What Is Metaverse Index (MVI)?

The Metaverse Index (MVI) is one of the many products of Index Coop, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) specializing in creating cryptocurrency index tokens. A crypto index token allows traders to acquire wide exposure to the crypto market or a specialized industry segment, making it easier for amateurs to engage in trading. Index Coop offers several fund tokens, each concentrating on a particular business, such as DeFi or the metaverse, where users leverage their investments. The Metaverse Index is a collection of tokens created to capitalize on the trend of entertainment, sports, and business moving to a virtual world through an ERC-20 token, MVI, to represent the index. In simple terms. Metaverse Index aims to be a single investable token for underlying assets. As of today, the Metaverse Index has sixteen assets and aims to keep on increasing.

By definition, the metaverse can be understood as a massively scalable, open, engaging, and real-time platform made up of interconnected virtual worlds where anyone may socialize, work, transact, play, and innovate. Simply, the metaverse is a shared digital space or the future of the internet. Accordingly, the Metaverse Index aims to tokenize this concept with a single token, MVI.

The Metaverse Index fund aims to provide a simple approach to capture a wide market trend based on the metaverse concept without having to research and update a portfolio continually. Thereby, the sixteen tokens that the Metaverse Index captures, including Illuvium, Enjin, Waxe, etc., offset the volatility of the individual tokens that the underlying assets carry. These underlying assets follow a set of rules to determine inclusion and exclusion from the index. As a result, this index fund aims to benefit users from a reduced gas fee compared to trading sixteen tokens individually.

According to the Index Coop platform, the selection of tokens for each index follows specific criteria. The Metaverse Index ropes in tokens that are non-fungible (NFTs), based on the entertainment or music industry or belonging to virtual reality/augmented reality (VR or AR) protocol. Other criteria such as market cap, history and consistency of liquidity position, and security features are also considered, among others. Further, in order to derive the final weights of the tokens for MVI, the index uses a mathematical formula. Typically, a combination of the square root of market cap and liquidity weights is used to determine the final index weight of MVI. Later, as a part of index price maintenance, a rebalancing phase occurs to change the index composition.

History of Metaverse Index (MVI)

MVI is a product of Index Coop, or Index Cooperative. This company is based in the US, founded in 2020. According to the platform, MVI takes insights from Mason Nystrom, an industry expert and senior research analyst at Messari, in addition to the objective methodology to determine the index weights. Index Coop is backed by venture capitalists such as Sequoia Capital, Blockchain Ventures, White Star Capital, and others.

How Are New MVI Tokens Created?

As the MVI token is an index product, there is no issuance or supply schedule and tokenomics. The token represents a basket of sixteen tokens with varied allocation. For instance, 1 unit of MVI can hold 11.7 MANA, 6.2 ENJ, 12.6 SAND, and so on. However, the platform lets users mint MVI tokens using underlying components on Tokensets.

The Tokenset is an asset management platform that utilizes existing DeFi protocols to enable financial infrastructure to everyone. Deployed on the set protocol, the key use case of Tokenset is bundling crypto-assets into collateralized baskets, represented as ERC-20 tokens on the native blockchain. The Tokenset sources underlying components from DEXs to execute the trade and then mint the MVI token. Additionally, for larger sets, the Ethereum network fee varies proportionally.

Further, the platform also offers to issue MVI units if the user already holds underlying tokens in the correct proportions. As a result, this method does not require the user to purchase the token. In order to utilize the Tokenset smart contract, users authorize each token. Notably, this is to permit the issue of user tokens and does not send any tokens. Finally, the network lets users issue new MVI units once approved.