Lin Junjie's metaverse "house speculation" huge loss of 91%? Players: It is difficult to sell tens of thousands of yuan to a few hundred yuan

Per editor: Bi Lu Ming

ChatGPT is now crazy out of the circle, and the once "Britney" - metaverse real estate has been reduced to "Mrs. Cow".

Since the beginning of this year, as the price of virtual currencies has fallen and many platforms have exploded, the price of metaverse real estate has also "collapsed". Data from metaverse analytics platform WeMeta shows that the median transaction price per square meter of land in the metaverse was $20 in 2017, and this figure rose to $6,000 in 2021. However, the median transaction price of Decentraland, the world's largest metaverse real estate sales platform, has fallen by nearly 90% from $45 in 2022 to $5.

According to media reports, in November last year, singer Lin Junjie spent $123,000 to buy three virtual properties in Decentraland, which are currently worth only about $10,000, a floating loss of 91%. In addition to the collapse in prices, Lin Junjie's popularity of these three plots of land is also "door-to-door". According to the weekly number of visits provided by the platform, these three plots are almost unattended.

Lin Junjie's record of buying land (Image source: Decentraland official website)

On April 9, #林俊杰买虚拟地产浮亏91% #登上微博热搜 and caused heated discussions among netizens.

The metaverse "house speculation" has no return

With the ebb of virtual real estate, a large number of speculative players have also begun to withdraw.

On November 1, 2021, Tianxia Show Digital Technology Group launched a virtual social metaverse product - Honnverse Rainbow Universe, which was open to the first batch of users. At that time, when the reservation of the limited version of the virtual real estate on the open line was opened, the server crashed due to the large number of participants.

Tianxia Show official news said that the rainbow universe platform will issue a total of 350,000 sets of virtual houses, these virtual houses are divided into 13 types of rooms according to different landforms, each room type has different circulation and scarcity, the level of the house from high to low is divided into SSS, SS, S, A, B, the higher the level, the rarer.

Comparison of the prices of SS-class islands with today's (Image source: second-hand trading platform)

According to a report by China Securities News on April 8, reporters found on a second-hand trading platform last year that the most expensive set of Rainbow Universe "SS Rim Island" virtual real estate was listed at a price of 500,000 yuan, and a total of 15 people "wanted".

At present, in the second-hand trading platform and QQ group, the real estate of Rainbow Universe is almost "one price a day". Compared with the previous virtual real estate that cost hundreds of thousands of yuan, the price has now shrunk to several hundred to dozens of yuan. On the second-hand trading platform, there are also buyers who want to bid 1,500 yuan to buy the highest level SS-level islands around the sea.

"I have withdrawn from the Rainbow Universe virtual real estate transaction, before there were more than 100 sets of different levels of real estate in the game, since last year, the virtual real estate has been slow to sell, tens of thousands of yuan have shrunk to several hundred yuan, and it is difficult to sell." Youhong Universe "house speculation" players told reporters that they did not expect the popularity of meta-universe real estate to drop so quickly.

The metaverse "house speculation" was short-lived

According to a report by Daily Economic News in September 2022, the popularity of metaverse "house speculation" is like a flash in the pan, especially the plunge since 2022 has made more entrants quit the market and more followers stop.

Talking about the reasons for the collapse of metaverse virtual real estate since 2022, some analysts pointed out that "it is mainly the collapse of global crypto assets, and the virtual property of the metaverse is closely linked to the crypto market." "In fact, in addition to the so-called collapse of crypto assets, hot spot transfer, free capital exit and other major factors, the collapse of virtual real estate prices reflects that the current metaverse development is still in the early stages, commercialization, virtual real estate application scenarios are seriously insufficient, and the game experience based on virtual real estate development is not good.

The core of the metaverse "house speculation" lies in the value of the virtual space itself rather than the value of the plot, which is based on the value of the new business model brought by the industrialization of the metaverse. It is still necessary to wait for the development of metaverse technology to a certain extent and realize the industrialization of landing, so that virtual real estate can enter a more benign development track.

Image source: "Sandbox Game Sandbox Chinese Window" WeChat public account

In the view of Wang Dongwei, director of Zhongtai Capital, from the perspective of the project alone, the awareness of virtual land is too advanced, and it takes too long to land.

"The advent of an era has a commonality, that is, it will solve many life problems, or it is necessary to improve life efficiency or work efficiency. For example, telephones, computers, mobile phones, Internet, mobile Internet, e-commerce, etc., there are outstanding representatives in every era. The metaverse does have a lot of room for imagination, but the basic speculation is a pseudo-concept. ”

Further, from the underlying logic, the so-called virtual properties on the metaverse platform are essentially NFTs. NFT is a digital asset issued based on blockchain technology, and each piece of real estate has "uniqueness" because its property ownership and transaction flow are recorded and cannot be tampered with. For example, in Decentraland, the platform has designed a total of 90,000 plots and will not add more in the future, to ensure the "scarcity" of land.

However, this "uniqueness" and "scarcity" are in some cases "disconnected" from the real economy. The voice of skepticism has never stopped: "In the real world, real estate is valuable because land is a scarce resource. However, this scarcity does not necessarily apply to the metaverse. Because in these virtual worlds, you can build unlimited properties. ”

According to Hu Jiye, director of the Blockchain Finance Rule of Law Research Center at China University of Political Science and Law, the metaverse is a simulation of real society, and it cannot exist without reality. "Previously, the metaverse virtual real estate speculation, which was particularly popular in foreign countries, especially in South Korea, has now plummeted by 90%, and one of the important reasons is that virtual real estate speculation is completely separated from the real economy and reduced to concept and expected hype. Therefore, the development of the metaverse must have application scenarios that combine the real economy. ”

Daily economic news comprehensive China Securities News, every economic network (Reporter: Xie Tao)

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