#virtualland

Over the last few months there has been an increased interest in all aspects of virtual real estate. Republic Realm put this down to a number of factors that have simultaneously collided. These include the increasing acceptance of emerging technologies such as virtual reality, along with changes within blockchain technology, such as the allowing of smart contracts and minting of NFTs. And finally, we should mention the fact that the pandemic has led to many people having much more time to spend online. “A lot of these trends are converging now and COVID-19 has really accelerated their growth,” TJ Kawamura, who's the head of product for Republic’s real estate arm. “I think people are trying to find new ways to engage and create community. It’s not just for the nerds anymore,” he joked.

Interested in virtual land? Read our emails. The last 3-years Kawamura has been keeping an eye on all virtual metaverses that have been springing up right, left and centre. In launching the fund, he decided to focus on the management and development of virtual lands, as well as their acquisition on such metaverse platforms as Sandbox, Axie Infinity and Decentraland. Investments are converted into NFTs or Non Fungible Tokens. Potentially these are blockchain assets that can be used to prove both ownership and scarcity of a digital asset. Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll be fully aware that NFTs have been embraced by art, music, fashion and gaming communities.The land parcels that Republic Realm buys on these virtual worlds are valued according to their location, size and previous sales price. “This whole craze with NFTs has really pushed it to the next level,” he said. Kawamura suggests a direct correlation between the growing awareness and popularity of blockchain, especially the ethereum blockchain that has led to a boom in both NFTs and now virtual real estate. As he points out, “Decentraland is one of the biggest worlds. About three years ago you could buy a parcel for $550 USD. Now, it’s trading at about $8,000 USD.” He also points to a metaverse called The Sandbox and says there has been a similar trend there. “A parcel was trading for $30 USD four months ago and now it’s trading at $880 USD,” he said. “So the space is really blowing up.” Of course, the question on many people's lips is what can you do with this virtual that and what is driving its increasing price? Republic Realm and its investors see a huge potential for profits. Once land is purchased, then it can be used for any number of purposes including storefronts for selling merchandise, advertising space, virtual art galleries and more. Right now there are even virtual casinos situated on metaverses that pay real people to staff their games. Sotheby's has opened a virtual art gallery. As Kawamura says, “There’s a lot of opportunities for brands to come in and access these new spaces in new and creative ways,” With traditional real estate being so costly and also requiring long-term upkeep, it makes sense for new investors to buy digital real estate. Not only is this more affordable, but it's more sustainable and allows the owner of virtual land an accessible entry point into the whole metaverse. “It’s much more difficult if you want to build the house of your dreams in the real world,” Kawamura said. “You can get onto this in a matter of minutes and it doesn’t require you to be a graphic designer.” To give you an idea as to how the digital real estate market is really taking off, just a few months ago the contemporary artist Krista Kim, who describes himself as a "Techism artist," designed a digital home which was called Mars House. It was put up for sale on the virtual trading platform SuperRare as an NFT, and within hours sold for 288 Ether, which is $514,557.79. So what did the buyer get for that money? A set of 3D digital plans so they can upload their own metaverse house. The sale also comes with an exclusive soundtrack from Jeff Schroeder of The Smashing Pumpkins.

Right now you can find real estate brokers such as Shane Dulgeroff, who's selling physical properties with an NFT attached to Open Sea. Separately, just last month a plot in Paris sold for over $3,500 having been purchased for less than $100 on the new metaverse platform, Next Earth. “You now have people from the traditional real estate market coming in and saying ‘how can I take what I know from the real world into the virtual world?,’” Kawamura said. The Republic Realm is presently only open to accredited investors. Kawamura believes the virtual real estate industry is rapidly heading towards a new peak. As he says, “It’s the beginning of the virtual Renaissance.”

I'm interested in Metaverse news!

The Features of the Metaverse

There are a number of common characteristics which most people agree are unnecessary for the creation of a metaverse. Let’s have a look at them:

It’s Persistent

Just as in the real-world, any experience on the metaverse does not end, reset or pause. So when the user logs out, it’s not as if the metaverse stops. It continues to both exist and function.

The Metaverse is Always Live

Following on from the above, all activity within the metaverse will be experienced in real time. This means that any information, content or experience will be accessible at any given time. And continuously remain available even if the user logs out.

Can Host a Huge Audience

It’s a very important consideration in that the metaverse is able to bring millions of users together from any location in the real physical world. Not only that, but the metaverse experience can be shared simultaneously.

Being Interoperable

This means that all digital information can be shared across many different virtual platforms. In the same way you can also be translated to the physical world. An example might be that a customer can purchase an item of clothing for their avatar and then use this across different multiverse platforms.

Allowing Customization

An example of this would be that a user could make changes to their avatar or identity to reflect their current emotion or personality. Content for the metaverse needs to be created by independent production developers as opposed to a single entity controlling everything.

There’s a Sustainable and Functioning Economy

Utility is absolutely essential if a metaverse is to function as its own sustainable economy. This means that the selling and purchasing of services and digital goods can be carried out seamlessly by users from anywhere in the world.

A Combination of the Virtual and Physical World

In the same way that a user can buy something on the metaverse, and then have the real item shipped to the real-world home address, it’s important that there is this seamless connection between the virtual and physical world.

The Capabilities of the Metaverse

One of the major ideas behind the metaverse is that it can provide users with a gateway in order for them to experience real-time activities, but in a virtual environment. Below we’ve listed a number of activities that a user can expect to find when they enter a metaverse platform.

A Social Interaction Platform

In some ways it’s easy to see why Facebook is interested in creating its own metaverse. One of the main factors is the ability to communicate with family, friends or business associates within the metaverse platform itself. Not just using video calls, but also being able to attend and host online events, no matter where in the world they are taking place.

Shopping

The metaverse should allow users to shop for both physical and virtual goods. By utilizing AVR devices and other shopping related software, the user is able to try on clothing and accessories, or test appliances and gadgets before purchase

Business

Today employees and their bosses are able to communicate with each other using apps such as Zoom and Google Meet. The metaverse hopes to introduce a new 3D level of interactivity between uses. On the metaverse the business possibilities are pretty much endless. For a start you can build anything you want. Sell advertising space, virtual goods, property and whatever else takes your fancy. By making use of Ethereum’s NFTs, smart contracts can be written and then placed on the immutable blockchain.

Entertainment

For the online gaming community, the metaverse should offer a more immersive experience. This will increase the level of engagement. Media companies will be able to use metaverse platforms to host music festivals, sports events and movie premieres. And all for an unlimited number of onlookers. The metaverse also allows users the possibility of travelling anywhere in the world whilst still seated on their sofa at home.

The Need For Technology For Metaverse Access

At the beginning of the 21st century we are on the cusp of having the technology which will allow us to make the whole metaverse platform an even better experience. Very soon, 5G technology will roll out. And with this ability to move so much more data at even greater speeds, the metaverse becomes even closer to reality.

Below we’ve listed some of the technologies that we imagine will be needed to create a seamless and immersive metaverse experience:

VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality), or MR (Mixed Reality) tools.

Stronger internet connections to continuously stream real-time content and applications.

Cryptocurrency wallets for blockchain transactions across these virtual worlds

Instantaneous protocols and program languages that will support the metaverse systems.

Database management applications to manage the sheer number of users.

Where Can You Experience the Metaverse?

This last year has seen a huge number of metaverse projects coming to fruition. And some of these are based around apps and others are based around gaming. So far, none of these have reached the level of the perfect metaverse as you may have seen in the Steven Spielberg movie, “Ready Player One.” But we are slowly getting there.

Fortnite

This is a Battle Royale type game from Epic Games. It’s a free to play multiplayer online game (MMO) with 100 players beginning each game of combat until just one survives. The first thing you need to do is sign up to Epic Games and then create your profile. After which you’ll be able to design your own avatar. There’s a selection of free items for you to help customise your avatar. But you can also purchase clothing, weapons and accessories.

A fun but totally left-field feature that makes Fortnite such a fun experience is that the avatars can perform dance moves. These dances have quickly become internet memes in themselves and have been performed by large pop groups and on popular television shows. The game itself launched in 2017 and has since undergone several updates. These have helped to improve the gameplay and enhance the player experience. Because Epic Games would like to accelerate Fortnite towards a metaverse platform, we have seen some famous pop stars such as Ariana Grande and Travis Scott performing virtual in-game concerts.

The Sandbox

This is a community driven platform that allows its users to build and monetize their gaming experience. The virtual world on which the Sandbox is built is divided into 166,464 LANDS. These LANDS can be combined to make ESTATES and then these can make even bigger DISTRICTS. There are three main components to the Sandbox: marketplace, Vox Edit and the game itself. Thanks to the use of NFTs, along with having the whole platform based on the Ethereum blockchain means that ownership of assets is secure. The metaverse also has its own token, called SAND. This can be used for in-game purchases as well as for acquiring LAND. looking at the Sandbox roadmap, we can see that they plan to implement DAO by 2023. Though the platform has attracted many renown partners, there’s no game available by which the platform can be properly analyzed. Presently there are no plans to implement VR technology.

Decentraland

Another platform running on the Ethereum blockchain, decentraland allows users to purchase and then develop virtual properties into virtual businesses. There are a total of 90,000 parcels of virtual land called LANDs. Technically each one is 33 feet by 33 feet in size, as a limit to building, but you can build as high as you like. Using your LAND you can add applications and create digital environments. These can then be monetized. Once again, they have a token, MANA, an ERC-20 token, and this is used throughout the platform for any commercial transactions. Probably the biggest complaint about the platform is the extremely high gas fees up to $60, which make trading things like wearable ridiculously expensive. Right now Decentraland feels like a place for tourists to take a stroll around.

Next Earth

One of the newest additions to the whole metaverse genre is Next Earth. After their launch and original virtual land sale in August 2021, they managed to move around $2 million in sales. All virtual earth sales are based on the minting of NFTs to define ownership on the Ethereum blockchain. Soon they will introduce their own token which will allow for staking among other things. Recently they opened their marketplace and saw one property that was purchased for less than $100 go to a buyer for over $3,500. Next Earth is taking a different approach to the whole metaverse monetization by not relying on gaming to be their main driving force. They want to start with users creating actual businesses on their land tiles. With the help of NFT smart contacts, they see the practical development of a virtual world, as one that grows from virtual real estate into a thriving persistent economy.