The frantic metaverse land grab is likely to persist in 2022 as investors realize virtual real estate equals cash, predictive analytics firm says

• Interest in metaverse land sales and rentals is going to continue to surge this year, NWO.ai said.
• The AI firm said online conversations around metaverse real estate have been robust.
• "The hype has the numbers to back it up: over $100 million has already been spent on metaverse land plots," NWO said.

The mad dash for virtual land is likely just beginning.

Real estate sales in metaverses like Decentraland and the Sandbox — where plots have sold for millions of dollars — are likely set to continue at a brisk pace before peaking in May, though interest will remain high even after, according to predictive analytics firm NWO.ai.

"We're really seeing the utility of these properties rising; we're seeing that people can make actual money, that buying these properties equals cash. That is going to drive those sales," said Julia Myers, a machine-learning engineer at NWO.

NWO, an artificial intelligence startup that launched almost three years ago, tracks millions of texts like news articles, social media platforms Twitter and Reddit, and Google Search, among other things, in order to predict broader emerging narratives. For example, NWO said its AI foresaw millions of retail traders driving massive gains in meme stock companies like GameStop a year ago, and it predicted troubles for Chinese real estate company Evergrande.

Conversations around the metaverse, a virtual world where people can interact, shop, and game as avatars, have been robust. According to Grayscale, the metaverse represents a $1 trillion market opportunity. In a recent newsletter, NWO said, "The hype has the numbers to back it up: over $100 million has already been spent on metaverse land plots."

In the last year, there have been eye-popping virtual real-estate sales, like the $4.3 million plot of Sandbox land sold to Republic Realm. Meanwhile, conversations around metaverse land rentals are also skyrocketing as companies like Tokens.com rent space in Decentraland for major events, including the first-ever metaverse Fashion Week — where people can buy the latest fashion trends for their look-alike avatars — as well as the inaugural virtual Australian Open.

"Location is really huge," Myers said. "The same with real estate in real life, it's all about where you are."

According to NWO, Decentraland has become the leading metaverse and upcoming events like Fashion Week are going to solidify that further. Surging interest in the metaverse has only been cemented by skyrocketing prices in the native tokens for metaverses like Decentraland, which has jumped 2,000% in a year, according to Crypto.com. Meanwhile, the Sandbox's underlying cryptocurrency has surged more than 8,000%, and Axie Infinity has risen 11,000%, crypto.com shows.

"As people gain trust in these platforms and the fact that the future is here, I predict that we will only see [sales] go up," Myers said.