the Polkadot Network or Cosmos, it has a different primary focus, and there are many other smaller differences which can add up to very different functionality.

Regardless, it is important to encourage explorations into the 2nd generation blockchain space, since even if we end up as competitors, there is a lot of room for each to develop and to grow into its own.