Apple's Vision Pro is about to go on sale, a list of VR/AR encryption projects worth watching?

Original author: Deep Tide TechFlow

Apple Vision Pro, it’s really coming.

According to Apple’s official website, the Vision Pro will be available in all Apple offline and online stores in the United States on February 2, and pre-orders will start on the 19th.

The product Vision Pro is an AR and VR fusion device, users can not only play games, watch movies, work, and experience VR functions in full immersion, but also use the sensors on the surface of the headset to project people and objects from the outside world into the virtual world to achieve AR functions.

As a leader in the technology circle, Apple’s product updates often have varying degrees of impact on manufacturers in the ecosystem, stock prices in the Capital Market and even the daily behavior of consumers, and can also be regarded as a vane of technological development.

And the crypto market, which is good at using narrative, will naturally be affected by this AR/VR trend.

With less than a month to go before the official launch of the product, it is time to start paying attention to projects related to the AR/VR concept, following the rhythm of the hype in advance of crypto projects.

Here’s how AR/VR relates to crypto projects, as well as an inventory of noteworthy projects.

Why might Vision Pro be a narrative catalyst?

Theoretically, the hardware devices made by Apple cannot be directly related to most encryption projects in the short term.

Indeed, crypto projects can neither participate in the industrial chain of Vision Pro hardware manufacturing and R&D, nor do they have the energy and strength to launch supporting software simultaneously when the hardware is launched, and there is indeed a lack of solid correlation in the fundamentals.

But in a narrative-driven market atmosphere, it’s not about moving in the same direction, it’s just about moving in the same direction.

If you do AR/VR, I happen to be related to this concept; if you have other collaborations with Apple, it’s easier to attract the attention of funds.

You may think this is a bit far-fetched, but you might as well take history as a guide.

On June 5 last year, Apple held the WWDC developer conference, at which it announced several software and hardware updates such as the Apple Vision Pro, the new Macbook Air, and IOS 17.

Before the conference, the news of “VR equipment will be made public” has long been warmed up, and major media have rushed to report it a week or even a month before the conference.

Since good VR/AR effects require a lot of computing power for calculation and rendering, RNDR, which is directly related to distributed rendering, has ushered in a highlight moment.

Judging from CMC’s data, from May 12 last year to the end of Apple’s press conference, the Token price of RNDR has pulled from about 1.7 to 2.7, a typical logic of “ambush before narrative, sell after cashing”.

History doesn’t simply repeat itself, but at least it always rhymes with the same rhyme.

If last May was the expected release of the device, then when the time came to the present, the BitcoinSpot ETF passed, Bull Market the anticipation has not completely dissipated, plus the official release of the Vision Pro …

Tokens associated with the project may usher in another wave of short-term hype.

So, which projects are most likely to benefit from Apple and the AR/VR concept? We’ll take stock of the projects that might benefit by one or more of the following reasons:

• Have direct cooperation with Apple projects, business counterparts;
• Expected to be able to provide AR/VR content such as games (Metaverse), video, and other media;
• It is expected to be able to provide AR/VR related hardware, industry chain and ecological help;
• Weakly related to Apple, such as the app store, the integration of Apple Pay, etc.

Render Network($RNDR): An old friend of the rendering profession

The Render Network behind the RNDR mentioned above is naturally the first project to be highlighted.

In fact, as early as 2 years ago, we made a video to introduce Render Network, when RNDR was far less familiar than it is today, and the Token was at a very low price.

Although the value of RDNR has long been discovered, the main business of the project has basically not changed:

In the face of massive image rendering needs around the world, organizations and companies, through Blockchain and Smart Contract, match the demand side of rendering and the holders of idle graphics cards around the world, so that idle graphics cards can undertake image rendering tasks and complete rendering work through the sharing economy.

That is, our old-fashioned concept of “Decentralization Graphics Card Rendering”.

It naturally matches the AR/VR rendering needs of Apple’s Vision Pro, which was hyped by the press conference in May last year, and is now also worth paying attention to, and it is also the most relevant project under the narrative.

In addition, Apple can actually be counted as a customer of Render Network, which provides a distributed GPU network service to support Apple’s AR content creation, which is also a FoMo point, and Render Network’s Octane X rendering app is also available on the Apple Store.

Another piece of trivia is that OTOY, the parent company behind Render, is in the same state of California as Apple.

The same location of the technology circle, professional counterpart rendering business, business partnerships… The correlation of RNDR is indeed very full. However, considering RNDR Token current Market Cap of $1.5 billion, and the relatively stable price Token the last month, it is more important to treat it as a beta gain.

CEEK VR($CEEK): A VR streaming platform with content and hardware

Founded in 2015, CEEK VR is a streaming platform based on Ethereum and BNB Chain.

The project focuses primarily on content creation for artists, with content creators able to upload their work through CEEK VR, connect with fans around the world through Blockchain-based copyright protection and control, and fans can collect and watch artists’ content on demand for a CEEK Token.

At the same time, there is no shortage of top stars like Lady Gaga on the platform, gaining more market attention under the demonstration effect of the top stream.

It’s worth mentioning that CEEK itself is involved in the sale of VR headsets. Users can order relevant devices on their official website to watch the content on their platform, which has a bit of a combination of software and hardware.

The project itself was launched on Ethereum and integrated BNB Chain in 2022; at the same time, CEEK itself has also cooperated with Deutsche Telekom, Apple and Universal Music and other streaming services, and has a high degree of fit with AR/VR narratives in terms of equipment and business.

In terms of Token performance, the price of CEEK has barely changed in the last month, and the Market Cap has stayed at around 45 million. Compared with RDNR to provide infrastructure capabilities, CEEK is more consumer-oriented and can be used as an application product.

In crypto projects, infrastructure projects tend to be valued higher than applications, but given that CEEK only has one-third of the Market Cap of RNDR and is directly related to the VR narrative, it is still worth watching in this round of Vision Pro narrative.

OVER($OVR): AR + maps of the real world

OVR is an AR and virtual reality (VR) platform built on EthereumBlockchain that blends the physical and virtual worlds.

The platform allows creators and brands to come together to build the next generation of the internet, augmenting physical spaces with AR technology for activities such as gaming, socializing, and commerce.

OVR leverages community-driven 3D mapping technology to provide users and builders with the opportunity to own AR Metaverse real estate and explore new frontiers in Web3. Specifically, OVR offers an innovative 3D geolocation mapping framework called “ma p2e arn” where users can create 3D maps of physical locations (OVRMaps) by taking photos with ordinary smartphones, each of which will be owned by its creator and represented in the form of Non-fungible Tokens.

Users can carry out a variety of activities on the map, such as marketing and gatherings, which are similar to the land in various Metaverse projects.

At the same time, the project’s platform is easy to use, allowing users to publish AR content simply and intuitively. For developers looking to build more interactive AR experiences, the OVER Unity SDK makes it easy for them to take advantage of all Unity Engine features and build dynamic experiences.

In addition, OVR supports real-time AR capabilities, AI avatars, motion capture interactions, and hyper-realistic Non-fungible Token assets; the project also offers gaming experiences like “OVR Treasure Hunt”, similar to the popular AR game “Pokemon Go”.

It is worth mentioning that the OVR Token seems to have started the hype, with an increase of nearly 80% in the last 7 days, but the Market Cap is only around 10 million. From the public information, it can be seen that the amount of Tokens currently circulating in the market is less than 1/4 of the total number of Tokens, so there is still a large dilution pressure in the long run;

However, if you focus on short-term AR-related narratives, considering that its Market Cap is less than a fraction of that of RNDR, OVR is a relatively Degen choice.

Somnium Space CUBEs($CUBE): Virtual worlds supported by mainstream VR devices

Somnium Space is an Open Source platform that allows users to purchase digital land, houses, buildings, and numerous in-game assets. It offers an immersive VR experience where players can build, program, and monetize environments while exploring the creations of other participants.

Unlike traditional multiplayer VR games, Somnium Space hosts all players in an expansive VR universe where users can create fully programmability, customizable, independent VR experience environments.

Just looking at the land plots on the official website, it is easy to feel that this is not much different from the general Metaverse project.

But the project actually sells VR headsets, which can display all kinds of content on the plot in VR with the software provided by the project.

It is worth mentioning that Somnium Space’s own hardware specifications and prices are relatively high, and it also supports 3D printing, as well as other mainstream VR devices such as Oculus VR and VIVE.

In terms of software, the client-side of the project has also landed on Steam at the same time, which has not only expanded the audience, but also entered the field of vision of mainstream players.

In contrast to the relatively abundant fundamentals, the price of Token CUBE has not changed much in either the last month or the past year, and with Apple’s short-term narrative, the 10 million Market Cap similar to OVR may also have the potential for a sharp Fluctuation.

Other games worth paying attention to

The above projects are basically strongly related to AR/VR hardware, but there are some other projects that are more of a game or Metaverse origin, and there are signs of stepping into VR games with the blessing of technology, or may be related to Apple’s concept, but the correlation may not be strong.

However, due to space limitations, we will briefly list the Token by Market Cap and explain the possible reasons:

$APE: Yuga Labs, the parent company behind it, is thunderous in circles, but one piece of information that is easy to overlook is that the company has partnered with a technology company called Improbable to develop the Metaverse game Otherside. And the technology company adjusted its strategic business in 2022 to AR/VR and Metaverse gaming.

$VR: The Token name is VR, but the actual full name is Victoria VR, which is a VR-based MMORPG game developed using Unreal Engine. The game will be available in Early Bird Early Access in April of this year, but VR demos of certain game scenes will be available in January, coinciding with the narrative time of this article.

$REVO: Revomon, a monster battle game for VR and mobile devices, similar to Pokemon Go. Recently, the staking volume of its Token REVO has reached an all-time high, and Token of the total 15% of the total supply has been staked, which may also be a catalyst for its price change.

In addition, the Metaverse game concept itself is easily related to AR/VR, and there are many projects, and the above are just a few typical projects. Readers interested in this narrative can refer to Coinmarketcap’s list of narratives to further view other tokens;

At the same time, well-known Twitter user @layerggofficial also released a list of related projects on the eve of last year’s Apple developer conference, which also mentioned other projects not covered in this article.

Half a year later, the same narrative is coming, and most of the tokens on this list can actually continue to benefit except for changes in Market Cap.

Finally, as a reminder, VR/VR storytelling is very sensitive to time Nodes, and related low-Market Cap projects may change drastically, please also ask DYOR before participating.