Investors in the blossoming metaverse sector are comparing the new digital realm to prime New York real estate hundreds of years ago.
In a report from Markets Insider, Lorne Sugarman, CEO of virtual real estate company Metaverse Group, explains his logic behind paying serious money for buying plots of digital land on virtual reality platform Decentraland (MANA).
“We think the Fashion District purchase is like buying on Fifth Avenue back in the 1800s … or the creation of Rodeo Drive…”
The Fashion District is an area in Decentraland where users can shop for virtual clothes from real brands like Ralph Lauren, Gucci or Prada. Sugarman also believes Decentraland’s real estate will be able to maintain it’s scarcity because of the virtual world being a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
“Because Decentraland is a DAO, or a community, if they were ever going to release new land, they would have to get all the currency holders, as well as all the landholders, to vote that they had agreed to that. The community isn’t going to want us to harm our value and our land and currency so I don’t believe that’s something that would happen. But if that were going to happen, it would have to be for a very good reason.”
Janine Yorio, co-founder and CEO of metaverse developer Republic Realm, says that the group had bought the equivalent of an entire city in the virtual world The Sandbox (SAND) to build something “very immersive.”
“We want to buy land and build things on it. The only way the metaverse becomes interesting is if there are things to do and people to see and places to go when you get there.”
Republic Realm broke records last month when it completed a $4.3 million purchase of land on The Sandbox, which is the biggest acquisition of digital real estate ever recorded.
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