Hello, I'm Don Tan from the C Money M team with the five things you need to know about buying property in the metaverse. The metaverse is expected to generate up to $5 trillion in economic value by 2030 as it promises a richer environment to work, shop play and socialize online on this podcast. We'll hear from Samuel Huber, CEO of Land Vault, a virtual construction firm that helps brands build their presence in the Metaverse. Sam,
thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. So first off, tell me something about yourself and what you do in the metaverse,
run a company called Land Vault, which we qualify as a construction company but in the virtual worlds. So we provide a full end to end solution for big brands and even governments now who want to create metaverse experiences and worlds. So we take care of the creation layer, helping them come up with amazing ideas and bringing
that to life in virtual worlds. But we also build the technology to then deploy the content monetize the content and help them with an end to end solution, mastercard, for example, who was basically trying to create a virtual event for their teams and to educate their customers about specifically one of the initiatives that they support for three months. We run multiple events during that platform. Another example is Standard Chartered the bank.
Their activation was more around hiring and talent acquisition specifically as they were trying to build a web three team. So they thought, where are we going to find a web three audience? Let's find them in the metaverse. We were also involved with the fashion week last year where we were basically selling virtual product for big brands like Tommy Hilfiger, l'oreal and so on. And that generated a significant amount of sales. So there's different things that you
can achieve in the metaverse. We like to think of it as a 3d version of the internet. So things that you can do on the internet, like targeting new users, building communities or selling products are things that you can also do in the metaverse. But in three dimension, we have clients from financial services to fashion to automotive. We even work with big governments now in the Middle East who are using the metaverse as a tourism platform. What best way to showcase a country like
Dubai than recreating it in three dimension. Showcasing the best entertainment, the best hotels, the best restaurant actually visit it in three dimension before you actually go there and enter the master suite in the Bour Arab and understand what it would feel to be there, you know, you are actually more likely to end up visiting or purchasing it. So it's a great showcase. And we like to think that the metaverse is the next best thing after reality.
How big is the market opportunity here? In terms of the value of virtual
land, the value of virtual land is really about what you can make of it, what you can develop from it. It's a little bit like in the real world where land itself, how valuable it is. It's hard to know, but it's really about what you can build on top of it. Can you build a business on top of that land? And it's pretty much the same in the metaverse. You have areas of the virtual world where you have maybe more celebrities. So it's more expensive. But at the end of the day,
it's about the capabilities of the platform. What can you build on that land? So for example, if you can build an E commerce shop in 3D to sell your virtual clothes and you can make a million dollars a month, then that's the opportunity. That's what the land enables you to do. Think of the land as a three dimensional website. It's not about how many websites you have. It's about how much traffic you can drive to a website and what do you do with that audience if you are able
to convert your users? So they buy your product, you only need one location, one business. So it's the same in the verse, you don't need to have a huge amount of land. What you need to create is a real reason for people to go there. Give them something fun engaging to do so that people spend time and eventually if you want, they can also buy products and buy items. So the metaverse is not really a new
way to do business. It's just a new interface, a new three dimensional interface to be able to do things in more engaging, more realistic ways. But at the end of the day, it's all about people and what they can do, how
are digital lands transacted? Then, I mean, how do you actually go about saying I want to buy some of this in digital
space. Most of those platforms are what we call on chain. So on the Blockchain and individual land, which is a fraction of the map of that platform. They are individual N F T s. So N F T s are non fungible tokens. So these are basically unique coordinates that you get to own. So once you own the N F T, you put it in your wallet, it's yours and you can develop it and you own the business model on top of it.
So this is how those are transacted. So you can go to any nt marketplace like open sea for example, or blur and just simply look for land and you will be able to buy and sell NTS in that market. We own actually a big portfolio of land. We've invested quite early in land on platforms like the sandbox and the central land and been through the whole journey of seeing parcels go from $50 all the way to $20,000 and now back to 10,000. So it's been a pretty
exciting real estate market, very volatile. We developed over 200 parcels and that amounts to about 100 million square feet if you are translating that in the real world. So it's a significant amount of real estate development that we've made.
We are looking at five things to know about buying property in the metaverse. We learned that the metaverse is basically a 3d version of the internet where many big brands are building their presence through unique experiences and the value of virtual land. All depends on what content is created on top of it. You need engaging and realistic content
for people to stay in your metaverse. Space buying land in the metaverse is done through marketplaces that run on the Blockchain network and are transacted using non fungible tokens or so for people who might want to buy land in the metaphors, how should they go about doing it safely?
It's an investment. So of course, it is risky. The last couple of years, everything was going up, it was a bull market. So it felt safe when in fact, it really wasn't. The key is to think about utility. What are you going to do with this land because just holding it and hoping that someone else will buy it off you for more money. That's pure speculation. This is not a safe way to invest. The metaverse itself is not necessarily more
prone to scam. I would say that crypto and Web three which does power the MERS because there is so much financial incentives and it's vastly unregulated that did attract people who were taking shortcuts or looking for quick profits and sometimes at the expense of others. I think we've seen a lot of those people getting flushed out. Obviously, we have big scandals and smaller scandals and it's a natural progression.
Unfortunately, of technology, there were also a lot of scam, you know, in the first web revolution with websites that promise things that didn't actually happen. We have to be careful, the regulation is starting to happen. And I think overall this is a good thing for the industry.
What does being careful look like though for the average investor? Like what can you do realistically simple
things like do not click on links that you do not know about, do not respond to such as on Discord, which is where a lot of scam is happening. Do not connect your wallets to websites that you do not know basic things that we have learned through time on the internet. Do not put your credit card details. If it's not https connection, that's natural now. But in 2000, this was not. So I think it's just about relearning the new rules of web three, there are a few nuances, but at the end of the day,
you know, a digital wallet is still real money. And so just like you wouldn't open your wallet in front of strangers necessarily, you should also be careful in that way in the digital
world. How is Landolt using AI perhaps to enhance the metaverse experience and make it more accessible?
We started to use generative ai to many prototype environments. So if we go to a client and the client wants us to build a hotel, for example, even though every hotel and building would be different, there are elements that are consistent. For example, a number of floors, you know, a structure with lifts, things like this. So we can use A I to kind of prototype the core of the experience and then use our own internal development to tweak to make it
really unique. So we are basically able to do that a lot faster. One of the problems in the metaverse right now is generally the lack of things to do and the lack of things to do comes from the limitation with the content. There's just not enough experiences out there to build a true network. We have monitored about 2000 experiences in the metaverse today. Imagine if the internet only had 2000 websites that would be a very, very small network. So we need more content,
we need more things to do to accelerate that. We need to give tools for people to make it easier for them to build. So A I is going to enable people to build things quicker, to build things faster. And as a result, it would be cheaper, meaning that more people will be able to build today, you know, an average metaverse activation probably costs $100,000 let's say, which is fine for big brands. And this is the reason why the
only ones building are brands. But the metaverse is not meant to be a giant mall with only brands there. We want people to be able to create content, right? And so this is what needs to happen for the metaverse to become mainstream. We need more tools, we need to democratize the creation layer so that everyone can start building more content. And this will create the size of the network and the diversity of content that we need for the metaverse to actually go beyond the hype Samuel.
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
Well, that wraps up our discussion on investing in virtual land in the metaverse. We learned that the metaverse is basically a 3d version of the internet where many big brands are building their presence through unique experiences and the value of virtual land. Well, it all depends on what content is created on top of it, you need engaging and realistic content for people to stay in
your metaverse. Space, buying land in the metaverse is done through marketplaces that run on the Blockchain network and are transacted using non fungible tokens or N F T s. But just like other investments, there are risks to buying virtual property and investors need to be vigilant online to avoid getting scammed. And finally artificial intelligence or A I can play a big role in making the metaverse more accessible via tools
that will help people build their own content. Those were the five things you need to know about buying property in the metaverse. My guest today Samuel Hooper, Ceo of land Fault Money Mind airs every Saturday at 10 30 PM on Media Corp C N A. You can also catch us online at C N A dot Asia or on youtube.