If you want to be Snoop Dogg’s virtual neighbor in the Metaverse, it could set you back about $450,000.
That’s how much one NFT collector dropped last week to buy a plot of virtual land in the Snoopverse — an interactive world the rapper is developing in The Sandbox, “an Ethereum-based platform for creating and monetizing online hangout spaces and gaming experiences.”
By being Snoop’s virtual neighbor, owners are also promised access to “exclusive, members-only parties at a digital replica of his California mansion,” Consequence reports.
Snoopverse residents (Snoopites? Snoopers?) can deck their avatars out in designer duds, drive souped-up sports cars, and build on their own Snoopverse plots, which allows them to profit off other residents who visit. Kind of like The Sims, but much more expensive.
Snoop isn’t the only big name partnered with The Sandbox. Electronic producer Deadmau5 and intellectual properties like the popular TV show The Walking Dead, The Smurfs, and Care Bears already own land on the platform, which recently closed a $93 million Series B funding round led by SoftBank.
The virtual real estate market is heating up. The four leading virtual land platforms —The Sandbox, Decentraland, CryptoVoxels, and Somnium Space —reportedly sold $100 million worth of virtual land in the form of NFTs in one week. Of that group, The Sandbox made the biggest bucks, generating a massive $86.5 million.
“Brands are scrambling to catch up,” Corey Herscu, a marketing and communications expert who advises NFT artists and companies, told Rolling Stone. “The next logical step is for them to start buying land and advertising in the metaverse.”
Since land plots are limited in the metaverse, they retain value, and Herscu claims early investors will reap the biggest rewards when big companies decide to go all in on the metaverse real estate game.