Biomes Is Readying for Autonomous Worlds Domination

Redstone, an Ethereum Layer 2 centered around autonomous worlds and onchain games, has experienced a recent activity surge, much of which can be explained by the rise of Biomes.

An autonomous world project, Biomes is a fully onchain virtual environment, and its alpha release kicked off in October 2024. The vision? Become the virtual world with the largest GDP, i.e. economic activity. 

Built atop the MUD onchain app framework, Biomes is still early in its development, but it aims to achieve its ambitious economic goals through a trio of fundamental pillars: Digital Matter, Smart Items, and Infinite Expansion.

The basics worth keeping in mind here:

• 🧱 Digital Matter makes up the resources, like wood and beyond, of the Biomes world.
• ⚗️ Smart Items allow in-world objects like chests to function according to customizable smart contracts, paving the way for a wide range of economic use cases.
• 🌌 Infinite Expansion refers to how the world’s growth is open to all—anyone will eventually be able to run nodes to expand and help steer the project. 

Taken altogether, these pillars point to a future where people will be able to lean on the mechanics and asset system of Biomes to run actual virtual businesses.

In other words: making money will be possible in many different ways here.  

The project still has plenty of things to build and touch up before it goes all-out on its planned vampire attack on Minecraft. Expect more announcements and rollouts in 2025 accordingly. 

That said, though you can still get an early taste of the vision by checking out the alpha release at biomes.aw.

Upon signing in, you’ll receive a dedicated wallet you can deposit ETH into to cover your in-world transaction fees. 0.01 ETH is enough to cover 1,000s of transactions, and I recommend opting for the Relay option for fast transfers. After this, you can press the “Play” button to dive in. 

If you do start to explore Biomes, you’ll be prompted to complete a series of initial quests by the Settlers Union, a player-created organization. These quests will help you become acquainted with the world's basic mechanics and earn your first in-world items.

Once you’re done with your initiation events, the name of the game is mining and trading resources and making and protecting new builds. Think Minecraft, right, but with all the wide open possibilities that come with being fully onchain.

To be sure, things are super early around Biomes right now, but it's got serious long-term potential.

Down the road, the project can even tap synergies with other technologies, like AI agents and trusted execution environments (TEEs), to unlock new kinds of interactive onchain social experiences.

As such, this is one metaversal crossroads I'll be watching closely going forward. I say don't sleep on it!