In the Metaverse, people (or avatars) live, work, and play. Think of it as a set of digital kingdoms designed to do the same things you do in your real world but without leaving your room. Each of these worlds is like a virtual 3D city, where there are concerts, soccer games, restaurants and even summer camps. With a fan as large as this, investors are already preparing for a boom from the digital land, they are acquiring properties and plots for shopping malls, hotels, casinos, concert venues and countless other projects.
But real estate investing in the metaverse remains highly speculative, and no one knows yet whether this boom will be the next big bubble.
Capitalize on the digital frontier. Interest in this digital universe skyrocketed when Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be transformed into Meta, an effort to capitalize on the digital frontier. But the global market for goods and services in the metaverse will soon be worth a trillion dollars, according to Grayscale. The money in these digital worlds is cryptocurrencies, as finance in the metaverse is powered by blockchain technology. Anyone entering a virtual world can buy or trade art, music, and even houses with NFT, which are collectibles. The NFT serves as proof of ownership and is not interchangeable. And in recent months, the volume of commercial real estate transactions in the metaverse has exploded.
Real estate speculation. In October, Tokens.com, a company focused on NFT and metaverse real estate, acquired 50% of Metaverse Group, one of the world’s leading virtual real estate companies, for around $ 1.7 million. Metaverse Group has a virtual headquarters in a world called Decentraland in Crypto Valley. Let’s say it’s the Silicon Valley of the metaverse. Well there, Decentraland also has districts for gambling (a kind of Las Vegas), shopping, fashion and art. “We thought: Instead of trying to create a universe like Facebook, why don’t we go in and buy the parcels of land in these metaverses, and then we can become owners?” Explained its CEO.
Since the acquisition, Tokens.com has paved the digital path with a tower in Decentraland. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Burberry and other luxury brands have already entered through NFT, so company executives are optimistic that the Tokens.com tower will soon generate rental and advertising income for brands like these.
For all types of plots and real estate. For those wondering why a company would want to invest in a virtual office in the metaverse, the answer is simple: not everyone in the world can buy Apple stock, but virtually everyone with an Internet connection can buy virtual land. . But of course, there are also many more investors who are pursuing the same assets. And real estate investing has a huge growth opportunity in the metaverse, even with the potential for digital owners to put up billboards on their properties to generate passive income.
And they want it all. The Metaverse Group already has a real estate investment trust and plans to build a portfolio of properties in Decentraland, as well as other areas, including Somnium Space, Sandbox and Upland. The Internet may be infinite, but virtual real estate is not. Decentraland, for example, has 90,000 parcels of land, each roughly 15 by 15 meters. Among investors, there is a feeling that there is gold in those pixelated hills. Imagine you went to New York when it was still farmland and had the option of getting a whole block in SoHo. If someone wants to buy a farm in SoHo today, they couldn’t, it’s not on the market. That is what will happen in the metaverse.
Last week, Tokens.com closed an even larger land deal in the Decentraland fashion district for roughly $ 2.5 million. The company, which says the real estate transaction was the largest in metaverse history, plans to turn the area into a virtual trading hub for luxury fashion brands, somewhat compared to Rodeo Drive or Fifth Avenue.
A huge market. Many of these digital realms appear as vividly colored, cartoonish fantasy worlds, while others are digital applications of the planet we already know and love. SuperWorld, a virtual real estate platform mapped across the face of the world, offers 64 billion parcels of land, each for sale as NFT. The Taj Mahal is available, as is, most likely, your childhood home. Owners can buy plots for sentimental or clever reasons. “You can buy the places you love, whether it’s Central Park or the pyramids of Egypt,” said Hrish Lotlikar, co-founder and CEO of SuperWorld. “What you are buying is the virtual land that covers the earth in those places.
A parcel of land in the popular video game Axie Infinity recently sold for $ 2.3 million. The following week, virtual real estate developer Republic Realm bought a property on The Sandbox for 4.3 million. Sales of these types of properties are reaching unprecedented highs as investors rack up millions in real estate in the metaverse.
The fine line between the virtual and the real world. And as the virtual world seeps deeper into the everyday consciousness of our universe, there is a new realm where the division between them is blurred: the omniverse. The real world and the world on-line they merge into a hybrid universe, where the fungible and the non-fungible intersect at multiple points, and where the sale of physical products in the metaverse, such as NFT, is allowed. And the real estate in the metaverse will host the commerce that will drive this transformation. The line between the virtual world and our reality is increasingly blurred.