I do wonder if any of these people realise that land in the real world is valuable as its a finite resource (and you know... useful) versus a virtual world where a developer can make infinite plots of land to keep suckers buying. Not to mention there isn't a leader in the "metaverse" so any of these platforms could be surpassed and made obsolete in the near future. I despair at the intelligence of some parts of humanity https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-63488059
I suppose the earlier locations of the land will have higher value as it is more central..... oh wait, virtual people can teleport!
Eh, none of this is new - and people made an absolute killing doing it the last time around. Entropia Universe, launched in 2003, set a record for most expensive virtual objects ever sold in 2004 with a virtual island sold to Zachurm Emegen for $26,500, then again in 2008 when Jon Jacobs bought a space station on an asteroid for $10,000, then again when a different space station was purchased for $330,000 - then again again in 2010 when Jacobs sold what had become Club NEVERDIE for $635,000. Which was then split into chunks and resold for a profit. Again. The game's still going, so I guess technically all of this stuff still has a value... but I can't imagine it's anywhere near the hundreds of thousands it was.
Maybe I'll buy 1 square meter of a sandy virtual place and, put a sign on in with a line from Pink Floyd's The Final Cut: "Get Your filthy Hands Off My Desert"
These are literally speculative investments and are an example of people with too much money. I get the feeling that a lot of this stuff is used as a means to launder money as well. Who monitors these transactions and how do you define value to something that you don't have any guarantees or inherit trust in. Absolute madness IMHO.
It truly is weird to deem such expenditures as "investments"... Maybe it has something to do with how sketchy (and even nonexistent) the legal frame regarding cryptos and NFTs is at the moment. Also, I'm not sure how do they tax these purchases (or is it simply one more route to spin the funds around and back to you...)
