With a $2.42 million price tag, the Fashion Street Estate in the virtual world of Decentraland changed hands. The buyer acquired the estate of a combined 116 land parcels for 618.000 MANA, and then immediately transferred their purchase to a new wallet.
For now the buyer remains anonymous, and their intentions with the Fashion Street Estate are not yet known. The name of the estate can change; therefore the name says nothing about the buyer’s intentions. Nonetheless, $2.42 million is an impressive amount for a big estate in a virtual world.
The purchase of the Fashion Street Estate has been the biggest dollar purchase to date in Decentraland. As a matter of fact, it’s the most expensive piece of land in the entire metaverse. Five months ago an estate in Decentraland sold for 1.29 million MANA, which was $914.000 at the time of the sale. This amount of MANA would now be worth more than $5.4 million.
What is Decentraland?
Decentraland is a community-governed virtual world where MANA token holders get a vote in the direction the development team needs to take. Any user with a PC or laptop can enter the world, visit galleries, join social events or play games. However landowners get special privileges: a stake in the world. With that comes the opportunity to showcase your brand, ideas, creativity or NFT collection to the world.
The Decentraland Foundation builds various tools to give landowners easier methods to create their own attractions. Some build games, others create venues for virtual events. The most recent Metaverse Festival took place in Decentraland, and featured music performances by Deadmau5, 3LAU, RAC and Paris Hilton.
Virtual worlds like Decentraland are becoming digital extensions of our physical world, allowing communities to connect without the need of being in the same geographical location. In the metaverse, belongings transcend physical limitations and national borders. With the COVID pandemic hitting local economies, virtual worlds are perfectly positioned to fill the gap.
Virtual reality, the next frontier
There’s currently a strong demand for virtual land in the metaverse as both token prices and land value have increased strongly in the past month. Native tokens like MANA, SAND and CUBE have seen their values quadruple in a matter of weeks. The trigger for these events has been the announcement of Facebook rebranding to Meta, and focusing on the metaverse. Suddenly the whole world knows about virtual real estate.
The $2.44 million purchase of the Fashion Street Estate means an all-time high for Decentraland. Thus far, no land purchase exceeded the $1 million mark. Other virtual worlds see similar trends. For example, the biggest purchases in Somnium Space didn’t exceed $444.000 or 250 ETH at the time of the purchase 8 months ago. In addition, someone paid $353.000 for an estate in The Sandbox three days ago. While the highest land sale in Cryptovoxels has a price of $267.640.
