In October, Tokens.com, a blockchain technology company focused on NFTs and metaverse real estate, acquired 50 percent of Metaverse Group, one of the world’s first virtual real estate companies, for about $1.7 million. Metaverse Group is based in Toronto but has virtual headquarters in a world called Decentraland in Crypto Valley, which is the metaverse’s answer to Silicon Valley. Decentraland also has districts for gambling, shopping, fashion and the arts.
Since that acquisition, Tokens.com has broken digital ground on a tower in Decentraland. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Burberry and other luxury brands have already entered the metaverse via NFTs, a move that makes company executives optimistic that the Tokens.com tower will soon generate revenue from leases and advertising for brands like these.
Michael Gord, a co-founder of the Metaverse Group, said skeptics should look at the trends catalyzed by the pandemic. “As more people participate, it’s where you’re going with friends, where you’re having experiences like conferences and concerts,” he said. “It’s inevitable that the metaverse will be the No. 1 social network in the world.”
The real world and the online world merge into one hybrid universe, where the fungible and the nonfungible intersect at multiple points, said Justin Banon, a co-founder and the chief executive of Boson Protocol, which enables the sale of physical products in the metaverse as NFTs. Real estate in the metaverse will house the commerce that will drive this transformation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/business/metaverse-real-estate.html