Metaverse is gaining traction around the world as an investment opportunity. With each passing day, more and more people are buying virtual objects that exist on the metaverse. From sneakers to real estate, there’s really no dearth of things you can buy on the metaverse, as long as you have the needed capital. While there have been several debates on the feasibility of buying real estate plots on the metaverse, billionaire investor and “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban has finally come out with his own take on virtual properties. And he isn’t holding back!
“The worst part is that people are buying real estate in these places,” Cuban said. “That’s the dumbest s*** ever.” Cuban was speaking on the metaverse during an interview on the Altcoin Daily YouTube channel and expressed his disappointment with the popularity of virtual plot purchases. Companies like Sandbox and Decentraland sell such digital plots of land to users who can buy, sell, or lease them later on.
The valuation of land plots in the metaverse works similar to real-life land value, based on scarcity and location. However, as per a Business Insider report noted that the same rules cant apply on the metaverse as you can’t really create scarcity artificially.
During the interview, Cuban said, “It's not even as good as a URL or an ENS, because there's unlimited volumes that you can create.” ENS, or Ethereum naming service, are domains that serve as crypto wallet addresses that you can read. As per the Business Insider report, virtual lands may be of interest for big brands like Apple or Adidas who wish to build social experiences for their customers.
Metaverse is hyped as the future of social interaction, where people will be able to meet and interact with friends as well as professional colleagues in virtual worlds via their virtual avatars with the use of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) glasses and devices. The term “metaverse” particularly came under the limelight when last year, Mark Zuckerberg renamed his company, Facebook, to Meta, to reflect the brand’s renewed focus on the metaverse.
Cuban dismissed the fad, saying, “Right now it's more talk than anything.” Interestingly, Cuban has always been a strong supporter of crypto. Even his NBA team, Dallas Mavericks, was one of the first major sports organisations to start accepting Dogecoin (DOGE) for tickets and official merchandise back in March 2021.
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