As quoted by the very famous Pulitzer prize winner Margaret Mitchell, “Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything”. This line couldn’t be truer, in today’s day and age. Buying real estate is the only way to have safe and long term returns. But, in an era of extreme population boom, where our resources are dwindling down, because let’s face it, they aren’t building land anymore, how realistic is it to own a piece of real estate? Ok, so the next big thing and the next best alternate maybe to own your own virtual space in the Metaverse. But what exactly is Metaverse and how does one buy or sell real estate on it? Metaverse is basically a 3 dimensional place that is engaging, immersive and a shared space where you can experience any and all facets of virtual reality. Owning a piece of land in Metaverse basically means owning a land pocket that is not tangible. It is a bunch of pixels that can be used to build any number of things, from schools to museums and from monuments to theme parks. People who are keen on being land owners can invest in one of the many property developers. Decentraland (MANA), Enjin (ENJ) and Sandbox (Sand) are a few of the top projects that have revolutionized the Metaverse real estate industry. But one does wonder, how safe is it to buy land in Metaverse? With Mark Zuckerberg, rebranding Facebook into Meta, and changing his Avatar, the real estate sector in the Metaverse took a whopping leap, and is expected to increase by 31% compound annual growth rate, by 2028. One may believe that Metaverse is the way to the future, but the question stands how safe is it really? Even though it’s predicted to appreciate in value, the real estate in Metaverse is highly volatile, making it a hot topic of debate. Since it is charged by crypto currency, how does one evaluate NFTs in the real world? In an arena where the supply is unlimited and the demand being scarce, how is a owning a piece of land in the cloud, that is not tangible or that which is not fungible going to appreciate in value? While buying a property in the real world is something that exists in reality and can be appreciated monetarily and in physicality, spending that hard earned money on NFTs that are intangible sounds a like a bit of stretch. What is the surety of any returns at all? Apart from all this, it comes with other sets of problems such as extremely high cost of equipment’s, bullying and harassment, privacy encroachment, security breaches, data theft etc. The internet is without a doubt the future. The technological progress made in the past couple of decades is absolutely mind boggling. The pandemic has only given internet a boost and proved that the opportunities given by it are staggering. But, given the safety and unpredictable nature of real estate in Metaverse, we can conservatively say, we are still years from making it sustainable for all.
(The author is Mr. Mrinaal Mittal, Director, Black Teak and the views expressed in this article are his own)
