While Decentraland is one of the most popular blockchain-based virtual worlds, it’s not the only world in its lineage: Somnium Space, SuperWorld, and Sandbox are all variations on the same theme. Some have offered pre-built rental functionality for years.
A virtual landlord, Chris Bell, who owns one of the largest land portfolios in Somnium Space, says he made $18,000 in rent in 2021. After definitively renting out the properties apartment in the real world, he created something virtual. Real estate empire, accumulated 100 pieces of land. Bell says that the same set of golden rules — buy in a desirable location, invest in property improvements, and set rental prices accordingly — apply in the virtual and real sectors.
Sam Huber, CEO of LandVault, says the real money comes from combining land leasing with ancillary services like virtual property design and development. His company, which aims to provide a simple “end-to-end” service to tenants, is now able to recoup the cost of buying a plot of land in as little as two months.
While the issuance of virtual assets is extremely niche, the entire industry has been established around this concept. Not only virtual landlords, but property managers and real estate agents supporting them, and developers helping to design and build the buildings they want to rent out. There are even investment firms that specialize in virtual assets.
The idea that someone might be willing to pay to temporarily occupy a piece of virtual land is curious in itself, but what’s even more interesting is that it speaks to the trajectory of blockchain-powered virtual worlds. these blocks and the social dynamics that form within them.
According to Philip Rosedale, author of Second Life, implicit in this arrangement was the formation of a new “winner-takes-all” class system. The land aristocracy sat at the top of the social pyramid and below them were professionals and tenants — the latter being prevented by prices from raising the property ladder on their own.
The growth of sophisticated industries can be interpreted as an indication of the growing maturity of virtual communities. But it can also be a sign of illness, says Rosedale, whose 3D online world pioneered the concept of virtual real estate in the early 2000s.
“The accumulation of wealth in virtual economies is of great concern,” Rosedale stated. Since there is no ongoing cost of ownership for virtual land owners, he said, there would be “immutable” and “destructive” asset consolidation in the hands of a minority.
Similar theories are put forward by Roger Burrows, a sociologist and professor specializing in digital culture and social inequality at the University of Bristol, and Vassilis Galanos, lecturer in sociology at the University of Edinburgh. .
Burrows said the development of virtual real estate is “deeply political”. He sees the virtual world as a place where people go to connect with others who share their political beliefs. In this case, the so-called cryptocurrencies have built a world they preside over, as owners of the land, built around the same suspicion towards governments and institutions. public institution in which the cryptocurrency movement was founded. Nominally anyone is welcome, but only as a tenant.
