Billions Being Spent in Metaverse Land Grab
upstart writes:
But we are years away from the metaverse emerging as a single immersive space online where people can live, work and play in virtual reality. So is the land grab one big gamble?
With her giant dark red mohican and permanent cigarette, artist Angie Taylor's avatar does not look like a typical land mogul. But she is one of a growing breed of people staking a claim to new virtual worlds.
"I bought my first metaverse parcel in July 2020 and paid about 1,500. I bought it for exhibiting my own work, but also for running metaverse events that would promote my art and also other people's art," she says.
Angie, from Brighton, built two galleries full of strange and beautiful digital artwork, which is being sold in cryptocurrency, on her land in the Voxels world.
[...] Voxels is one of dozens of virtual worlds that describe themselves as metaverses. It is confusing, because people often talk about "the metaverse" as if there was only one. But until one platform starts to dominate, or these disparate worlds join together, companies are selling land and experiences in their own versions.
Researchers at metaverse analysts DappRadar say that $1.93bn worth of cryptocurrency has been spent buying virtual land in the past year alone, with $22m of that spent on about 3,000 parcels of land in Voxels.
One of the most popular worlds is the cartoony Decentraland. Launched in 2020, parcels of land there are selling for thousands, sometimes millions of dollars. Samsung, UPS and Sotheby's are among those who have bought land and built shops and visitor centres there.
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