The Tenant Living In My Metaverse House Won’t Pay Rent — What Are My Legal Options?
There are many ways to spend money but who knew people would be spending millions of dollars on virtual real estate in the Metaverse just as early as 2022.
If that sounds crazy, here is a fact that will blow your mind.
Buying virtual land now could essentially set you on the path to owning a virtual house and eventually becoming a virtual landlord down the line.
I know it’s a tough idea to sell, and people have many questions. And many jokes that will leave you in stitches.
The idea of putting the word “virtual” before everything is in itself funny, but it becomes free stand up comedy when people start joking about evicting rogue virtual tenants from their Metaverse houses.
I recently saw some fellas joking about this and it was wild to say the least.
The hype around Metaverse has been unceasing since Facebook rebranded to Meta in October.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s focus will be to bring the metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses.
It’s astonishing how many exciting new possibilities are being imagined. And I believe this is the reason why there’s a good number of people who do not buy into the idea.
I mean, if I was just going with my gut, without doing any research, the Metaverse sounds so ridiculously stupid.
And in all fairness, wasn’t that what people thought about Bitcoin early on?
Welcome to the internet
But when you go down the rabbit hole, it becomes clear that the virtual world, just like crypto, is full of ground-breaking use cases which are set to change the future of everything.
The contemporary definition of a virtual world is a 3D web environment where you can interact within the world or with other users through an avatar.
The leaders in this space currently are Decentraland, The Sandbox and Earth 2.
One thing about the virtual world is that it exudes some glaring similarities with the real world which makes it even more attractive.
In the case of Earth 2, you have a digital earth that has all of the same places as real earth.
This virtual earth is divided into equal sized plots of land, which you can buy.
Plot values vary by country. So if you are buying a virtual plot in the US, the price will be the same for every plot, whether you’re buying in Manhattan or Omaha.
But a plot in Manhattan will be of a different value than a plot in Shanghai because they reside in different countries.
So what’s the point?
Gauging from the resources and talent that have been poured into building the Metaverse, its likely virtual reality will grow very fast and could soon become prevalent in the world just like the social media web.
When that milestone is reached, the possibilities will be limitless.
For example, you will be able to rent out your virtual plots. If people want to meet up for a virtual trip or meeting in Rome, and you own virtual land there, you can rent it out to them to use in exchange for real money.
Now this begs the question, if you had a choice between free actual land in the middle of nowhere and a piece of prime virtual real estate- would you choose physical, or virtual land?
I know the answer is pretty obvious here given that you can’t grow crops and raise cattle or horses in the virtual world, but let’s provide more context to prove the case for the Metaverse.
Imagine a museum of ultra-rare NFTs that you have to pay to enter. I know you might be wondering why anyone would pay to look at something you can look at on the internet for free.
But also consider that technology is always evolving and maybe at some point it won’t be for free to see some of these rare NFTs.
From my understanding, the next evolution of the Metaverse will allow users to display NFTs in virtual houses. This means that anyone who visits these metaworlds using VR headsets will be able to see the artwork and that’s where the value comes in.
The potential of this technology has started to attract corporations and even governments as they seek to gain presence and competitiveness in the emerging technologies.
Adidas recently purchased a plot of land in The Sandbox with the eventual plan to sell wearable NFTs of shoes that you can buy at the store situated on their land.
The interesting part is that you’d be able to wear Adidas NFT in The Sandbox and also receive actual shoes.
Even though the existing Metaverse worlds are built around NFTs, new horizons are being explored.
Some exciting use cases that go beyond NFTs are in the realm of government services, specifically the concept of issuing e-passports via the Metaverse.
The island nation of Barbados is exploring this idea and has already signed an agreement with Decentraland for the establishment of a digital embassy.
Pretty cool if you could go to a virtual office to renew your passport instead of a physical one, isn’t it?
Bottom line
Some of the ideas that have been proposed for the Metaverse were actually executed in Second Life.
This is an online in-game experience that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and have a second life in an online virtual world.
Second Life has been around since 2003 and plenty of people have made incredible sums of money in that game.
I’ve actually read a story somewhere in the interwebs about a guy who paid for his daughter’s summer trip abroad from profits made from buying and selling land in Second Life.
Right now, virtual real estate prices are sky high. You’d have to part with $20,000 for cheapest land in either Decentraland or The Sandbox.
I think it is worth mentioning that location of the virtual real estate still matters, whether in Second Life or the Metaworld.
This was recently demonstrated in The Sandbox when someone paid about $450,000 to be Snoop Dogg’s Metaverse neighbor.
That plot is right next to the location where Snoop plans to recreate his California mansion.
In the scenario above, one thing that sticks out is that virtual land is still a luxury that a lot of people can’t afford.
Another thing to keep in mind is that The Sandbox and Decentraland are the current leaders in the realm of interconnected 3D virtual worlds, which not only gives them a first mover advantage but makes virtual property on those platforms insanely expensive.
The truth though is that we’re very early in the whole metaverse development and it’s hard to say which metaworld will succeed in the long run.
This is something to keep in mind when investing in anything.
But I personally believe that if whatever you’re buying is cheap enough and you believe in the project then throwing a few dollars won’t hurt.
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Disclaimer
This article is meant for educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice.