Virtual real estate sells for $2.4 million

Wednesday, 24 November 2021 11:26

By Reuters

A patch of virtual real estate in the online world Decentraland sold for a record $2.4 million worth of cryptocurrency, said the buyer crypto investor Tokens.com and Decentraland.

Decentraland is an online environment - also called a "metaverse" - where users can buy land, visit buildings, walk around and meet people as avatars.

Such environments have grown in popularity this year, as the pandemic caused people to spend more time online.

Interest surged last month when Facebook changed its name to Meta to reflect its focus on developing virtual reality products for the metaverse.

Decentraland is a specific type of metaverse that uses blockchain. Land and other items in Decentraland are sold in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a kind of crypto asset.

Crypto enthusiasts buy land there as a speculative investment, using Decentraland's cryptocurrency, MANA.

A subsidiary of Tokens.com, called the Metaverse Group, bought a patch of real estate for 618,000 MANA on Monday, which was around $2,428,740 at the time, a Decentraland spokesman and a statement by Tokens.com said.

The land's purchase was also recorded on the NFT marketplace OpenSea.

Decentraland said it was the most expensive purchase of a plot of virtual real estate on the platform.

The land is in the "Fashion Street" area of Decentraland's map and Tokens.com said it would be used to host digital fashion events and sell virtual clothing for avatars.

It is made of 116 smaller parcels, measuring 52.5 square feet each, making the land 6,090 virtual square feet in size.

Andrew Kiguel, CEO of Tokens.com, said the assets would complement the real estate already held by Metaverse Group.

In June, a plot of virtual land in Decentraland sold for 1,295,000 MANA, worth $913,228 at the time. The buyers built a virtual shopping centre to sell digital clothing, but Reuters visited this site multiple times since and has not seen any shoppers.

MANA is highly volatile. It has gained around 400 per cent this month according to Coinbase, spiking after Facebook's name change.

More from Quirky

Google Maps to rename 'Gulf of Mexico' for US users

Google Maps will change the name of 'Gulf of Mexico' to 'Gulf of America' once it is officially updated in the US Geographic Names System, Google said in an X post.
1904 Olympic medal sells for $545k at auction

A gold medal from the 1904 Olympic Games has sold for over half a million dollars at auction. The medal, from the St. Louis Olympics, was one of hundreds of items sold from various editions of the Games.
T. Rex is at center of debate over dinosaur intelligence

Surmising even the physical appearance of a dinosaur - or any extinct animal - based on its fossils is a tricky proposition, with so many uncertainties involved. Assessing a dinosaur's intelligence, considering the innumerable factors contributing to that trait, is exponentially more difficult.
Horses run amok in central London

A number of horses are running amok in London and at least one person has been injured, with the army called in to help locate the animals, authorities in the British capital said on Wednesday.
Kishida delights Washington with promise of 250 cherry trees as gift

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida drew cheers and applause from US lawmakers on Thursday when he announced a plan to donate 250 cherry trees to the US capital to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US independence.