Original author: TechFlow
Apple Vision Pro is really coming.
According to Apple’s official website, Vision Pro will be available in all Apple offline and online stores in the United States on February 2, and pre-orders will begin on the 19th.
This product, Vision Pro, is a device that integrates AR and VR. Users can play games, watch movies, work and experience the functions of VR in a fully immersed way. They can also use the sensors on the surface of the headset to project people and objects in the outside world into the virtual world, thereby realizing AR functions.
As a leader in the technology industry, Apple's product updates often have varying degrees of impact on manufacturers in the ecosystem, stock prices in the capital market, and even consumers' daily behaviors. It can also be seen as a weather vane for technological development.
The crypto market, which is good at using narrative, will naturally be affected by this AR/VR trend.
With less than a month until the product is officially released, according to the pace of early hype for crypto projects, it’s time to start paying attention to projects related to AR/VR concepts.
The following article will explain how AR/VR is related to crypto projects, as well as list the projects worth paying attention to.
Why might Vision Pro be a narrative catalyst?
Theoretically, Apple's hardware devices 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 with the launch of the hardware. There is indeed a lack of solid correlation in fundamentals.
But in a narrative-driven market atmosphere, it doesn’t matter if you are in step with each other, what matters is that you are in the same direction.
You are doing AR/VR, and I happen to be related to this concept; if I also have other collaborations with Apple, it will be easier to attract the attention of funds.
You may think this is a bit far-fetched, but we might as well learn from history.
On June 5 last year, Apple held the WWDC developer conference and announced several software and hardware updates including Apple Vision Pro, new Macbook Air and IOS 17 at the conference.
Before the conference, the news that "VR equipment will be unveiled" had already been hyped up, and major media outlets had been competing to report on it a week or even a month before the conference started.
Since good VR/AR effects require a lot of computing power for calculation and rendering, with this wave of expectations, RNDR, which is directly related to distributed rendering, has ushered in its highlight moment.
According to CMC data, from May 12 last year to the end of the day of Apple's press conference, the price of RNDR tokens rose from around 1.7 to 2.7, which is a typical logic of "ambush before the narrative, sell after cashing out."
History will not simply repeat itself, but at least it always rhymes in the same way.
If last May was the time when the device was expected to be released, then by now, the Bitcoin spot ETF has been approved, the bull market expectations have not completely dissipated, and the Vision Pro has been officially released...
The associated project tokens may usher in another wave of short-term speculation.
So, which projects are most likely to benefit from Apple and AR/VR concepts? We will take stock of the projects that may benefit based on one or more of the following reasons:
Direct cooperation projects with Apple, business counterparts;
Expected to be able to provide AR/VR content such as games (metaverse), videos and other media;
It is expected to provide assistance in AR/VR related hardware, industry chain and ecology;
Weakly related to Apple, such as being available on the App Store and integrating Apple Pay.
Render Network ($RNDR): An old friend of rendering professionals
The Render Network behind RNDR mentioned above is naturally the first project that needs to be emphasized.
In fact, as early as 2 years ago, we made a special video to introduce Render Network. At that time, RNDR was far less well-known than it is today, and the token was at a very low price.
Although RDNR has already been discovered for its value, the main business of its project has basically not changed:
Faced with the massive image rendering demands from organizations and companies around the world, blockchain and smart contracts are used to match rendering demanders with holders of idle graphics cards around the world, allowing idle graphics cards to take on image rendering tasks and complete rendering work through a sharing economy approach.
This is the concept of "decentralized graphics card rendering" that we often talk about.
It naturally matches the AR/VR rendering needs of Apple Vision Pro. It was hyped up at the launch conference last May and is still worthy of attention now. It is also the most relevant project under this narrative.
In addition, Apple can actually be counted as a customer of Render Network, which provides distributed GPU network services to support Apple's AR content creation. This commercial partnership is also a FoMo point; at the same time, Render Network's Octane X rendering application is also available on the Apple Store.
Another little-known fact is that OTOY, the parent company behind Render, is located in California, USA, like Apple.
The same technology circle, professional rendering business, business partnership... RNDR's correlation is indeed very high. However, considering the current market value of RNDR tokens of 1.5 billion US dollars and the relatively stable price of tokens in the past month, it is more necessary to regard it as a Beta benefit.
CEEK VR ($CEEK): VR streaming platform with content and hardware
Founded in 2015, CEEK VR is a streaming platform based on Ethereum and BNB Chain.
The project mainly focuses on the content creation field of artists. Content creators can upload their works through CEEK VR and connect with fans around the world through blockchain-based copyright protection and control; fans can collect and watch artists' content by paying CEEK tokens.
At the same time, there is no shortage of top stars like Lady Gaga on the platform, who gain more market attention under the demonstration effect of top stars.
It is worth mentioning that CEEK itself is also involved in the sales of VR headsets. Users can order related devices on its official website to watch the content on its platform, which gives a sense of hardware and software integration.
The project itself originated on Ethereum and integrated BNB Chain in 2022; at the same time, CEEK itself has cooperation with Deutsche Telekom, Apple, Universal Music and others in streaming business, and has a high degree of fit with AR/VR narrative in terms of equipment and business.
In terms of token performance, the price of CEEK has hardly changed in the past month, and its market value has remained at around 45 million. Compared with RDNR's infrastructure capabilities, CEEK is more consumer-oriented and can be used more as an application product.
Among crypto projects, infrastructure projects are often valued higher than applications; but given that CEEK has only one-third of RNDR’s market value and is directly related to the VR narrative, it is still an object worthy of attention in this round of Vision Pro narrative.
OVER ($OVR): AR + Mapping the Real World
OVR is an AR and Virtual Reality (VR) platform built on the Ethereum blockchain that merges the physical and virtual worlds.
The platform allows creators and brands to come together to build the next generation of the internet, enhancing physical spaces with AR technology for activities such as gaming, socializing, and commerce.
OVR uses community-driven 3D mapping technology to provide users and builders with the opportunity to own real estate in the AR metaverse and explore new areas of Web3. Specifically, OVR provides an innovative 3D geolocation mapping framework called "map2e arn", where users can take photos with ordinary smartphones to create 3D maps (OVRMaps) of physical locations. Each OVRMap will be owned by its creator and represented in the form of NFTs.
Users can carry out various activities on the map, such as marketing and gatherings, which is 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 who want to build more interactive AR experiences, the OVER Unity SDK enables them to easily leverage all Unity Engine features and build dynamic experiences.
In addition, OVR supports real-time AR capabilities, AI avatars, motion capture interactions, and hyper-realistic NFT assets; the project also provides gaming experiences such as “OVR Treasure Hunt,” similar to the popular AR game “Pokemon Go.”
It is worth mentioning that the OVR token seems to have started hype, with a nearly 80% increase in the past 7 days, but the market value is only about 10 million. From public information, it can be seen that the current amount of tokens circulating in the market is less than 1/4 of its total tokens, so there is still great dilution pressure in the long run;
However, if you focus on short-term AR-related narratives, considering that its market value is less than a fraction of RNDR, OVR is a relatively Degen choice.
Somnium Space CUBEs ($CUBE): A virtual world 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 provides an immersive VR experience where players can build, program, and monetize environments while exploring other participants' creations.
Unlike traditional multiplayer VR games, Somnium Space hosts all players in one vast VR universe where users can create fully programmable, customizable, independent VR experience environments.
Just looking at the land plots on the official website, it is easy to think that this is not much different from ordinary metaverse projects.
But the project actually also sells VR headsets. After wearing the device and using the software provided by the project, you can display various content on the land in VR.
It is worth mentioning that Somnium Space’s own hardware specifications and prices are relatively high, and it also supports 3D printing; it also supports other mainstream VR devices, such as Oculus VR and VIVE.
In terms of software, the project's client was also launched on Steam, which not only expanded the audience base but also entered the field of vision of mainstream players.
In contrast to its relatively rich fundamentals, the price of its token CUBE has not changed much in the past month or year; with the support of Apple's short-term narrative, its market value of 10 million, similar to OVR, may also be subject to drastic fluctuations.
Other gaming projects worth noting
The above projects are basically strongly related to AR/VR hardware, but there are some other projects that are more about games or metaverse. With the support of technology, they show signs of entering VR games, or may be related to Apple's concepts, but the correlation may not be strong.
However, due to space limitations, we briefly list the tokens by market value below and explain the possible related reasons:
$APE: The parent company Yuga Labs is well-known in the industry, but one piece of information that is easily overlooked is that the company has cooperated with a technology company called Improbable to develop the metaverse game Otherside. In 2022, this technology company adjusted its strategic business to the fields of AR/VR and metaverse games.
$VR: The token is named VR, but its full name is actually Victoria VR. It is a VR-based MMORPG game developed using the Unreal Engine. The game will be released in early April this year, but VR demos of some game scenes will be released in January, which coincides with the time of this article.
$REVO: Revomon, a monster battle game that supports VR and mobile devices, similar to Pokemon Go. Recently, the stake of its token REVO hit a record high, accounting for 15% of the total supply of tokens locked by stake, which may also be a catalyst for its price change.
In addition, the concept of metaverse games itself is easily related to AR/VR, and there are countless projects. The above are just a few typical projects. Readers interested in this narrative can refer to the narrative list of Coinmarketcap to further view other tokens;
At the same time, the 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 introduced in this article.
Looking back half a year later, the same narrative is coming. Except for the changes in market capitalization, most of the tokens on this list can actually continue to benefit.
Finally, I would like to remind you that VR/VR narrative is very sensitive to time nodes, and related low-market-cap projects may change dramatically. Please DYOR before participating.
