I wanted a space racer

The pretty blue zippy little thing was sitting on my screen, just waiting for me. There was a big ‘Buy’ button right beside it. Ha! I can do that.

And then I fell down the rabbit hole. You can’t use ‘real’ money from a bank account, only the currency prescribed on that website. So, if I wanted my baby space racer, I’d have to get an accepted wallet, put some accepted currency in it, connect the wallet to this specific part of the metaverse, and then hit ‘Buy.’

How badly did I want that shiny blue toy? I am a child of Star Trek and Star Wars. Deep space was staring back at me. I could go there.

Several hours and a glass of wine later, I was the proud owner of a Phantom wallet with Solana cryptocurrency. Could I buy my toy now? Absolutely not.

Now I had to convert the Solana currency to USDC. Seriously? Another hour of research later, I had USDC in my wallet. NOW I could hit ‘Buy.’ Peculiar, though. There was a list of Ask sizes and Buy sizes for the same blue racer. No idea. However, it was late at night, and I figured I was all researched out, so I hit ‘Buy’ anyway.

It failed to process. Huh? It turns out the wallet provider only took their service fee for this transaction in Solana. So, no Solana in the wallet equals no trade. I’d converted all my Solana into USDC. I retraced my steps to the Exchange, bought more Solana, put it in the wallet, reconnected the wallet, and then hit ‘Buy’ again. YES. The transaction was a success.

The sense of achievement was incredible. I was most impressed with myself for overcoming the obstacle race that is the current process for purchasing ‘stuff’ in Web3. The tech-whizz world has work to do before this new process can go mainstream.

It seems I have stumbled across a part of the future because Star Atlas is ‘Metaverse in Progress.’ What we can see of it is gorgeous. This is the official trailer that launched a few months ago.

It is not for ordinary mortals, though. The starting crypto-price for most assets is already in the stratosphere, and it will operate on the Play to Earn model, which means it has an in-game economy. It really will be a universe of its own.

I was looking forward to taking my new blue racer for a spin in the future when it was pointed out that it may get shot down. What! Not happening. I shall be leaving it in the garage and just popping in to have a look at it now and again.

However, I have decided that I want to ‘warp between worlds,’ so now there is a second shiny blue racer in my inventory, waiting for lift-off day.

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