EXCLUSIVE: Kavin Bharti Mittal dives into what Hike’s version of the metaverse is going to look like

• Hike’s whitepaper for going web3 is set to go live next month.
• The process of taking Rush by Hike on-chain will occur over the next three to six months.
• In an exclusive interview with Business Insider, Kavin Bharti Mittal shares details on what the Hike virtual world will look like.

Tech entrepreneur Kavin Bharti Mittal is ready to enter the web3 universe with his app, Rush by Hike, this year.

The founder and CEO of Hike plans to launch the whitepaper for the Rush Gaming Universe next month, which will spell out the details of his vision and the tokenomics of the platform that Mittal and the Hike team have been building for a while now.

The details are still a work in progress and will be revealed over the next three to four weeks.

However, Mittal hinted at non-fungible tokens (NFTs), Hike’s own cryptocurrency and other economic opportunities for players looking for ownership of their digital assets.

Simply put, the Rush Gaming Universe will be a community-led virtual world where users will be able to own what they create and earn from the time they spend online.

A made-in-India wallet

The number of people who have access to the internet in India has surged over the past decade. But, most of these people are accessing the online world through their phones — not through laptops or desktops. Meanwhile, when it comes to web3 and decentralised applications (DApps), they have thus far only been built for access through web browsers — like Chrome and Firefox — or using web extensions.

“The only way for us to go along with everything we’re launching is to explore our own wallet or go work with a partner who has made a lot of progress,” Mittal explained. “We’re very close to making a decision. We’re exploring both opportunities. What we’ll do, we’ll know probably in a week, a week and a half.”

And, where there’s a wallet, they have to be digital assets, whether those are NFTs or fungible cryptocurrency.

Non-fungible tokens in a play-to-earn (P2E) world

To the layman, Hike’s avatars may not look like anything more than digital headshots. However, each avatar is meant to be unique to each user. Just like the underlying philosophy behind a non-fungible token (NFT).

To be fair, avatar NFT projects aren’t new. The Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, CryptoKitties, Meebits, and Cool Cats are some popular examples that saw explosive growth over the past one year. But, the space is far from saturated. Many consider avatars to be one of the most burgeoning subsets within the NFT ecosystem with users looking to create their own unique identities within virtual worlds.

It’s going to take another three to six months to hammer out the details

Rush by Hike has a Telegram community of more than 50,000 subscribers. And, the team behind the gaming platform engages with fans for feedback on the gameplay, avatars, what games they would like to see next and other aspects. “And, the community actually votes, by the way. So they have a large role to play in the roadmap of the platform, which is how the web3 community is actually built,” Mittal revealed.

Earlier this month, the community actually voted for their own moderators — an indicator of self-organisation. “It gives you a sense of what’s possible already. As you bring things on-chain, in say the next three to six months, when you share incentives building the Rush Gaming Universe, then so much more is possible, ”he added, hinting at the possibility of a governance token.

Members of Hike’s team have already been experimenting with RUST for Solana, Solidity for Ethereum and other programming languages. However, there’s no final word on which blockchain Hike will choose to go with at the end of the day.

Moreover, most crypto projects start small on-chain themselves. However, with Hike, Mittal plans to bring what’s already happening off-chain onto the blockchain. “We’re already doing 100 million games a quarter. You can’t put that on a blockchain immediately,” explained Mittal.

In order to build out his web3 vision for the Rush Gaming Universe, Mittal plans to expand the current team by 40% this year from its current strength of 145. “We’re hiring mostly product people, designers and engineers. And, a couple of other positions like chief of staff or chief economist and so on,” he said.

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