An open metaverse is like a cinema that lets you bring in outside food and drinks into the theatre, instead of making you shop at their snack bar.

If you earn or buy an in-game item in one metaverse, it's yours to take to another.

Which is why this announcement, by Yuga Labs' cofounder, Greg Solano, is exciting.

Old Greg (not that one), just announced that “open standards that anyone may accept and develop on top of” are "coming very soon."

The idea is this: when anyone enters Yuga's 'Otherside' metaverse, they'll be able to come as any character they like and use any NFTs in their wallets, in the Otherside metaverse.

It's great to see a massive company like Yuga Labs pushing towards this sort of vision.

One of the main advantages of an open metaverse versus a Web2 “walled garden” like Fortnite or Roblox is true ownership of objects and characters.

The hope is that this open economy will create an entirely new industry, where creatives design and sell those objects and characters.

There is one awkward part to this story which is that the 'Open Metaverse Alliance' (OMA3) was founded earlier this year with an aim to ensure that the metaverse “remains open and becomes truly user-owned”...

...but Yuga Labs is not officially a part of it.

Maybe, by having multiple organizations competing for the same objectives, it will speed up the process of innovation which would be a win for Web3.

(Or maybe, things will take a turn for the worse and this will become another case of 'we did it first').

Here's hoping for the former