Probably, if someone had offered us to buy virtual land before, they would think taht you must be crazy. At the time, it was not rational to buy a land in a virtual world for anyone.
Maybe one of the reasons was the newness of this phenomenon and the fact that many people did not know what the metaverse was at all?
But we have to admit that now the story has completely changed and many projects have entered this new world. Today, the blockchain world is not limited to buying digital currency, and in addition to playing games in Metaverse, you can interact with your friends and buy your favorite virtual land in the best Metaverse projects as an investment.
What is the use of buying land in Metaverse and how to buy it, are the things that we will discuss in the rest of this article. So let’s explore together:
- What is the metaverse?
- Why are investors interested in buying land in Metaverse?
- Learning to buy land in Metaverse
- Create a digital wallet
- Choosing a shopping platform
- Submit a purchase offer
- Price evaluation in Metaverse
- Learning to buy land in Metaverse Decentraland
- Learning to buy land in Metaverse Sandbox
- Types of land in the sandbox
- Land colors in the sandbox
- Metaverse and a new experience of buying land
What is the metaverse?
Currently, metaverse is often defined as an alternative digital world that combines the concepts of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and Extended reality (ER), where humans are able to work, play and live in one It will be a digital world.
Metaverse is a term and concept that dates back more than three decades, but after Facebook announced plans to become a metaverse company, the idea gained popularity and made headlines.
Recently, many investors are exploring opportunities to enter this new and growing space. Buying virtual items and lands in the digital world is one of these opportunities that has made a lot of noise.
Why are investors interested in buying land in Metaverse?
Real estate is one of the most popular asset classes in the world that has now entered the digital realm. Virtual Earth is an intangible Earth that exists in the world of Metaverse.
This land is bought and rented just like physical land. Today, there are many important Metaverse projects that allow you to buy such lands.
In June 2022, a piece of virtual land sold for more than $900,000 in Decentraland. This is just an example. Due to the growing interest in the metaverse, the ROI (return on investment) of virtual lands looks promising for crypto traders.
Secondly, investors can use their virtual lands and earn money from them. If you own a virtual land, you can host events or parties and charge those who want to attend by selling tickets.
For example, American rapper Snoop Dogg hosted an exclusive party on Sandbox’s NFT-based (non-fungible token) platform. Users needed to pay NFT tokens to participate in this party.
Thirdly, investors can earn stable income from their virtual lands. For example, using NFT you can build a house on your virtual land and rent it out. Or set up an NFT art gallery and rent it out to cryptocurrency artists to display their work in the metaverse.
Learning to buy land in Metaverse
In 2021, virtual lands have been the most profitable investment method in the Metaverse ecosystem. They are considered a strategic asset whose value is expected to increase over time.
Each metaverse is made up of a limited number of fixed-dimension land parcels. For example, Dicentraland has 90,601 plots of 16 x 16 meters and Sandbox has 166,464 plots of 96 x 96 meters.
After purchasing land in Metaverse, users can develop it with their digital assets. These digital assets can be buildings, vehicles, games or 3D objects of any kind. To buy land in Metaverse, pay attention to the following guide:
Create a digital wallet
Just as you can’t buy real estate without money, the same goes for virtual real estate. You can’t buy a virtual field by swiping your credit card at the POS machine. Rather, to buy land in Metaverse, you need to have the native token of the same platform.
For example, the well-known Metaverse currency of Axi Infinity is called Axi (AXS), which you can use to buy virtual items from the same platform.
Your digital wallet is managed outside of Metaverse and must be connected to your Metaverse account before you start buying and building virtual properties.
Some platforms may specify which wallet you should use. Also, some platforms may have more flexibility. After creating the wallet, write down the recovery phrase and keep it in a safe place, because losing the recovery phrases means losing your assets forever.
Choosing a shopping platform
You have several options for buying land in Metaverse. You can buy your property directly on a specific Metaverse platform, or through one of the popular third-party platforms that offer land buying and selling opportunities.
Buying directly inside Metaverse is good in that you can have a better sense of what you are buying. For example, you can get information about your neighbors and what kind of facilities might be near your land.
But sometimes trading within a certain price range is boring. In this case, using third-party platforms such as OpenSea or NonFungible.com are suitable options.
You can view virtual land parcels with different price offers on several platforms (offers may vary between third-party providers). This method is an easier way for people who are new to the metaverse to compare prices, especially since each platform’s native token has its own value.
Submit a purchase offer
If you’ve ever bought a property in the real world, you know that the process is nothing short of a nightmare. But this is not the case in the virtual world.
When you find a suitable land based on your budget, you can simply buy it with one click. Also, in some platforms like Decentraland, you have the possibility to submit your price offer and the owner will accept or reject it.
In any case, after choosing the land, agreeing on the price and charging your wallet, the process of buying land in Metaverse is done automatically with just a simple click on the purchase option. Funding on the blockchain takes just a minute, and the transaction is recorded in your wallet using an anonymous identifier, indicating that you now own an NFT. So as long as you haven’t lost your digital wallet, it’s all yours.
Price evaluation in Metaverse
Price is one of the important factors that should be considered when buying land in Metaverse. Currently, there is no proven formula for valuing virtual real estate, although some large commercial ventures are trying to figure it out.
One thing to keep in mind about Metaverse properties is that they are very new, experimental, and volatile. So that just a few months ago, you could buy a lot of land in each metaverse with a few hundred dollars, today you need at least a few thousand dollars to buy a land.
Since there is no long trading history for most metaverses, investing in them is highly speculative. This does not mean that you cannot profit by buying virtual real estate. Rather, it means that they are a very new asset class and it is not yet clear what the price threshold is or how much interest there is in a particular metaverse.
Despite the lack of a specific formula for determining the value of Metaverse lands, some factors can be effective in a rough estimate. If you intend to invest in this way, it is better to pay attention to the following:
- Size and Dimensions: Throughout the Metaverse worlds, there will be a direct relationship between the value of a property and its dimensions. As a result, it is natural that the value of a larger piece of land will have a higher rate of increase compared to smaller plots during inflation and price growth.
- Location: As with traditional real estate, the location of your land is very important. The closer the land is to the center of activity, the more valuable it will be compared to properties in isolated locations. However, the rate of growth of land value in the metaverse is slightly different based on activity than in the physical world. In such a world, it may increase with the presence of a suitable buyer and the rush of activity. Also, the aesthetics of the environment will increase the price of your property.
- Use: Some metaverse lands have more and more specific uses than others. For example, certain units in Upland allow their users to complete sets of special assets, treasure hunts, and similar exclusive events.
Always consider when buying virtual real estate that there is a risk that the value of that land will be zero due to the abandonment of the project.
So unlike real-world real estate where the earth stands if everything else is destroyed, if a metaverse platform dissolves, we no longer have that earth either. Therefore, if you are not a risk taker, it is better not to go for the most expensive lands in Metaverse.
To buy land on Metaverse, the first thing you need to do is choose a platform. Currently, there are two common Metaverse platforms for buying land:
- Sandbox
- Decentraland
Learning to buy land in Metaverse Decentraland
Decentraland is a blockchain based virtual reality platform where users can buy land, play games, host different events and interact with each other in different ways.
This platform is the largest virtual world based on NFT, which has its own tokens called Mana (MANA) and Land (LAND). The total number of Decentraland plots is 90,601 16×16 plots, which are traded as one NFT token.
Anyone can buy, rent or sell these lands through the OpenSea market or through the official Decentraland market. To buy land in this metaverse, follow the steps below:
Step 1: Entering Decentraland
To begin, you need to enter the market of Decentraland. If you are entering Decentralandfor the first time, you must first connect your wallet to Decentraland in the “Sign In” section.
If you do not have a digital wallet, you must first download one of the wallets with the Ethereum network such as Trust Wallet or Metamask from Google Play or the App Store.
Step 2: Connect the wallet to Decentraland
To connect your wallet, first click on “Connect” and then “Wallet Connect”. A barcode will be displayed here.
Then go to your wallet settings, click on the “Wallet Connect” option and scan the barcode with the scanner.
Your wallet is now connected to Decentraland. Remember that your wallet must have enough mana tokens to buy land.
Step 3: Choosing a piece of land
After buying mana and connecting your wallet to Decentraland, click “Start Browsing” to enter the item purchase page. Then select “Land” option from My Store, Collectibles and Land tabs.
Here you can check the plots of land and choose the land you want. The advantage of buying land directly in Decentraland is that you can see the adjacent areas and close to famous lands and neighborhoods.
Once you’ve chosen your pitch, click on it to read more details. In this section, you will see information about land price, availability and the name of its owner.
It is possible to buy land by clicking on the “BUY” option. Note that prices are based on mana tokens. You can also send your purchase offer to the land owner by clicking on the “BID” option. He may agree or reject your proposal.
Step 4: Verify the selected virtual land (LAND)
After completing the purchase, you can verify your virtual land, which is a LAND token, in your wallet.
If you are using Trust Wallet, you can verify it in the “Collectibles” section of the Trust wallet or the “NFTs” tab in Metamask.
Learning to buy land in Metaverse Sandbox
Sandbox is a decentralized and community-driven gaming ecosystem where users can share and monetize their NFTs and gaming experiences on the Ethereum blockchain.
The real estate token of this platform is called LAND, which is an NFT token based on the ERC-721 standard.
As mentioned earlier, Metaverse Sandbox consists of 166,464 pieces of land with dimensions of 96 x 96 meters. The price of each piece of land is different based on its location.
The more desirable your land is, the higher the price will be, just like in the real world. You can also merge adjacent lands together to form an state. Of course, it is also possible to buy a ready-made state.
Types of land in the sandbox
First of all, you need to know about the types of land in the sandbox platform. There are two types of land to buy in Sandbox:
- Premium land (special): lands surrounded by social centers and main partners. These areas experience more traffic than normal land and therefore have a higher price.
- Regular land: A land that is not surrounded by any of the main partners. It usually includes areas where people build houses.
Land colors in the sandbox
In addition to land types, each piece of property in the sandbox is also marked with a specific color. The meanings of the various colors in this platform are:
- Gray: Land or estates available for purchase
- Yellow: Premium plots available for purchase
- Purple: Land or estates reserved by you or others
- Red: Land or estates owned by you
- Green: land or estates belonging to other users
- Blue: land or estates reserved by sandbox for partners
To buy land in Sandbox, follow the steps below:
Step 1: Create an account in Sandbox
If you are planning to buy land in Sandbox, the first and most important thing is to have an account on this platform. To do this, on the main page, in the upper right corner, click on the “Sign In” option.
On this page, you can see the different social media accounts and the Meta Mask wallet. You can use your Facebook, Twitter or Gmail account to log in. By clicking on each one, you will be asked for a password, which you must enter.
Step 2: Top up the account with Ether
SAND is the name of the digital currency that is needed to buy items in the sandbox game. But you need Ether to buy land in the sandbox, unlike Decentraland which used its own project’s native token.
You can buy the ether you need from digital currency exchanges and transfer it to your wallet.
Step 3: Selection and purchase of land
- Click on the “LAND” option in the “Market” section on the left toolbar. With this, the lands available in Metaverse Sandbox will be displayed for you.
As we said, there are two types of land in the sandbox: premium and normal.
Regular pitches are displayed in gray and premium pitches are displayed in yellow.
- Click on the land you want and then select the “Buy” option at the bottom of the page.
- Then a window to connect to your wallet will be displayed as shown in the image above. You can connect your wallet to Sandbox by selecting “WalletConnect”. This is easily done. In this way, a barcode will be displayed to you, which you have to scan with your wallet.
- After purchase, you will receive a confirmation notification with the words “Transaction Succeeded You Own A LAND” with the theme “Transaction Succeeded You Own A Land”. Earth NFT token is now in your wallet.
Metaverse and a new experience of buying land
There is no doubt that the real estate market is one of the most profitable ways to make money. In recent years, this market has undergone drastic changes through technology, the most recent development of which is the arrival of Metaverse and the tokenization of lands.
According to reports, the level of public interest in buying land in the metaverse is increasing exponentially, and leading technology companies have also entered the sector.
Perhaps the most impressive of them was the action of the company Metaverse Group, which bought a virtual land of 500 square meters in Decentraland worth 2.43 million dollars.
However, like other crypto sectors, this market has its own risks and due to its interweaving with crypto, it has strong fluctuations.
Finally, if you have any comments about how to buy land in Metaverse, we look forward to hearing from you.