"I couldn't understand it, but I was shocked." This is the intuitive reaction of some netizens after learning about the sky-high price of the meta-universe.
The current meta-universe land transaction record has reached 27.36 million yuan. On its official Twitter, virtual property developer Public Realm confirmed that it had purchased a piece of virtual land on The Sandbox for a record $4.3 million, enough to buy two apartments in The Heart of Beijing, China's most expensive city, and even single-family villas in some cities.
According to publicly available market information, Republic Realm currently owns about 2,500 digital lands on 19 different metaverse platforms.
There can be thousands of interpretations of the things in the prototype, some people think that the meta-universe speculation is a game of drumming and flowers, but it is a packaged scam; some people think that this is a way of life in the future world, and there is value in traffic that can be invested. So is the meta-universe fried house cutting leeks or the new outlet?
In an interview with First Finance, Liao Xuhua, a senior analyst in the analysys interactive entertainment industry, believes that the purchase of land in the meta-universe is speculation and is just an efficient way to play virtual currency. "Essentially, it's the same as me picking up a rock to sell you a million, those ways are all disguises, and the core purpose is to hype and buy." 」
Shi Yue, a practitioner in the blockchain industry and currently holds 5 pieces of land on the foreign meta-universe platform, told First Finance and Economics that the purpose of buying land varies from person to person, and she plans to invest in construction.
Another player, Xinchen, has more than 100 sets of different levels of real estate in the domestic rainbow universe game, and has made a net profit of 150,000 yuan according to the current valuation. Xinchen told First Finance, "Holding is investment, and holding is speculation." ”
The meta-universe speculation increased by 700 times, and the admission of 80,000 started
In fact, virtual land transactions have appeared as early as 2018, until recent months to hitchhike the meta-universe, the turnover has repeatedly broken records, and then suddenly out of the circle fire.
The Sandbox has been trading in recent March
Dapprader data shows that in November, platforms such as Decentraland and The Sandbox saw unprecedented traffic and transaction activity, with virtual land transaction volume reaching $228 million, the best month to date, up nearly 700 times from the previous month, to 688%.
Decentraland and The Sandbox, both of which are currently popular meta-universe platforms, have also been building up momentum in the virtual land deal space for a long time, with the latter just secured a new $93 million round of funding last month, led by the SoftBank Vision Fund.
One player said that he had paid attention to The Sandbox two months ago, and felt unreliable at the time, but after SoftBank invested in November, he wanted to enter and found that it had risen 10 times in two months, and SoftBank's investment soared.
The value of virtual land is still soaring, with valuations for virtual land in November up 900-fold to 904 percent from the end of September, while independent traders involved in land deals reached a record 28,000, up 145 percent from the previous month, according to Dapprader.
At present, the participants of virtual land transactions include investment institutions, enterprises, and many artists and individuals. Shi Yue introduced to CbN that different virtual platforms have different characteristics, "In Decentraland, there are many enterprises entering to buy land and build the company's virtual scene, while The Sandbox has many individual investors joining, and there are many crypto artists on CV (Cryptovoxels) involved in building museums." ”
As more players join, virtual land prices rise.
A virtual land holder told First Finance and Economics that a 3x3 grid of land, valued at about 130,000 yuan in July this year, has now reached 780,000 yuan, which has doubled 6 times in less than half a year, and this is already a small increase in land.
The cost of speculating in the meta-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.
Floor prices on The Sandbox and Decentraland on Opensea
On the trading platform Opensea, you can see the floor price of each platform, converted into RMB, at present, the reserve price of The Sandbox and Decentraland is 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 will start at 80,000 yuan, and the participation threshold is not high.
The rainbow universe with a lower threshold has players earning 150,000 a month
Compared with foreign meta-universe platforms, the domestic fledgling rainbow universe obviously has a lower entry threshold, and it can have a suite of more than 200 yuan, but it will be more risky in comparison.
Although he is an ordinary office worker, Xinchen likes to contact some new things and usually pays attention to investment projects. She told CBN that she began to pay attention to the meta-universe in About July, contacting some foreign projects such as The Sandbox, Decentraland, Axie, etc., and then slowly contacted the domestic digital art platform.
When Rainbow Universe opened the internal beta, Xinchen, who learned the news from her friends, decided to enter the market to buy real estate, and currently, she ranks in the top five in the asset list of the Rainbow Universe platform. According to her, she has slowly accumulated to buy, and currently has more than 100 sets of properties of different grades in several accounts.
On idle fish, the virtual real estate of The Rainbow Universe is publicly traded at a price tag, from ordinary buildings to scarce polar wooden houses and islands around the sea, and the current price ranges from more than 200 yuan to 10,000 yuan. A polar wooden house is priced at 9,999 yuan, and the seller said that the number of the house is scarce single digits, which is worth more than the ordinary number of the property. In addition, properties with beautiful numbers will also be more valuable.
Idle Fish Rainbow Universe Property Price
According to the current market price, the value of the virtual real estate and digital collection held by Xinchen in the Rainbow Universe is about 170,000 yuan. The cost of her investment was about 10,000 to 20,000 yuan when she entered the market before, and she made a net profit of 150,000 yuan in just one month. She said, "For the time being, only a few sets of returns have been issued, and others are considered to be held for a long time." ”
After experiencing the rainbow universe game, the reporter found that its current presentation interface and foreign platforms have great differences, similar to the ordinary mobile game interface, the platform functions are not much, and at present, it is only possible to customize the image and enter other people's rooms. On the App Store, its current rating is only 3.1 points, and some players have bluntly said that this is the 3D QQ space.
"At present, the playability of the rainbow universe is not high." Xinchen told First Finance and Economics that due to unclear policies and other reasons, compared with foreign projects, some domestic platforms started relatively late, "Like Rainbow Universe, projects involving virtual character images and virtual real estate are still in the embryonic test stage, and there is a long way to go in the future."
How to tell the story of speculation? The key is traffic
Shi Yue began to pay attention to the meta-universe virtual land this year, and successively bought five pieces of land in the meta-universe platform CV and The Sandbox, with a purchase cost of about 260,000 yuan. According to the current market price, the value of these 5 pieces of land has exceeded 400,000 yuan.
In Shi Yue's view, the metaverse is a very hot direction this year, and the virtual land is the tool and foundation for entering the metaverse world, which is worth investing. She told First Finance and Economics, "Whether land construction is combined with IP or with traffic, it is a direction with greater certainty at present." ”
"Some people are optimistic about the traffic of the metaverse, and will buy some land for advertising, and some will build and go in advance to layout." Works built on virtual land can go to the market to sell.
According to meta-universe platforms, for virtual lands, owners can build any type of game and asset, host live events, assemble NFT art collections, or simply rent them out to others to profit from their projects. It doesn't look different from the logic of seeing exhibitions, visiting museums, and listening to concerts in the real world.
Also like the real world, land on metaverse platforms is also priced differently depending on the lot.
For example, the plots in the central area of the platform are scarce, in addition, some well-known IP or individuals around the plots are also traffic highlands, with a higher premium.
Previously, on The Sandbox game platform, in order to become a neighbor of hip-hop singer Snoop Dogg, a player bought a 3x3-grid land for $450,000 (about 2.87 million yuan), a premium of 3 times compared to ordinary land.
As in the real world, the key to premium is traffic. Players of the virtual platform will visit well-known social centers directly through portals and then branch outward to explore the nearby area, so there will be more traffic on the land around that area, and more traffic means more potential revenue.
In the future, some regions may also need to market on social platforms in order to divert traffic, so hubs with traffic in the mobile Internet world will also benefit.
Shi Yue told First Finance that his partners have community traffic, and their daily life can do 100,000, so they currently want to cooperate with some landlords and be responsible for defusing them, "I also tested several cooperative landlords before, and the traffic performance is still good." ”
Industry insiders believe that the historical law of the mobile Internet will be reproduced in the development of the metaverse. Obviously, traffic supremacy still applies in the metaverse.
The November spike shows unprecedented enthusiasm in the market, but some insiders said, "Everybody knows, that's when the tide should recede." ”
Recently, the People's Daily commented on the yuan universe speculation, believing that "the risk of heat to burns must be prevented." The metaverse and its related application scenarios are still in the initial stage of development, and there is still a long way to go from virtual to real, and it is necessary to think calmly and twice.
Contrary to the enthusiasm of market investment, even these metaverse platforms that are currently at the forefront are far from a metaverse world with a complete experience and rich playability in terms of completion and development progress.
(Shi Yue and Xinchen are pseudonyms in the text)