Specialist
Executive at a virtual real estate company
Agenda
- Operating environment for metaverse real estate companies, including REITs (real estate investment trusts), brokers and digital property developers
- Recent trends in digital scarcity and metaverse development
- Positioning of leading metaverse real estate developers, including evolving metrics used to track the performance and valuation of properties, highlighting Decentraland (CRYPTO: MANA) vs Sandbox (CRYPTO: SAND)
- Outlook for Q4 2022 and beyond, including growing applicability of metaverse real estate and regulation expectations
Questions
1.
What are your thoughts on the current operating environment for metaverse real estate, pulling out 2-3 key trends or drivers that you think we should be looking at?
2.
Could you outline the profile of the typical virtual property venture or buyer today? Who are the players involved? Is it more targeted towards consumer or institutional?
3.
Do the concepts of occupancy and lease rates still apply in metaverses, or are there different metrics that we should be looking at? We’ve been seeing a lot more steam-rolled participation, particularly from the institutional end, so people are taking this more seriously.
4.
There are a lot of questions regarding how virtual real estate properties or assets are even valued. Valuation is often rooted in concepts of scarcity, which has been another big question mark for this space. We know physical land is finite and bitcoin has a cap. Where’s the limit, or how do we draw digital scarcity in the metaverse?
5.
Is there any data or metrics that we can track to grade whether Decentraland vs Sandbox have their metaverse real estate concept nailed down better than the other? Are trends suggesting that one model works better than the other?
6.
The state of the metaverse, at least real estate wise, isn’t looking too good. We’ve seen average land prices drop 80% from February 2022 and sales volumes down 97% from November 2021. Where are we going from here and what’s your outlook for the next 1-3 years? Will we start to see prices or the market correcting in any sort of way, or was this bubble crashing the actual correction itself?
7.
Which industry would you highlight was the most active in purchasing land properties in the metaverse when sales velocity was up?
8.
Is location important in the metaverse? You can teleport in the metaverse by just plugging in XY coordinates, but where’s the added value for where property is placed?
9.
Have we seen advertising players get involved in any of the very central located properties?
10.
You mentioned that there’s a different coin attached to the different metaverses. Does this also allude to the fact that investors need to hold a variety of coins to transact in the different metaverses? How should we be thinking about Mread (ph 35.50) native token?
11.
You said you were highly involved with Decentraland, and it’s promoted itself as being an economic hub for digital economic activity. Has the company lived up to this role, or where is it currently in this process?
12.
Can we expect any SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] guidance coming in to regulate transactions across metaverses, or is there any regulation already occurring? What’s your outlook for government relations in the space?
13.
Could you comment on the relative performance from top REIT [real estate investment trust] or property development companies in the space? Do you expect any to be taking any particular approaches to navigating the market uncertainty?
14.
There’s been quite a bit of negative commentary and speculation surrounding the actual function or credibility of the metaverse. Crypto enthusiastic Mark Cuban called it the dumbest idea ever, unfortunately. Where are people missing the mark? Are they valid in their scepticism? What needs to be adjusted in their approach for how they view metaverse real estate, or does metaverse real estate need to change itself? What are we waiting on for the mainstream to accept it?
15.
What’s your Q4 2022 outlook for the metaverse real estate market? You mentioned that we are nearly at rock bottom, but not quite yet. Should we expect more depreciation?