At a glance
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Network | Ethereum, Polygon |
| Opened | 2018 |
| Access | Web Browser, Basic VR |
| Hardware Compatibility | Desktop, Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive |
| Currency | ETH but expecting a new native token to launch ~ 2022 |
| Land | 70,000 parcels, of which 8,553 have been minted so far. Primary sales every week on Tuesday and Thursday morning (NZST) |
| Land Developed | <20% |
| Active Creators | untitled, xyz; Yultek |
Introduction
Voxels is a virtual world built on the Ethereum blockchain network. The world consists mostly of parcels that are owned by individuals. There is also a city, known as Origin City, which is owned by a governing entity – The Corporation. Landowners can build on their parcel via a native builder tool that allows users to add and remove blocks in the form of voxels. Features can also be added to parcels in order to create lights, music, buttons, videos, NFTs, and much more. Additionally, owners have the ability to designate their parcels as ‘sandbox’ parcels, which makes the space free for anyone to build on as they so choose. This is a unique feature among virtual worlds that highlights the community-centric focus of Voxels.
Land
Land parcels within Voxels come in a variety of sizes that represent area and height limits. Voxels offers primary land sales every week on Tuesday and Thursday morning (New Zealand Standard Time) through their website. Secondary sales are offered on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea and Parcel. The Voxels land cap is 70,000 parcels; 8,553 parcels have been minted to date.
For perspective on historical land prices and transaction volume, the following graph shows the average transaction price ($USD) per parcel vs. the number of units sold per month from Jan 2021 – Apr 2022.
Currency
Ethereum is currently used as the on-platform currency within Voxels. Originally, Voxels had its own native currency in the form of an ERC-20 token that was called $COLR. This token was used to add color to blocks. However, when color became free to use, the token ultimately became inactive in June 2020. A new native token is expected to launch sometime in 2022.
Avatars & wearables
Like other metaverse worlds, users may customize their avatars with wearables. Owning an avatar is essentially like registering a username or account on a website; avatars effectively take the form of unique, non-duplicable NFTs which can be owned, bought, and sold.
It’s worth noting that just as users don’t need to own land in order to interact and engage with the Voxels universe, neither do users need to own a registered avatar – they can log in as a guest simply by clicking a link to start exploring. Moreover, users can have an unlimited number of avatars per email/digital wallet
Popular parcels
There are over 9,000 registered Voxels users. Some of the most popular parcels include:
Behind the scenes
Voxels was developed by Nolan Consulting Limited, an independent game developer based in Wellington, New Zealand starting around its founding date in April 2018. The team, which has worked on other VR applications like SceneVR and AFrameVR, is headed by Ben Nolan.
Voxels was first released as Cryptovoxels via a discreet beta key in May 2018. Initial land sales were made to the development team’s advisors and friends in June 2018, and subsequently to early adopters via OpenSea.
In May 2022, Cryptovoxels officially rebranded to Voxels. According to the Voxels team, the move was designed to broaden its user base from those familiar with cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to a more mainstream audience.
