
Want to own a piece of the Metaverse?
To start, understand, you won’t be owning land in “The Metaverse” per se. You will be owning land within a decentralized platform called a virtual blockchain world that sits within the broader concept of “The Metaverse”. To put it into physical terms, The Metaverse, like the physical universe that we exist in, is not a destination, rather, a collection of worlds and virtual experiences.
Though many of these virtual worlds and corporations (Meta) have claimed to be “The Metaverse”, they are as it stands today, one of thousands of experiences that make up the existing concept of The Metaverse. The more I learn about the technology that must exist to make a single, massive Metaverse-as-a-destination possible, it becomes clear that we may be decades away from something at that scale.
Currently, there are a dizzying number of virtual worlds and more seem to appear each day. Each require varying degrees of engagement and the current top three - The Sandbox, Decentraland and Axie Infinity - can see anywhere from 700 to 700,000 daily users on average. Despite their modest engagement, all three have valuations in the billions.
Within each of these virtual worlds there can exist a variety of experiences such as games, events, brand engagements, e-commerce marketplaces and so on. Each virtual blockchain world is different, but the one thing they all have in common is that they are decentralized. Unlike traditional virtual worlds like Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft, virtual blockchain worlds are primarily user-owned and most of the blocks/parcels/lands that make up those worlds can be bought, sold, or held by users as NFTs. These are the pieces you can own and invest in.
Purchasing a parcel is easier than one would think, but it does take some understanding of cryptocurrency and some research into the platforms. In all cases, you will need a digital wallet (the most popular being MetaMask) and access to an exchange like Binance or Coinbase (there are dozens of others, you must do your research on what’s right for you). To purchase in the some of the most popular virtual blockchain worlds, you will most likely need to buy some Ethereum. The next step is to decide on the right platform.
This is a post by Cori Johnson-Stankowicz