It has begun. People are not just investing in virtual currency, they are also investing in virtual land. The biggest investment yet, worth a massive $2.43 million, was done recently by a Canadian investment firm when it bought a plot of digital land and paid in crypto. This is the largest purchase that’s been made so far in the metaverse.
The Canadian firm, Tokens.com, which deals with decentralised finance (De-Fi), bought the piece of virtual land on Decentraland. Decentraland is a blockchain-based metaverse where people can spend cryptocurrency to acquire real estate, customise their avatars, and also interact with other members in that space.
As per reports, the land bought by Tokens.com, for 618,000 mana (the cryptocurrency used in the metaverse), is a “116 parcel estate in the heart of Fashion Street district” in Decentraland which is equivalent to 6,090 square feet of land. This space, in the metaverse, will be used to hold “digital fashion shows and expand e-commerce services with fashion brands”.
The purchase was confirmed by the Metaverse Group, which is owned by Token.com, in a press release that stated that the group wants to utilise this investment to create a stronghold in Decentraland’s digital fashion industry.
This is, however, not the first any of us have heard of the metaverse. Facebook, or Meta, is planning to invest $50 million to create its own metaverse which is going to be a “set of virtual spaces where you an create and explore with other people”. And since it is all virtual, interactions happen between avatars and you don’t need to be in the same place as those you interact with, unless you want to.
Looking back at how our lives have been over the last almost two years, a virtual universe is not impossible to imagine, or live in. Particularly with Facebook rebranding itself and announcing its new plans, most of the new developments in tech is expected to be in this space. Investing in crypto has almost been normalised and recently, Pokemon Go maker Niantic partnered with payments company Fold to create a game that merges augmented reality (AR) with cryptocurrency.
The new game is available on the Fold app and players have to explore ther real world around them to discover and collect caches of Satoshis, the smallest unit of the Bitcoin, along with other in-app rewards, just as they would with Pokemon in the OG AR-based game.
Conceptually, the metaverse, Facebook’s new universe and even that Decentraland has to offer, involves virtual reality (VR) and not just AR. Metaverses is going to allow users to live a whole virtual life, including socialise, work, attend meetings, relax, play games, workout, etc, by using headsets and VR touch controllers. And with multi million-dollar real-estate deals taking place for plots of virtual land, the new age of tech is here.
This $2.43 million plot on Decentraland is not the first virtual real estate that’s been bought for significant money, it is definitely the most expensive yet though. According to reports, artist Krista Kim sold a digital house as an NFT (non-fungible token) for 288 Ether or approximately $500,000. Like that plot in Decentraland, Kim’s NFT is also a part of the metaverse.
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