The pandemic has ushered in an unprecedented virtual land rush in the metaverse, according to CNBC. Investors are shelling out millions of dollars for certain plots across the digital frontier, where people are able to live, work, and play as avatars.
“The metaverse is the next iteration of social media,” said Andrew Kiguel, CEO of Toronto-based metaverse real estate and crypto asset investment company Tokens.com. “You can go to a carnival, you can go to a music concert, you can go to a museum.”
The metaverse rose to popularity last fall after Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company – formerly Facebook, now Meta – would be turning its attention to the world of virtual reality. Prices there have increased by as much as 500 percent in recent months. The cheapest plots are now going for more than $10,000, according to Business Insider. On the other end of the spectrum, a piece of land sold for the whopping sum of $4.3 million last November.
One virtual property magnate has already seen his digital real estate portfolio multiply tenfold since he acquired the land, which he is starting to rent out in high-traffic areas.
In addition to individual investors, major corporations are also getting in on the action. The developer Metaverse Group recently spent $2.43 million on parcels in Decentraland, and plans to funnel about $1 million into the platform SuperWorld, where people can exchange digital interpretations of global landmarks, including, for example, the Great Wall of China.
