✳️NETVERSE

Metaverse Platform

After successfully building and launching several platforms to facilitate transactions in the philanthropic, non-profit, and for-profit sectors of the Islamic economy, IBF Net has launched Netverse.

Netverse is a halal metaverse. According to Algorand Inc. the technology partner of IBF Net for this venture, Netverse is the world's first metaverse on the Algorand blockchain. It is also the world’s first Shariah-compliant metaverse on any blockchain. Similar to any other metaverse, Netverse is a shared virtual world. It uses both immersive and blockchain technologies.

The use of immersive technology (such as, virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, holography etc.) enables users to “experience and feel” in a three-dimensional environment. In a halal metaverse, users must socially interact with each other in an Islamically acceptable manner. Netverse imposes on its community a set of guidelines of social behaviour, which have been developed in consultation with Amanah Advisors, the UK-based Shariah Advisory partner of IBF Net. It sees certain forms of in-verse behaviour as inconsistent with Islamic etiquette and culture and penalizes such behaviour. Any complaint reported on such unacceptable behaviour is flagged and remedial or deterrent actions follow.

The use of blockchain technology enables users to “own” and exchange value in the form of digital assets. Similar to its physical or digital counterpart, every transaction or financial contracting involving the users inside the Netverse must comply with Islamic legal and ethical norms (in addition to the country-specific financial regulations). Netverse hosts IBFNex, designed as a miniature Islamic economy on the blockchain, comprises several platforms using smart contracts that cater to transactions in the philanthropy, not-for-profit and commercial for-profit sectors of the Islamic economy. The smart contracts used to facilitate such transactions are free from riba (unjust enrichment), excessive gharar (fraud, deception, uncertainty and complexity), qimar (gambling) and other elements prohibited by the Shariah.

Pain points addressed: Ensuring Islamically acceptable behaviour by all residents of Netverse remains a key advantage of this Shariah-based metaverse in addition to promotion of a halal economy that is free from the Shariah-prohibited elements. Netverse is religiously and culturally acceptable to all users including the millennials who constitute the bulk of the community. Indeed, it is a grave societal concern that young minds are exposed to a large amount of content that tacitly or explicitly encourages violence and promiscuity, given the increasing amount of time they tend to spend in a virtual environment. Netverse provides for healthy social interaction including Islamic education with gamification of contents, especially in the fields of economics and finance, in a virtual environment that the users prefer or are familiar with.

Disruptive goals: Netverse has two clear goals: One, it aims to create an open and meta learning place – Netversity - for acquiring and sharing of knowledge anytime, anywhere; and two, it purports to create an open and meta market place – Netbazaar - for buying and selling with far higher levels of information and therefore, significantly higher consumer and investor protection. It would reconfigure and convert the present miniature Islamic economy developed by IBF Net, which is a centralized (closed) community-focused system to an open system with far superior features brought in by metaverse technology. Netverse also demonstrates how metaverse technology can create better markets both in terms of informational and operational efficiency; and how metaverse technology can create more humane systems with far higher levels of investor and consumer protection.

Islami-city: Netverse is designed to be an Islami-city, expanding beyond the Netversity and the Netbazaar, to be developed as the Octagon (Rub-al-Hizb). With the Netversity and the Netbazaar at its center and accessible to all users, Netverse will have corporate offices, shop houses, warehouses, residential plots, and residences among others for both sale and lease.