Ethereum-based AR metaverse ecosystem adopts Polygon to address scaling

Ethereum (ETH) started the nonfungible token (NFT) craze, but it turns out minting and trading NFTs while adopting the concept for larger projects or integrating it into metaverse and other ecosystems might not be feasible given the high gas fees, especially when there are several viable alternatives.

OVR, a decentralized augmented reality (AR) project that relies on NFTs, has recently decided to move from Ethereum to Polygon (MATIC) – a layer-2 chain that ensures greater scalability and flexibility.

Decentralized AR experience 

OVR started as an Ethereum-based open-source AR platform that lets users with a mobile device or smart glasses interact with the real world through AR experiences. The platform has recently integrated the metaverse concept as it plans to build a community-owned version of the 3D virtual world to be an alternative to Meta, formerly known as Facebook, which is imposing its own take.

OVR is proposing a new standard in AR experiences by placing itself as the first content browser where users don’t choose the contents, but the world submits the possible experiences based on their geographical location.

With OVR, users can conveniently create 3D content in the metaverse, possess the space where the content is hosted in the form of NFTs, and place it in any location worldwide. For this, OVR is building a global nation represented by an open AR metaverse powered by Web 3.0.

Thanks to the recent partnership with Threedium, an award-winning 3D and AR platform, users can build and request amazing 3D objects in OVR’s metaverse.

The OVR’s layer that is mapped one-to-one to the physical world, which went live one year after the project launch, has already sold over 750,000 units called OVRLands. There are over 25,270 OVRLand owners as of today, suggesting that the project is growing really fast and has managed to reach half the size of Sandbox, one of the most popular metaverse projects.

The AR ecosystem is fueled by two kinds of tokens:

• OVRLand, which are NFTs representing the parcels of land mapped on the physical world.
• OVRToken – it is a fungible token that lets users get access to a variety of operations inside the ecosystem, such as buying OVRLand, participating in the governance process, staking for nodes and liquidity mining, buying products on the OVR marketplace, and so on.

Advantages of Polygon

OVR has experienced massive growth during the last months, as more and more AR and metaverse enthusiasts are recognizing the great value this ecosystem provides. To address the increasing demand and activity, the platform decided to solve scaling by moving to Polygon, a process that starts in January.

The team behind the OVR project has analyzed multiple options until validating the move to Polygon, formerly known as Matic. The choice to integrate with this Layer-2 chain was based on several factors, including:

• Transaction costs
• Decentralization trade-offs and project vision
• Current adoption
• Vicinity with the Ethereum ecosystem and EVM compatibility

OVRToken holders can use the official Polygon Bridge to move their ERC-20 tokens from Ethereum to Polygon and vice versa. The OVR UX will not change after this move. For the primary market, users will be able to buy on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Polygon with OVR tokens.

Polygon connects blockchains and decentralized applications (DApps) to Ethereum via sidechains. When using Ethereum via the Polygon layer, the transactions are settled immediately, while the gas fees are close to nothing.

OVR’s decision to move to Polygon is expected to accelerate the expansion of its metaverse network, which is already growing at a fast pace.