Real estate is booming in the metaverse as plot of digital land in Decentraland — an online, virtual-only environment — sold for a record $2.43 million on Tuesday. The purchase was made with cryptocurrency, adigital currency
The price of the plot worth more than most homes in the major cities of New York, San Francesco, Manhattan. Digital assets — cryptocurrency, real estate — now worth more than real assets — fiat currency, physical homes.
Metaverse Group, a subsidiary of Tokens.com, completed the purchase of a patch of digital land for 618,000 mana, or about $2.43 million at the time, according to a Decentraland spokesperson and a statement by Tokens.com. Mana is Decentraland's cryptocurrency, which users employ to buy and sell assets in the virtual space.
Tokens.com said it would use the "116 parcel estate in the heart of the Fashion Street district" of Decentraland for expansion into the digital-fashion industry.
To be sure, homes in the US finance and tech capitals are still pricier on a per-square-foot basis.
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One parcel of land in Decentraland is equivalent to 52.5 square feet. The Tokens.com purchase is roughly equivalent to 6,090 square feet of land — well above the 1,150 square footage in an average home in San Francisco. That comes out to roughly $400 a square foot in Decentraland versus $1,200 in San Francisco.
Interest in the metaverse has skyrocketed, according to report by Reuter, since Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta. Enthusiasts buy land in the metaverse as a speculative investment, and other digital properties have sold for hefty price tags, too.
Crypto tokens connected to the metaverse have surged recently, with mana rising almost 60% in the past week.