Enabling Lifestyle
Trace Network Labs enables people to have real looking meta twins (digital avatars) and lifestyle for them in metaverses powered by NFTs and digital fashion. Co-founder Sunil Arora speaks to Fibre2Fashion about fashion in metaverse and its future.
The metaverse and NFT industry is quite new. Tell us about the market size of this industry.
A non-interchangeable and unique/specialised unit of data is called a non-fungible token (NFT). With extreme easiness and high individuality, this digital asset is based on the blockchain technology. Blockchains such as Ethereum, Flow, Matic, and Wax are used to build the NFTs. Along with its high applicability for digital transaction, NFT is also crucially available for physical asset. NFT offers exclusive ownership within the digital and physical market space.
The NFT (non-fungible token) market surpassed $40 billion in 2021, rising sharply from a mere $350 million in 2020. In 2022, it is expected to grow to a few hundred-billion-dollar market, and further grow to a few trillion-dollar market by 2025. Percentage-wise, the global NFT market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 185.0 per cent from 2021 to 2026. This is a very massive growth which has not happened earlier in other technologies. It is because people are showing a lot of interest.
The metaverse is actually quite an old concept. It is a “parallel digital universe” where one can create his/her digital avatar and work, travel, learn, play, and party! The best way to understand the metaverse is by watching these movies — Ready Player One, Avatar, and Wreck-it Ralph.
What are the product offerings of Trace Network Labs?
We currently have three products: BUDDY, BLING and MetaBOX.
BUDDY is an exclusive and personal digital identity as a realistic-looking avatar for the users of metaverse. TNL (Trace Network Labs) offers users to create a metaverse agnostic, real looking avatar minted on blockchain, that will have the unique ability to move from one metaverse to the other — akin to a passport for virtual worlds.
BLING is a limited-edition global marketplace for rare and exclusive NFTs of wearable luxury and lifestyle products and accessories. TNL helps luxury and lifestyle brands create, market and distribute exclusive NFTs to a global audience. Trace aims to be the de facto gateway for lifestyle brands, businesses, projects and consumers to the metaverse.
MetaBox enables users to create, customise and co-own luxurious and immersive real estate in the metaverse. We can plan Virtual Showrooms, Fashion Shows, Fairs & Exhibitions, Interiors & Real Estate options. People will be able to communicate, collaborate and hangout with their private social network. Users will be able to personalise their private spaces with ultra-luxury interior collections to reflect upon their style statement.
What is the current and future roadmap for offering your products?
In the first quarter of 2022, we are launching BUDDY, BUDDY Animations, Meta scenes, and BLING NFT marketplace. BUDDY will let you create personalised real looking avatars and own them as NFTs, while BUDDY Animations will let you animate your avatars to roam around, handshake, dance into metaverses. With Meta scenes, users will be able to engage and position their avatars into various real and metaverse inspired scenes to take selfies and share on social media. The BLING will be a NFT marketplace for global luxury brands and creator economy. On this, users will be able to buy luxury lifestyle products.
In the second quarter of 2022, BUDDY will be integrated into various metaverses (games, events, etc). We will also launch MetaBOX, which will allow metaverse residents to set up their personalised space, which can be used for various social collaboration, virtual meetings or setting up of virtual stores.
Subsequently, in the third quarter, we plan to offer regenerative code-based designs for fashion and lifestyle products. With this, smart contract-based fabric and accessories designs and textures enabled lifestyle brands will be able to bring universally unique fashion culture to the metaverse population.
Is metaverse in any way different from digital/virtual fashion?
Metaverse is a bigger world than just the digital fashion side of it. In other words, digital fashion is really a part of metaverse. But it is also out of metaverse, as something digital is not related to NFT. It starts with 3D, which is the starting point for the virtual world of metaverse.
Has the COVID-19 pandemic given boost to the metaverse industry? Why?
Yes, absolutely. COVID-19 has given a major boost to the metaverse industry because, generally speaking, the digital aspect of people’s lives increased in a very big way during the pandemic. Even people’s normal daily routine of going to office and interacting with others in a physical environment started to happen in a digital atmosphere. As everything started happening in virtual mode, it resulted in acceptance of technology. So, the concept which was earlier evolving very slowly, gained greater acceptance and became a kind of normal. It has helped in maintaining continuity of several businesses during the pandemic, which would otherwise have been difficult.
What is the inspiration behind building BUDDY? What is the long-term benefit that a user can derive from this product?
The current state of metaverse is the biggest reason and inspiration for BUDDY. The current metaverses allow people to create digital identity a.k.a. avatars with a standard face and body, which does not have a realistic look, i.e., you cannot identify them with their face. Secondly, to explore any new metaverse you have to create a new avatar, as you cannot carry the avatar made in the previous metaverse there.
BUDDY will enable people to create and own their real looking avatar NFTs, which can be taken into multiple metaverses across different blockchains. Basically, you can recognise other friends in the metaverse if you know them personally. Since your BUDDY will have real looking faces, one can recognise you and thus it would enable real social identity. Secondly, our platform generated avatars (BUDDY) will be focused on establishing identity layer for metaverses, which means you can use it to login into any metaverse without revealing your private details like email id, etc… Like what google did with Web2.0 apps, we are trying to enable that for metaverses.
How are the Trace Network products going to change the way people are experiencing metaverses?
Since we all are living our lives online, metaverse is like a new version of social media which will enable us to establish a digital human civilisation, where we can roam around a city/mall and move from one destination to another for attending various social or formal collaborations. However, the current state of metaverses does not allow people to carry their digital identity, i.e., their avatar NFTs or any asset NFTs to come from outside, which makes them a closed economy. So, currently everyone has to create a new avatar and buy new branded clothes for their avatar to explore any new metaverse. Trace Network Labs is working on these problems.
Trace Network avatars (BUDDY) will comply with these metaverse standards, which shall let people create and carry their digital identity across different metaverses and eventually this shall act as an identity layer for people to access any metaverse in future.
Similarly, the limited-edition wearable fashion NFTs on BLING NFT marketplace offered by global brands can be worn on your avatars to make you carry your style statement in the digital world, and that too can be used in any metaverse. This shall give people bigger space to explore and to trade their asset NFTs.
Interestingly, we are aware that this evolution of metaverses is a journey which started long back, and we are still scratching the surface. MetaBOX is our attempt at creating an ecosystem that will allow individuals to create their own exclusive virtual space, accessorise it with lifestyle products bought from BLING NFT marketplace, collaborate with other metaverse populations, and roam to reflect their real lifestyle. Imagine you have a private studio created which you can use for personal activities or can be rented to a youtuber or influencer.
Is metaverse just a hype or is it going to disrupt the fashion industry forever?
Metaverse is already disrupting the fashion industry in a big way since 2020, though it has been evolving for a few years now. Many of the top 500 fashion companies, which are into luxury, have already gone this way. Even retail companies are also jumping into the metaverse with Zara, Gap, Nike, Adidas and Under Armour already in it. Gucci, Balance Yoga, LVMH, and all other luxury brands are coming out with their fashion collections for the metaverse, disrupting the industry in a big way. However, the metaverse story is still evolving, and it would become more interactive going forward, and it is going to stay for a good number of years.
Please give few reasons as to why people should invest in metaverse?
People should invest in metaverse because it is slowly becoming the new normal. The digital acceptability is increasing, and it is almost becoming a second life. So, once you feel that probably 50 per cent of your life is about being online, being virtual, being digital, then in order to accelerate in it and to continue doing business in it, and to generally carry on your lives in it, you need to get onto that. In addition, metaverse also offers several sustainability and environment protection options, which are added advantages.
How has been the journey of TNL since its inception?
The journey has been very good. Though we started during the pandemic when we could not travel much, we have opened offices in five different countries. We have offices in India, Dubai (UAE), Vietnam, Paris (France) and New York (US). While the offices in Paris and New York are yet to become functional as people are still working from home, the other three are fully functional.
We opted the name Trace Network since we wanted to venture into the tracing aspect of sustainability. But once we started working on the technology aspect, we saw that digital fashion was gaining a lot of traction. So, we changed our priorities and now our focus is on digital fashion. Traceability is still there on page 2. At present, virtual fashion is making a lot of waves globally. We are already doing a lot of business and are attached with more than 2,530 brands who are utilising our services. The sourcing companies are utilising our services as they wish to become digital collection partners to their brands and retailers in the western world. There are more than 200 brands on one side, who are dealing with almost 1,000 manufacturers on the other side. So, look at the kind of size that we bring it to and look at the kind of value that we want to provide. We are open to all the right kind of brands.
How are your product offerings different from other similar ones in the market?
All the competitors are providing pieces of various things. TNL gives a complete ecosystem, which is the biggest differentiator. We are not giving just 3D or a NFT marketplace or a metaverse, but a complete cross chain atmosphere which includes switching from one game to another while taking your avatars along. Secondly, going forward, we will be in a position to integrate with all platforms as our architecture will give a passage to all of them. You will be able to make your own avatar, and take your goods and variables from fashion brands, and you can even take vehicles and garments from TNL and move in social media at any game, event or a meeting. In short, the word ‘any’ is our biggest differentiator.
Does metaverse offer any benefits to apparel and fashion companies? Can these companies do without metaverse in the future?
Yes, metaverse offers major benefits to the apparel and fashion companies. Through the concepts of digital fashion, metaverse, and virtual avatars, these companies are in a position to offer more sustainable and less polluting options, that too with a very low investment. Fashion companies will need metaverse as the future is going to be even more digital, with next level of digital interactions only a few years away.
Do you foresee more and more companies getting into the metaverse space? Any reason behind it?
Metaverse is becoming a de facto second life. As things are becoming more and more digital, they are going to become much more lifelike soon. Fashion companies do not wish to lose the possibility of having the consumers from blockchain community, the GenZ and Gen-Alpha who are more into gaming and other such virtual worlds. So, by getting on to the metaverse, the fashion companies are attracting young consumers who are only online and earning in crypto. All the top technology and fashion companies are already in the metaverse space or are planning to join.
How do your products help the apparel and fashion companies?
We help them to get a separate stream of income. In a few years’ time, this stream will start giving competition to physical businesses in a very big way.
Where are you headquartered? Which countries/regions do you cater to?
We started from India. Through our offices in five countries right now, we are selling globally, and we are already touching almost 30 countries.
These days, we are hearing may new words like 3D, gaming, augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, virtual showrooms, virtual fashion shows, etc. Are all these interconnected? Which of these are going to last and which are going to fade over time?
These are all different concepts and technologies. Some of them are very well connected and they are all playing a very big and important role in the metaverse and digital fashion concepts. Virtual gaming has become a $50 billion earning industry in 2021, and more and more action companies are attaching to gaming companies. Also, people have avatars in gaming, and these avatars can wear all kinds of clothes from these companies. The clothes can be tried out using augmented reality, virtual reality, or mixed reality. They can put their buyers through virtual showrooms and invite them to virtual fashion shows. The concept is mainly that the buyers can come on to the virtual showroom of any manufacturer or a sourcing company, which can be designed in the way you want. You can show all your products as 3D objects, and buyers can come and try those clothes on their avatars. There itself, you have the possibility of doing a Zoom call and speak to the manufacturer and have a genuine merchandising/designing collaboration. A genuine business collaboration can be done through these virtual shows, where anybody can walk through.
Please provide a short introduction about Trace Network Labs and the team behind the project?
Trace Network Labs is enabling real looking meta twins (digital avatars) and lifestyle for them in metaverses powered by NFTs and digital fashion. Trace Network Lab’s vision is to be a de facto gateway for lifestyle brands to launch a new set of limited-edition lifestyle and fashion products made for our real looking digital avatars to move across multiple chains and metaverses.
We (Lokesh Rao, CEO and Co-Founder, and Sunil Arora, also a Co-Founder of Trace Network Labs) have been working for over 12 years in the enterprise technology space helping global fashion companies to acquire and implement technology. We wanted people to look good in the metaverse, and with simple vision started Trace Network Labs. Rest, we have an experienced team in blockchain who are helping to create the perfect marriage of the fashion world for metaverse with blockchain via NFTs.
