Metaverse Digital Real Estate Is Selling For Eye-Popping Amounts – One Virtual Property Sells For $2.4 Million
Not only are real estate properties selling for astounding prices in the real world, but virtual properties are selling for millions of dollars in the digital world. An investor made the largest “land” grab ever in the metaverse – spending a whopping $2.4 million for a digital property.
What Is The Metaverse?
According to Investopedia, the metaverse is “a digital reality that combines aspects of social media, online gaming, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and cryptocurrencies to allow users to interact virtually.”
“As the metaverse grows, it will create online spaces where user interactions are more multidimensional than current technology supports,” the site states. “Instead of just viewing digital content, users in the metaverse will be able to immerse themselves in a space where the digital and physical worlds converge.”
The most publicized version of the metaverse is Facebook’s upcoming digital world that will create a new online realm that utilizes virtual and augmented technologies. Facebook is so sold on the virtual world idea that it changed the name of its parent company to “Meta.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social network’s metaverse is “going to be a big focus, and I think that this is just going to be a big part of the next chapter for the way that the internet evolves after the mobile internet. And I think it’s going to be the next big chapter for our company too, really doubling down in this area.”
“In the metaverse, you’ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine—get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create—as well as completely new experiences that don’t really fit how we think about computers or phones today…In this future, you will be able to teleport instantly as a hologram to be at the office without a commute, at a concert with friends, or in your parents’ living room to catch up,” Zuckerberg wrote in his 2021 Founder’s Letter in late October.
A Record Metaverse Land Buy
On Tuesday, the largest metaverse land acquisition ever recorded went down. Metaverse Group – a subsidiary of blockchain investor Tokens.com – purchased digital land in a metaverse called “Decentraland.” The investor spent 618,000 mana that was worth about $2.43 million at the time of the purchase. Virtual home not included. Mana is an ethereum token that powers the Decentraland virtual reality platform.
The $2.43 million virtual property is 6,090 square feet of digital land. The average price for actual property in the real world is $123-per-square-foot in the United States, according to Realtor.com. The virtual property in the metaverse went for a whopping $399-per-sq-ft.
The “land” purchased is located in Decentraland’s area called the “Fashion Street district.”
Tokens.com said it will use the virtual area to host fashion shows
“Fashion is the next massive area for growth in the metaverse, “said Decentraland head of content Sam Hamilton in the press release. “So it’s timely, and very exciting, that [we’ve] made such a decisive commitment in the heart of Decentraland’s fashion precinct.”
Tokens.com CEO Andrew Kiguel added, “We are happy to make history by closing the largest public metaverse land acquisition to date. These assets will complement the existing portfolio of metaverse real estate already held at Metaverse Group.”
More High-Priced Virtual Real Estate Purchases
A digital property on Axie Infinity – a play-to-earn gaming platform – sold for 550 ether equal to an eye-popping $2.3 million on Thursday, according to Business Insider.
Republic Realm – a digital real estate investment firm – purchased a non-fungible token (NFT) representing a plot of “land” in Decentraland for $913,228 in June. Republic Realm owns approximately 2,500 lots of virtual land across 19 worlds, according to the Wall Street Journal.
A virtual mega yacht named “The Metaflower” was bought for 149 ether or about $650,000.
The first virtual land purchase reportedly happened in February, when eight lots of land on Axie Infinity were sold for 888 ETH or $1.5 million.
Cryptocurrency asset management firm Grayscale says the virtual real estate market is still in its “early innings,” and touts it could be worth more than $1 trillion in annual revenue.
“The market opportunity for bringing the Metaverse to life may be worth over $1 trillion in annual revenue and may compete with Web 2.0 companies worth ~$15 trillion in market value today,” Grayscale noted.
[Photo by Andre Furtado from Pexels]