Weekly Metaverse Land Sales on Ethereum and Solana Hit $100 Million

The majority of money invested in metaverse land goes to Ethereum-based projects, but Solana is becoming more popular.

Interest in virtual real estate, or metaverse land, is on the rise, according to crypto analytics firm DappRadar. Last week, for example, more than $100 million was spent.

Non-fungible tokens, which are special digital tokens that can be used as proof of ownership on goods obtained online, such as audio, art, or even a piece of metaverse land, are used to represent metaverse land. The Ethereum network currently hosts the majority of metaverse operations. Though rival network Solana is catching up fast, the Ethereum blockchain powers (ETH), the second largest crypto project by market cap.

Investors can buy land in the metaverse, build their own virtual environment on top of it, engage with peers, and explore as avatars using NFTs, regardless of the network.

The dramatic surge in metaverse investing has been facilitated by Meta, previously Facebook. The renaming was part of a goal to focus on developing an NFT metaverse, in which the tech corporation is the seventh-largest in the world by market size.

DappRadar said in a blog post,

"The wave of attention towards virtual worlds like The Sandbox and Decentraland started with Facebook's rebranding to Meta ... Undoubtedly, metaverse land is the next big hit in the NFT space. Outputting record sales numbers and constantly increasing NFT prices, virtual worlds are the new top commodity in the crypto space. Metaverse events are becoming an industry standard in the crypto space," added DappRadar.

Land on the largest metaverse project, The Sandbox, was purchased for $86.56 million last week. Adidas teamed up with The Sandbox last week, describing the metaverse as one of the most exciting breakthroughs in the digital environment. Sandbox's reputation as the top metaverse project for investors was boosted as a result of the alliance.

Other notable investors in The Sandbox include American rapper Snoop Dogg, Softbank, a Japanese tech investment firm, LG Technology Ventures, and blockchain gaming business Animoca Brands, in addition to Adidas.

In the past seven days, investors have spent approximately $25 million on Decentraland, which has also attracted investors. For example, Metaverse Group, a virtual real estate company based in NFT, spent $2.43 million on a piece of virtual land over the last seven days.

Also according to DappRadar, Somnium Space and CryptoVoxels, two other Ethereum virtual worlds, sold $1.10 million and $2.68 million last week in land sales respectively.

Storing virtual currencies in banks

Major financial institutions are actively participating in digital assets by making investments in custodial technology solutions using money, time, and expertise.

Up until 2020, retail interest accounted for a major portion of the cryptocurrency market's activity. Institutions didn't start taking part in this asset class seriously until about August 2020. Retail and institutional investors hopped on the crypto trend as the US Federal Reserve pumped trillions of dollars of stimulus into the economy during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Contrary to claims made by crypto advocates, the total market capitalization of the asset class is just approximately $1 trillion. When juxtaposed to the $11 trillion gold market and the more than $100 trillion corporate bonds, that amount is rather tiny. Institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based virtual currencies still has a long way to go.