Are Metaverse lands the next big thing?

A lot has been happening lately in Tech. It’s almost like there’s a shift happening before our very own eyes. Will love to call it the post-pandemic tech revolution era. It’s almost like the entire big tech is in a battle on who will build out the Metaverse. 

While the entire concept isn’t clear yet, a lot has been done already. Two years ago if anyone told me that in the future I would be able to buy a virtual piece of land – I would have said they are on crack, but it is happening already. 

The Metaverse has become a major destination for real estate after reaching $500 million last year. This market also has the potential to double this year. Metaverse land began to skyrocket after Facebook announced in late October it had rebranded to Meta Platforms. 

Presently four top companies are spearheading this revolution — Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, and Somnium — with a total of over 268,645 parcels of land.  

The idea might sound like a joke to you but numerous countries and regions such as Barbados, South Korea, Catalonia, Croatia, and the United Arab Emirates have begun buying up digital lands and creating their virtual initiatives, namely in a bid to gain access to crucial Metaverse space, build tech infrastructure, and open virtual embassies. 

You and I are not more intelligent than them – so there’s something they are seeing we aren’t. (Sometimes I wish I bought the Bored Ape Yacht Club during the launch, late April, last year which was sold for 0.08 ether, around $190 – right now the cheapest you can get is $300,000) The same thing will apply to the Metaverse lands.

I have already written an article on my thought about the Metaverse – a virtual world where real people can interact with each other in cartoon-like characters known as avatars – if you have seen the movie Ready Player One – you will get the idea of what I’m talking about. 

Today, people can access these worlds through a normal computer screen, but Meta and other big tech companies have a long-term vision of building 360-degree immersive worlds. This led to their latest rebranding of OculusQuest VR to MetaQuestVR. 

When asked they responded in a statement saying

“We understand our community will miss the Oculus name, but change doesn’t always have to be a bad thing! We’re hoping to make our ambitions to help build the metaverse more clear with our new name”

In an interview, Andrew Kiguel, CEO of Toronto-based Tokens.com said “The metaverse is the next iteration of social media,” Andrew Kiguel also believes that investing in the metaverse real estate can surely help generate a trillion-dollar economy. 

He believes that virtual land is an uncharted area as of now as there is not much traffic, and soon by March, there are possibilities of creating virtual fashion runways to attract people from the global space to understand the significance of investing in virtual land.

PwC Hong Kong also became one of the first major firms to buy virtual land plots on the Sandbox platform. This acquisition means that PwC Hong Kong will have a dedicated space in The Sandbox, a VR game built on Ethereum.

In a statement, William Gee of PwC Hong Kong said that the acquisition will

“create value through innovative business models” and introduce “new ways to engage with…customers and communities.”

William Gee of PwC Hong Kong

Snoop Dogg is also one of the celebrities leading this revolution. He and his son are avid NFT collectors. Snoop Dogg is currently recreating his California mansion in The Sandbox. A plot next to Snoop’s virtual property sold for close to 71,000 SAND, which is about $450,000 – this news made Snoop Dogg tweeted out, “Won’t you be my neighbor.” 

Paris Hilton also announced she has built an island in Roblox where she will perform a DJ set on New Year’s Eve.

Also, a Miami-based venture capitalist and a group of associates known as the MetaCollective DAO used a virtual real estate broker to buy 23 parcels in The Sandbox for 57.5 ETH, adjacent to the Board Ape Yacht Club. Their mission is to create campuses across virtual worlds where people can live, learn, work, and play in the Metaverse. The first planned campus is being built in The Sandbox. The main acquirable asset in The Sandbox Metaverse today is property, as detailed on the map below:

This is quite an interesting time – institutions have begun using Metaverse technologies to lecture students across geographical locations. The Queen Mary University of London is the first university in the United Kingdom to host Metaverse-based lectures to train future medical workforces with extended reality (XR) technologies.

Professor Ahmed, a surgeon, and Lecturer in Surgery at Queen Mary University of London, said: 

“This represents a significant shift in how we can deliver education, especially when there is a practical element like when studying medicine. Future education will rely on a hybrid learning platform. 

A lot is still unfolding in this space and I can’t overemphasize how excited I’m. I will try my best to bring you the latest news in this space. My next article will be on how to buy land in the Metaverse