Miami’s Wynwood gets its own interactive metaverse, soon to have AI-powered pets

MIAMI – Wynwood, a haven for beloved local artists like Atomiko and CP1 and one of Miami’s most popular neighborhoods, is taking a step into the future with a new metaverse.

Gianfranco Lopane is the man behind the scenes. He is the president of Habytat by SmarterVerse, a subsidiary of DatChat Inc. that developed the social metaverse platform.

“Miami is the innovation, artistic, and multicultural center of the United States, so it’s perfect to start the metaverse in Miami,” Lopane said.

Lopane’s vision is to allow anyone who has access to the Internet to be able to explore Wynwood’s world-famous graffiti and more.

“We want to be the metaverse for the masses,” Lopane said.

To accomplish that goal, Lopane has Geniuz City, which uses artificial intelligence to allow users with the Habytat mobile app to populate the space.

“You will see Wynwood is colorful, there’s art,” Lopane said. “It’s just perfect!”

After downloading the app, Habytat users need to start an account and create and customize an avatar to be able to explore a metaverse with a real estate inventory that is managed with Non-Fungible Token deeds, or NFTs to establish ownership.

Lopane said users are getting free real estate now.

“We want to make the metaverse for the people,” Lopane said. “That’s why we created Habytat. It’s to define what the metaverse is, put it on the phone, easy to get, and you can just interact with people.”

This is what Lopane said is the future of interactivity in both personal and professional environments. He doesn’t think it’s a replacement of the physical world, but an enhancement.

“At the end of the day, the metaverse is the next phase of social media, so we want Miami to be the center of the metaverse all over the world,” Lopane said.

After the phase one launch, Lopane said phase two will debut sometime in the next two to three months to give users the opportunity to take care of AI-powered pets, a bit like the Tamagotchi digital pets created in the 90s in Japan.

Lopane said users will also eventually be able to use virtual reality to explore other fun areas in Miami.

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