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Very soon, we will be at the doorstep of the metaverse age – a connected and persistent virtual world where our digital selves will coexist with our authentic selves. More and more, we will rely on these spaces to work, entertain, socialize, and learn anything we can do in the real world. We will have a "digital twin" in the metaverse. Here, it means you will have to earn and make money like you do in the real world. One way of doing this is by investing in virtual real estate. Here, we will learn how to buy virtual real estate in the metaverse.
Metaverse real estate, also called virtual real estate, is already a booming business. Celebrities like Snoop Dogg and big companies such as PwC, JP Morgan, HSBC, and Samsung already have plots of virtual land that they are planning to develop for different purposes. People who jumped in early have already made big profits. To put this in perspective, last year, the average price for the most minor plot of land you could purchase on Decentraland or the Sandbox – the two largest metaverse platforms – was less than US$1,000. It is now at about US$13,000.
Of course, we are talking about yet another golden opportunity to acquire hot and topical digital assets before they become too expensive. Remember buying Bitcoin 10 years ago or NFTs 2 years ago? In this article, we will learn how to buy virtual real estate in the metaverse.
Similar to the way real-life estate land is bought, this criteria also applies to how to buy virtual real estate in Metaverse. There are at least two major purposes for purchasing land in the metaverse: land acquisition. The first is likely to be an option that has the lowest level of risk, e.g., you want to use it for some material like building a house to stay or premises to run a business. What we're actually referring to as "living" in the metaverse is not any 'real-life' sense of having a home, but it's a place where you have such things as possessions and maybe even your friends visit to hang out. It's as if you had your own web page in the early days when personal internet came up. Only social networks appeared very soon. Internet, what are now "cribs," will be adapted as a way for you to live your personality in the virtual world or store virtual collections made of distinct digital collectibles. Most probably, this one is the landownership consideration that involves less risk for the landowner – due to being aware of your expectations before committing to the land.
The following motives are buying a house as an investment and becoming unstable because, of course, as with any form of investment, there is the possibility of its value going up, not being guaranteed. But at the moment, it is the time of the gold rush concerning property in the Metaverse market, with prices growing 10 times over the last year. One important reason why some people are buying virtual lands and earning on how to buy virtual real estate now is that they are convinced that such properties will be more valuable in the future when the interest in becoming involved in the field will increase by the day. Amongst others, few are investing in the buy-to-let market, which has brought positive changes on the rental business side.
Individual users will usually purchase virtual land parcels via cryptocurrency, namely ETH (Ethereum), SAND (Energized by The Sandbox metaverse platform), or MANA (the driving force behind the user-oriented Decentraland platform). Hence, the starting point is, in fact, the place we want to go.
Currently, both platforms are "the rule" when it comes to who owns a world-famous property in the online world. We are talking here about the well-known owners of virtual property, such as famous celebrities and companies. This is one of the reasons why these platforms have a long experience dealing with this idea.
Both the Small Town Experience and Enchanting Hills platforms can be used for direct land purchases. Land in Metaverse is sold on the basis of NFTs being transferred, and guys having the ability to store these is the second thing you have to have. Metamask and Binance are the most widely used among investors.
Additionally, customers can access that supply through off-market, thriving third-party resellers, just as in real estate. We have opensea.io and nonfungible.com as platforms that act like digital estate agents, where sellers can list their digital property and its price, and buyers can enjoy the negotiation part.
This query is perhaps the main one, especially if you decide to lay down huge cash. Of course, digital land buying is a hazardous type of investment—just like buying crypto coins or non-fungible tokens. Secondly, the market is deregulated, and therefore, you may realize that if something comes up—like you fall victim to fraud and the cheats run away with your money—you may not have any avenues for redress where the issue is settled.
Even if you are not being scammed, there are really technical riddles that burden you with an extra layer of danger – make sure that nothing bad happens with your virtual possession. You shouldn't forget your password or whatever you are using as authentication!
Overall (which will only be possible if you can remember your password like in the real world), as all things are protected due to smart contracts, blockchains, and the safe encrypted nature, there is no risk that someone can steal your virtual real estate, or that anybody reneges to pay rent. Yet, there is a worry that tomorrow's tech advancements (including quantum computing) will conversely be dangerous for the current cryptography security systems. This might not be an obstacle now, but it may become one in a while. Therefore, this is something you should take into consideration if you plan on making such a decision.
The last complication is the deprivation of resources. The land is increasingly valued in real life due to the repeatedly noted interest in owning it by a socially growing group of people, with only a non-renewable resource available to them. The virtual world descendants dive into is basically endless stretching. It follows that if the virtual plots of land on a platform sell all out, but buyers still remain interested, the valuable thing that one can do is not limit the developer to the creation of as many plots as he would like. Now, the big platforms have a limit on the amount of land – they thus enforce 'artificial scarcity.' With this, no one can guarantee that it will last forever!
The long-term impact will essentially be determined by what the future will be like for the metaverse as a concept. Definitely, some of the largest and most influential entities, such as Facebook (eg, now known as Meta, of course), Microsoft, and Nvidia, believe so heavily in the so-called "Metaverse" that it is the next generation of the internet. If that indeed comes true – the metaverse does become as influential as the World Wide Web in the mentioned period – then digital real estate will likely shoot as an exciting and useful asset. From large corporations, business brands, and influencers to general consumers and entrepreneurs, we clearly cannot stop ourselves from enjoying the fact that the digital domain provides us with an avenue for creating larger audiences and coming up with exciting new creations involving products and services. Now, the metaverse may be the next big thing, even more immersive and even more of a time-suck than the web and social media that came. Consequently, a positive signal of the growth of digital lands and the real estate market might be foretold.
OpenSea is the largest marketplace where NFTs, such as virtual land in Metaverse, are bought and sold. It has a variety of parcels to select and a friendly user interface, which makes it simple and easy to find the perfect lot of land to satisfy all your needs.
On some platforms, you can buy a physical item through virtual shopping. In other cases, the objects you purchase will only exist in the metaverse. Here are some of the most popular purchases in metaverse shops and auctions: land and real estate.
At the moment, the cheapest land in the metaverse can be found in Voxels for 0.16 ETH. Previously called Cryptovoxels, this collection consists of 7930 pieces of land with various characteristics, such as size and location. Somnium Space follows this at 0.37 ETH and The Sandbox at 0.43 ETH.
Selling virtual land on the Metaverse is a unique phenomenon. To make it sell fast, you can explore the major online marketplaces or those exclusively created for buying and selling virtual assets, for example.
The price range for Metaverse lands in India will be 0.2 ETH. However, SMA is up by 220% (approximately Rs. 51,000), and ETH 1 is up by around 2.5 lakhs. In the opening phase, 36,431 land plots will be opened.
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Disclaimer: Analytics Insight does not provide financial advice or guidance. Also note that the cryptocurrencies mentioned/listed on the website could potentially be scams, i.e. designed to induce you to invest financial resources that may be lost forever and not be recoverable once investments are made. You are responsible for conducting your own research (DYOR) before making any investments. Read more here.
