Category: Blockchain-Based Virtual Worlds

This category is for all the new cryptocurrency- and blockchain-based social VR spaces and virtual worlds (Decentraland, The Deep, Ethernia, Mark Space, Somnium Space, Staramba Spaces, Terra Virtua, VIBEHub, Virtual Universe, etc.)

Real Estate Brokers for the Blockchain-Based Metaverse Platforms: Trend or Fad?

See also: The Billion Dollar Real Estate Company Using VirBELA For Its Virtual Offices

Of course, virtual real estate brokers are not new; Second Life, over the 18+ years of its existence, has had dozens and dozens of companies who buy, subdivide, and sell virtual land for your home or business use. In fact, that’s how the first person to earn a million dollars (U.S.) in Second Life made her fortune! Anshe Chung even had her avatar featured on the May 2006 cover of BusinessWeek magazine (see image, right), an event which sparked a boom period for Second Life, as many people and companies piled on, lured by the opportunity to make some money.

And the newer, much-hyped blockchain-based virtual worlds are going through a similar boom at present, with a predictable result: the rise of the real estate agent who specializes in selling land on the blockchain to individuals and companies!

The Metaverse Property website homepage

Among the pioneers in this rapidly-evolving market are Metaverse Property, which was established by the Canadian cryptocurrency entrepreneurs Michael Gord and Jason Cassidy. They describe their service as follows:

The Metaverse Group is a leading virtual real estate company offering exposure to this burgeoning industry via the Metaverses. We facilitate the acquisition of virtual property along with a suite of virtual real estate centric services that are provided by pioneers of the crypto, blockchain and non-fungible token (NFT) industries.

We currently offer (or plan to offer) the following services to help you enter and engage in the metaverse:

• Buying and selling of virtual real estate across the Metaverses
• Development of virtual land (we help bring your dream to life)
• Expert level consulting for all major metaverses
• Finding a rental within the metaverses to fit any need
• Property management of existing real estate
• Marketing and advertising your business in the metaverse

At press time, Metaverse Properties is brokering the sale of NFT-based virtual real estate in Decentraland and Somnium Space (both of which have already launched), and The Sandbox (which recently completed a first, closed alpha test, and is expected to launch later this year):

And even some real-life real estate brokers are jumping on the bandwagon. Kim Velsey wrote in New York magazine last month:

Tal and Oren Alexander, the brothers who became famous for closing megadeals in their early 20s then moved onto the biggest deals ever in their early 30s — they represented Ken Griffin when he bought that record-setting $238 million penthouse at 220 Central Park South in 2019 — recently announced that they’ll be developing and selling luxury real estate in the metaverse…

The brothers have formed a partnership with Republic Realm, a metaverse developer that recently paid $4.3 million for virtual property in the Sandbox, one of the more popular metaverses. (It also owns a 259-parcel virtual estate in Decentraland that it bought for about $900,000.) “We want to just focus on trophy properties in the various metaverses,” Alexander told the Real Deal. This will take the form, according to Republic Realm, of an “architecturally significant master-planned community.” Which sounds a little (or very?) depressing.

Real estate has always been about status and shelter, skewing increasingly toward the former as one moves up the economic ladder. Speculators like Republic Realm and the Alexanders are banking (literally) on the fact that you can take the shelter piece out of the real-estate equation altogether, leaving just speculation and status. 

Kim raises an important point about all this speculation in blockchain-based virtual real estate, which is all about artificially-induced scarcity: that it’s a luxury item, a status item, something to give you (or your company) bragging rights. Real-world real estate agents like the Alexanders wouldn’t give a toss about the metaverse unless they smelled an opportunity to make money.

As I have written before, we’ve already seen the rise and subsequent fall (circa 2006 to 2008) of Second Life, when everybody and their dog trooped in, set up shop, then just as quickly trooped out a year or two later, when they realized that the money-making opportunities were just not what they had hoped for. It takes more than just setting up a virtual version of your brand to make money in the metaverse!

And, while the current signs for the blockchain-based social VR platforms and flat-screen virtual worlds certainly do look very promising, it still remains to be seen whether all this excitement will translate to the average, non-crypto consumer. All the people and companies who are currently investing in virtual real estate in Cryptovoxels, Decentraland, Somnium Space, and other NFT-based real estate won’t have a problem attracting the blockchain enthusiasts, the crypto bros (and women, and those who identify as non-binary).

They will, however, also have to entice Joe and Jane Average Consumer to pay a visit, set up a wallet and an avatar, obtain and spend cryptocurrency, and stick around long enough to help build a strong community. And that’s going to be a much harder sell.

We could see a repeat of what happened in Second Life, as companies realized that they were spending a lot of money on something that wasn’t helping their bottom line, and then largely pulled out. Or we could see great success, who knows? (God knows my track record at making predictions on this blog is absolutely abysmal. I once infamously predicted that Cryptovoxels would fail miserably, and they have been going from strength to strength! I also predicted that Virtual Universe would be a hit, only to have it fold. So, meh, what do I know??!?)

But I do find it amusing how so many people are breathlessly talking about the metaverse like it’s some new thing, as if the non-blockchain-based virtual worlds and virtual worlds never existed for them. Half the time now, when I click on an article talking about the metaverse, all it talks about are NFT-based virtual real estate. There’s just so much more out there, and I believe it’s important to take a broader view of all this, especially in the current hype cycle of all things metaverse.

So, to answer the question in my admittedly click-bait blogpost title: are virtual real estate agents a trend or a fad? I would argue, based on my 14+ years of experience in Second Life, that they are an already-established trend worth watching. I think that there is a possibility that in the future, real estate agents will buy, sell, and trade virtual properties, acting as brokers for individual and corporate customers who don’t want to fuss with their purchasing experience on OpenSea and other NFT marketplaces, and are willing to pay to have somebody advise and navigate them through all the fussy details of owning a piece of the metaverse.

UPDATED: Cryptoland Just Lost Its Island in Fiji

Cryptoland’s contract to purchase Nananu-i-cake, the Fijian island which was to be its home base for its fantastical crypto paradise, has fallen through, and the island is once again up for sale on the market

You may have been following my recent blogposts about the Cryptoland project (here and here), and so I bring you this breaking news, courtesy of The Guardian newspaper:

Widely mocked plans to establish a tropical haven for cryptocurrency enthusiasts have run into trouble after a contract to buy an island in Fiji for US$12 million fell through.

A group of crypto-evangelists, led by Max Olivier and Helena Lopez, outlined plans for the island, Nananu-i-cake, in a lavishly animated YouTube video, featuring a wide-eyed crypto bro named Christopher landing by helicopter and being given a guided tour by a talking coin called Connie.

The full YouTube clip has been taken down, but cached copies show it touted the island as “an international hub for the community to come live, work and have fun and enjoy a first-class crypto lifestyle”, boasting “a complete ecosystem that represents the blooming crypto space” that was “a paradise made by crypto enthusiasts for crypto enthusiasts”.

Ben Butler of The Guardian goes on to write:

But the project appears to have hit a bigger hurdle than bad publicity. The real estate agent selling Nananu-i-cake, Rick Kermode, of New Zealand firm Bayleys, told Guardian Australia that the contract to sell it to Cryptoland’s backers fell through this week and the island was back on the market.

“We’re telling people that it was under contract during the period of time that they had the contract but it has come back on the market,” he said.

So, it would appear that Cryptoland’s grand plans have come to nought, unless they can somehow find a way to renegotiate the contract. Somehow, given all the negative publicity and ridicule this project has attracted, I don’t think that is going to happen.

I had also heard that they had removed the project’s highly-scrutinized white paper (called a “Why Paper” ) from the Cryptoland website, but I was able to locate it fairly easily, here. Of course, they’re still minting their butt-ugly NFTs, and still trying to sell the project to crypto bros using the face, voice, and quotes from Carlos Matos:

As to why Cryptoland would want to associate Mr. Matos (infamous for his batshit crazy speech promoting the BitConnect ponzi scheme) with their project in any way absolutely mystifies me. I mean, c’mon people, the quote comes from this:

So, it would appear that the strange Cryptoland saga is coming to an end sooner than expected! However, I have no doubt that many equally cringeworthy NFT projects will come along to take its place in 2022.

UPDATE Jan. 16th, 2022: Well, it looks as though I wrote off Cryptoland too easily! Apparently, the team is undeterred by this development. I am not on the official Cryptoland Discord, but someone shared the following screen capture with me:

I know it’s a bit hard to read, so here is a transcription:

Thanks for the list of thoughtful points.

1. Right now the purchase agreement is until December 17th, but we had a conversation with the sellers of the island and they said they would be open to extend it (for a few more months, we need to discuss that still) if things look promising (if we get more investors). The island has been for sale for many years, no one is going to buy it right now, even if the contract expires.

2. If somehow someone were to buy the island, we would find another one (there are some) or we could re-buy it from the new owner maybe. This island is going to be for Cryptoland, we know the market for islands like this is very small, the risks of someone else acquiring before us are very low.

This response seems overly confident, bordering on brash, to me. All this talk about simply switching to another island if Nananu-i-cake is sold to another buyer means (among other things) that the Cryptoland team will have to completely rewrite their white paper proposal, as well as impact the layout and even the number of real estate parcels they can sell. Stop and ponder this incontrovertible fact for a moment: Cryptoland is already selling land on an island they don’t even own yet.

I still believe that this project is never going to come to fruition. Anyway, the Cryptoland saga seems to have a few more chapters left, Stay tuned!

Wilder World: A Brief Introduction

Wilder World’s website features some rather disturbing imagery; a crystal skull?

Today, through a VentureBeat article about the metaverse, I learned about a blockchain-based metaverse platform called Wilder World, which I had never heard of before, so I decided to do a little investigating.

Wilder World is an Unreal-based platform using the Ethereum blockchain, with its own cryptocurrency (WILD), which appears to be catering to NFT (Non-Fungible Token) artists. According to the VentureBeat article I read:

Wilder World is a newer metaverse than The Sandbox and Decentraland. Built on Ethereum, Unreal Engine 5, and its sister company ZERO.tech, Wilder World is a metaverse based on photorealism. Wilder World’s team consists of experienced 5D artists — including founder Frank Wilder and Chad Knight who was previously at Nike — that help to create exquisite in-game graphics for Wilder World’s metaverse.

The first city built in the Wilder World metaverse is #Wiami, a 1 to 1 replica of the city Miami. Like Miami in real life, Wilder World says #Wiami is poised to become the crypto hub of the metaverse. Wilder World is powered by the token $WILD, which can be used to purchase NFTs such as wilder.kicks, wilder.wheels, and wilder.cribs. The NFTs’ value doesn’t just stop at aesthetics. NFT owners can use their items in-game or stake their NFTs to earn more rewards.

Wiami? OK, whatever, bro… 🙄

Like many similar NFT metaverse projects, Wilder World is already selling vehicles (“wheels”), sneakers (“kicks”), and condos (“cribs”). They also plan to sell virtual land NFTs. However, there is as yet—at least, as far as far as I can tell—no currently-available metaverse platform which you can visit as an avatar yet. A May 10th, 2021 article by Dean Takahashi states:

If it sounds a little fuzzy on the metaverse details, it’s a little fuzzy. The company said that the best example of what it means when they say “metaverse” is Ready Player One. The company added, “In essence, a fully immersive, 3D virtual world that can be accessed with a VR headset. Unlike normal games, Wilder World enables games and economies created in world. Given that all economic transactions and ownership in Wilder World happen on the blockchain, assets are ‘interoperable’ between different game worlds. Wilder World’s objective is to create an immersive reality that is as similar to this reality as possible.’

Wilder World also has what it calls a Guild, which it describes as follows:

Wilder.Guild is Wilder World’s first official artist DAO. Built for and by artists, the guild is curating the greatest 3D artists of our time to collaborate on the stories, characters, and environments that will ultimately become the Metaverse.

DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization, a blockchain-based structure represented by rules encoded as a computer program, which is completely transparent, and controlled by the organization’s members (definition taken from Wikipedia).

One aspect of Wilder World which I found very interesting is that, in addition to using Discord and Telegram, they are using something called ZERO (a product from a sister company) as a community discussion platform, which at first glance, looks rather similar to Discord:

According to their “zine” webpage:

We are honored to officially invite you to join the Wilder World private network on ZERO, as we collectively transcend deeper into our immersive 3D Metaverse powered entirely by NFTs. We are super excited to give our audience early access to the ZERO network.

The powerful network enables communication, collaboration and commerce. This occurs directly between content-creators, developers, and members, independent of third parties or big tech. It’s where curious minds come to access unparalleled behind the scenes concepts and content from the Wilders.

The ZERO platform provides a number of useful features for our community (artists, collectors and fans) to connect, collaborate and co-create, some of those features include –

PROFILES: Curate your profile highlighting your skillset and portfolio

CHANNELS: Tailored chat channels to keep up to date with all the $WILD and Metaverse news

MESSAGE: Join town halls, AMAs or have video chats with other Wilders

VIDEO: Real-time direct messaging old and new friends

FEED: Share the latest articles, artwork, and videos with the Wilder community

ZERO is the technology infrastructure that powers Wilder World allowing our vision of a multi-levelled, photorealistic and mixed reality Metaverse to really come to life. An immersive world where our community can acquire virtual land and express themselves through unique avatars, decorative digital assets and fashionable accessories.

With all this talk of “wheels”, “kicks”, “cribs”, and “zines”, I came away from my investigations today feeling distinctly ancient and out-of-touch, and most definitely not one of the cool kids… 😉 Ryan takes a swig of Geritol, and yells at those damn kids to get off his lawn:

Ryan, after looking at Wilder World

However, what Wilder World is doing might be just up your alley, especially if you are an NFT artist looking for a community of like-minded people!

For further information about Wilder World, please visit their website, join their Discord server, their Telegram group or their ZERO group, or follow them on social media: Twitter and Instagram. And, of course, I will duly add Wilder World to my ever-expanding popular list of metaverse platforms.

Somnium Space Announces a Branded Virtual Reality Headset

Somnium Space’s announced VR headset will work both standalone and tethered (image source)

Somnium Space has been busy! In a Medium post last October, as part of several announcements of investments in various XR technologies such as TESLASUIT and XTAL, they wrote:

We are extremely excited to share with all of you what we have been working on already for months — a Somnium Space VR headset. At Somnium we believe that users must have the right of choice. That VR hardware market should not consist of few big players producing headsets with closed eco systems thus creating silos and with full control over user experience and more importantly data. Moreover, as a decentralized and open Metaverse company we cannot allow Somnium Space to be dependent on hardware gatekeepers to be able to communicate and engage with our users. That is why, earlier this year we have taken a strategic decision to start working on our own VR headset.

Currently we are deep in the R&D phase, finalizing specifications and component details. Testing compatibility and preparing supply chain. In December 2021, during Somnium Connect physical and VR event we will release final specifications and more details about production and delivery timelines, prices and much more. As of now we can share few high-level teasers about headset:

– Standalone mode powered by Snapdragon XR2 chip

– Native PC VR mode

– Open, community driven software eco-system

– Modular design

We can not wait to share more information in December and work on this together with you — community and amazing partner companies for seamless integrations of hardware and software experiences.

On Dec. 22nd, 2021, Bobby Carleton of VRScout reported:

The headset, which [Somnium Space CEO Artur] Sychov refers to as the “Somnium VR Headset”, is packed with some killer specs and designed specifically for a VR audience that doesn’t want to be tied to a specific app store or be boxed into any sort of platform restrictions. 

“We wanted to create a headset that you truly own. We didn’t want to lock you down into our ecosystem,” said Sychov. “We didn’t not want to allow you to do things with your own items. If you buy a VR headset from Somnium Space, you truly own it.”

According to Somnium, the headset features a modular design that allows you to easily customize your experience. You can also remove the sides and bottom of the headset to add custom 3D printed accessories (up to 55 lbs!), making it a truly customizable VR headset. “We really believe in modularity,” said Sychov, adding, “with access to the platform, you’ll be able to extend the life of the headset.” 

Another cool feature is that Somnium’s VR headset is completely programmable, which means you can dive into the system to change the actions of the buttons and sensors in order to meet your custom needs. 

Somnium Space, which is best known for its open social VR platform that integrates blockchain and cryptocurrency for true ownership of digital goods and virtual land, partnered with VRgineers (makers of the XTAL 3 headset) to develop their own hardware. Though not as beefy as VRgineers’ XTAL 3 headset, which is designed for enterprise use, Somnium Space looks to raise the bar for non-enterprise VR headset expectations.

Somnium Space hopes to deliver their branded virtual reality headset to consumers by the fourth quarter of 2022. These are very ambitious plans, and UploadVR‘s Jamie Felton notes:

These are ambitious plans for sure, and it’s worth remembering the difficulties many other small to medium-sized companies have faced bringing VR hardware to market. DecaGear recently drastically revised its plans for a $450 SteamVR headset to $700, citing the realities of competing with Meta. Plus there are many vital elements of Somnium’s plans that still sound up in the air, like a reference to “researching Micro OLED displays” which would surely drastically change the shape and form of the product.

As far as I am aware, Somnium Space is the first social VR platform (besides Meta) to offer a branded VR headset. I wish Artur Sychov and his team every success in their gutsy endeavour!