Crazy "Meta Universe" real estate speculation: Some players stock up on 100 suites, which is 6 times in less than half a year
Author: Liu Xiaojie, Editor: Liu Jia
"I can't understand it, but I was shocked." This is the intuitive reaction of some netizens after they learned that Meta Universe was selling real estate at sky-high prices.
The current land transaction record of Yuan Universe has reached 27.36 million yuan.
On its official Twitter, virtual real estate developer Republic Realm confirmed that it bought a piece of virtual land on The Sandbox for a record US$4.3 million, which is enough to buy two houses in the city center of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, the highest house price in China, and even some cities. Buying a single-family villa is not a problem.
Public information on the market shows that Republic Realm currently owns approximately 2500 digital lands on 19 different meta-universe platforms.
There are tens of thousands of interpretations of the rudimentary things. Some people think that Metaverse real estate speculation is a game of drumming and spreading flowers, but it is just a packaged scam; some people think that this is a way of life in the future world, and if there is flow and value, you can invest.
So, is Yuan Cosmos real estate speculation cutting leeks or new outlets?
In an interview with China Business News, Liao Xuhua, a senior analyst in the Analysys Interactive Entertainment industry, believes that the purchase of land by Meta Universe is just a speculation and an efficient way to play virtual currencies.
"Essentially, it is the same as when I picked up a stone and sold you one million. Those methods are all pretense, and the core purpose is to speculate and sell."
Shi Yue is a practitioner in the blockchain industry and currently holds 5 plots of land on the foreign meta universe platform. She told China Business News that the purpose of buying land varies from person to person, and she plans to invest in construction.
Another player, Xin Chen, has more than 100 sets of properties of different levels in the domestic Rainbow Universe game, and has a net profit of 150,000 yuan according to the current valuation.
Xinchen told China Business News, "If you hold it, it means investment, and if you can't hold it, it means speculation."
Meta universe real estate speculation increased by 700 times, starting with 80,000 admissions
In fact, virtual land transactions have appeared as early as 2018. It wasn't until the hitchhiker of Meta Universe in recent months that the transaction volume repeatedly broke records, and it suddenly went out of the circle.
According to Dapprader data, in November, platforms such as Decentraland and The Sandbox (sandbox) saw unprecedented traffic and transaction activities. The virtual land transaction volume reached 228 million U.S. dollars. This is the best month so far, compared with the previous month. The monthly increase was nearly 700 times, reaching 688%.
Both Decentraland and The Sandbox are currently popular meta-universe platforms, and both have been accumulating power in the field of virtual land transactions for a long time. The latter just received a new round of US$93 million in financing last month, under the Vision of SoftBank The fund leads the investment.
A player said that he paid attention to The Sandbox project two months ago. It felt unreliable at the time, but after SoftBank invested in November, he wanted to enter the market and found that it had risen 10 times in two months. SoftBank invested After soaring.
The value of virtual land is still soaring. According to Dapprader's data, the valuation of virtual land in November has increased by 900 times compared with the end of September, reaching 904%. The number of independent traders involved in land transactions has reached a record 28,000, compared with that at the end of September. Last month there was an increase of 145%.
Participants in virtual land transactions currently include investment institutions, enterprises, as well as many artists and individuals.
Shi Yue introduced to China Business News that different virtual platforms have different characteristics. “In Decentraland, many companies enter and buy land and build virtual scenes for the company. The Sandbox has many individual investors joining. CV (Cryptovoxels) has Many crypto artists are involved in building museums."
As more players join, the price of virtual land will rise.
A virtual land holder told China Business News that a 3x3 grid of land was valued at about 130,000 yuan in July this year, and now it has reached 780,000 yuan, which has doubled six times in less than half a year, and this is already an increase. There are fewer plots.
The cost of real estate speculation in Yuan Universe has become higher and higher. Even if it is not high-quality land, the minimum threshold for participation has now reached 80,000 yuan.
On the trading platform Opensea, you can see the floor price of each platform, converted into RMB. At present, the base prices of The Sandbox and Decentraland are about 80,000 yuan respectively.
That is to say, even if you buy the most common small grid in the suburbs of the virtual platform, it costs 80,000 yuan to start, and the threshold for participation is not high.
Rainbow Universe with a lower threshold, some players earn 150,000 a month
Compared with foreign meta-universe platforms, Hong Kong, which is just starting out in China, obviously has a lower entry barrier. You can have a house with more than 200 yuan, but the risk will be greater in comparison.
On October 28th, Honnverse, developed by Tianxia Show, began its internal test. Users can snap up virtual real estate after making an appointment.
In the official account of Tianxiaxiu, an open letter signed by Chairman Li Meng stated that the Rainbow Universe, which has been developed by the company for many years, is "a 3D virtual social product based on blockchain technology."
Although an ordinary office worker, Xinchen likes to be exposed to new things and usually pays attention to investment projects.
She told China Business News that she began to pay attention to Metaverse in July, and came into contact with some foreign projects such as The Sandbox, Decentraland, Axie, etc., and then gradually came into contact with domestic digital art platforms.
When the Rainbow Universe opened its internal beta, Xinchen, who learned the news from a friend, decided to enter the market and buy the property. At present, she ranks among the top five in the asset ranking of the Rainbow Universe platform.
According to her, she has slowly accumulated her purchases, and she currently has more than 100 properties of different levels in her several accounts.
On Xianyu, Rainbow Universe’s virtual real estate is publicly traded at a price, ranging from ordinary buildings to scarce polar wooden houses and islands around the sea. The current prices range from 200 yuan to 10,000 yuan.
The price of a polar wooden house is 9999 yuan, and the seller said that the house number is a scarce single digit, which is more valuable than the ordinary numbered property.
In addition, real estate with a pretty number will be more valuable.
Based on the current market price, the value of the virtual real estate and digital collections held by Xinchen in Rainbow Universe is around 170,000 yuan.
The cost she invested in the previous admission was about 10,000 to 20,000 yuan, a net profit of 150,000 yuan in just one month.
She said, “For the time being, only a few sets have been paid back, and others are considering holding them for a long time.”
After experiencing the Rainbow Universe game, the reporter found that its current interface is very different from that of foreign platforms. It is similar to the ordinary mobile game interface, and the platform functions are not many. At present, it is only possible to customize the image and enter the room of others.
On the App Store, its current rating is only 3.1 points. Some players bluntly said that this is the 3D Qzone.
"At present, the playability of Rainbow Universe is not high." Xinchen told CBN, due to unclear policies and other reasons, compared with foreign projects, some domestic platforms started relatively late. "Like Rainbow Universe, it involves The project of virtual characters and virtual real estate is still in the prototype testing stage, and there is a long way to go in the future."
How do you tell the story of real estate speculation?
The key is flow
Shi Yue began to pay attention to the meta universe virtual land this year, and successively bought five pieces of land on the meta universe platform CV and The Sandbox at a cost of about 260,000 yuan.
Calculated at the current market price, the value of these five pieces of land has exceeded 400,000 yuan.
In Shi Yue's view, the meta-universe is a hot direction this year, and virtual land is a tool and foundation for entering the meta-universe world, and it is worth investing in.
She told China Business News, "Whether land construction is integrated with IP or with traffic, it is a relatively certain direction from the current perspective."
"Some people are optimistic about the flow of Metaverse and will buy some land for advertising, and some will build it and go in for layout in advance." Works built on virtual land can be sold in the market.
According to the publicity of the Metaverse platform, for virtual land, owners can build any type of games and assets, hold live events, assemble NFT art collections, or just rent them to others to profit from their projects.
It seems that there is no difference from the logic of watching exhibitions, visiting museums, and listening to concerts in the real world.
Similarly to the real world, the land on the Meta universe platform has different pricing depending on the location.
For example, the land in the central area of the platform is an inch of gold. In addition, some well-known IPs or land surrounding individuals are also high traffic areas and have a higher premium.
Previously, on The Sandbox game platform, in order to become a neighbor of hip-hop singer Snoop Dogg, some players bought a set of 3x3 tiles for US$450,000 (approximately 2.87 million yuan), which is three times the premium of ordinary land.
Similar to the real world, the key to premium is traffic.
Players on the virtual platform will directly visit well-known social centers through the portal, and then branch out to explore nearby areas. Therefore, there will be more traffic to the land around the area, and more traffic means more potential income .
In the future, some regions may also need to market on social platforms in order to divert traffic. Therefore, having traffic centers in the mobile Internet world will also benefit from this.
Shi Yue told China Business News that his partners have community traffic and can achieve 100,000 daily livelihoods. Therefore, he currently wants to cooperate with some landlords and be responsible for diversion. The traffic performance is pretty good."
Industry insiders believe that the historical laws of the mobile Internet will reappear in the development of Metaverse.
Obviously, the supremacy of flow is still applicable in the meta-universe.
The data that soared in November showed unprecedented enthusiasm in this market, but some insiders said, "Everyone knows, that's when the tide should recede."
Recently, the "People's Daily" commented on Yuan Universe's real estate speculation, saying that "the risk of hot to the point of scalding should be prevented."
Metaverse and its related application scenarios are still in the initial stage of development. There is still a long way to go from virtual to real, and we need to calm down and think twice.
In contrast to market investment enthusiasm, even these meta-universe platforms that are currently at the forefront are far from a meta-universe world with complete experience and rich playability in terms of completion and development progress.
(Shi Yue and Xin Chen in the text are pseudonyms)