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Plot of virtual real estate sells for record USD 2.43 million

Article-Plot of virtual real estate sells for record USD 2.43 million

Metaverse
A plot of digital land in the online metaverse, Decentraland, sold for a record-breaking USD 2.43 million last week, the highest amount ever spent on virtual real estate on the platform.

Decentraland is a popular online community, or metaverse, in which users can engage with other avatars, walk around, and use cryptocurrencies to buy land, buildings, clothing and more.

Fueled by factors such as the global pandemic which led people to spend more time online and Facebook’s recent name change to Meta, digital environments like this one have rapidly increased in popularity over recent months.

With various industry professionals suggesting that metaverses such as Decentraland may be the gateway to the next version of the internet, the opportunities for real estate investors to expand into the digital sphere are becoming more abundant and profitable.  

THE RISE OF THE VIRTUAL HIGH STREET

Metaverse Group, a subsidiary of Tokens.com Corp, paid 618,000 MANA - Decentraland’s native cryptocurrency and the equivalent of USD 2.4 million - in exchange for a six thousand square-foot plot in the online world.

Located in Decentraland’s Fashion District, the virtual estate will be used to facilitate the company’s expansion into the digital fashion industry, Metaverse announced in a press release. The plot will be used to sell virtual clothing for avatars and host digital fashion shows in conjunction with clothing brands.

“Fashion is the next massive area for growth in the metaverse,” Sam Hamilton, head of content at the Decentraland Foundation, said in a statement released by the company last week.

Several luxury fashion brands including Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Gucci have previously expressed their interest in the metaverse by trading non-fungible tokens which are digital assets secured via blockchain technology.

RECORD-BREAKING REAL ESTATE

This sale of digital real estate in Decentraland is more than double the previous record of USD 193,000, set in June by a real estate investment firm. In this case, the buyers used the virtual real estate to build a shopping center to sell digital clothing.

According to Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, the dollar value of MANA has risen by more than 550 percent over the past month.

Despite the extreme volatility of cryptocurrencies like MANA, the overall market has recorded an upward trend in the past year.

 

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