A plot of digital land was just sold in the metaverse for $2.43 million — more than most homes in NYC and San Francisco cost

• A plot of digital land just sold for $2.43 million in Decentraland, a popular metaverse environment.
• The property just tops the average home price in Manhattan and beats out San Francisco's average.

Real estate is booming in the metaverse.

A plot of digital land in Decentraland — an online, virtual-only environment — sold for a record $2.43 million worth of cryptocurrency on Tuesday, more than double the prior record high for virtual real estate, which was more than $913,000.

That's also a smidge higher than the average home price in Manhattan and well above prices in the other boroughs, as well as dwellings in San Francisco.

Metaverse Group, a subsidiary of Tokens.com, completed the purchase of a patch of digital land for 618,000 mana, or about $2.43 million at the time, according to a Decentraland spokesperson and a statement by Tokens.com. Mana is Decentraland's cryptocurrency, which users employ to buy and sell assets in the virtual space.

Tokens.com said it would use the "116 parcel estate in the heart of the Fashion Street district" of Decentraland for expansion into the digital-fashion industry.

To be sure, homes in the US finance and tech capitals are still pricier on a per-square-foot basis.

One parcel of land in Decentraland is equivalent to 52.5 square feet. The Tokens.com purchase is roughly equivalent to 6,090 square feet of land — well above the 1,150 square footage in an average home in San Francisco. That comes out to roughly $400 a square foot in Decentraland versus $1,200 in San Francisco.

Interest in the metaverse has skyrocketed since Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta. Enthusiasts buy land in the metaverse as a speculative investment, and other digital properties have sold for hefty price tags, too.

Crypto tokens connected to the metaverse have surged lately, with mana rising almost 60% in the past week.