Metaverse lands: A breakdown by Impossible Finance

by mcsauceth from Impossible Research 2021.12.02

Metaverse lands are becoming an increasingly popular digital asset class for both degen users and investors. Metaverses are the disruptive innovations to what we conventionally use to socialize, connect and earn in the online world. Projects these days are also implementing digital lands to achieve these objectives. Through either providing builds and experiences such as NFT galleries, games and digital events as a means of socializing, or providing increased monetization methods such as the ability to rent land or providing digital advertisements as a means of passive income.

The rapid rise in both the quantity and price of Metaverse lands has taken the cryptocurrency space by storm, and Impossible Finance aims to help educate its community by providing the necessary knowledge of Metaverse lands and its offerings. In this report, we analyze in detail eight different metaverse lands projects, outlining both their quantitative and qualitative aspects for investment consideration. For each project, we’ll analyze how land is being used (Land Utility), the floor marketcap, potential future collaborations, and our investment thesis.

We hope this breakdown of Metaverse lands will provide the necessary information for readers to take their first step into the Metaverse!

Quantitative Comparisons

Qualitative Comparisons

Somnium Space VR:

Cornerstones of Somnium Space Economy:

  • Tokenization of Virtual Land
  • Tokenization of digital assets and experiences

Somnium Lands:

Each Somnium Space Land parcel is a NFT that has unique coordinates and represents a specific location within the Somnium Space map (https://map.somniumspace.com/), with a current supply of 5000 lands (It seems that future lands will be continuously released every year). Proximity to popular areas, type of views, size of parcel, proximity to waterfront and central waypoint, are the main factors that seem to influence the value of Somnium Land.

Circulating Floor Marketcap for Somnium Land (Assuming 1 eth is $4,500):

  • Small: $8.04 million (777 current supply, 2.3 eth floor)
  • Medium: $43.93 million (2472 current supply, 3.95 eth floor)
  • XL: $54.13 million (1751 current supply, 6.87 eth floor)

Land Sizing:

  • Small: 200m² and 10m height & depth build limit (1 eth provides 1000 cubic metres)
  • Medium: 600m² and 25m height & depth build limit (1 eth provides 4687.5 cubic metres)
  • XL: 1500m² and 50m height & depth build limit (1 eth provides 12500 cubic metres)

Larger land sizes allow for larger builds not only due to their size, but due to the maximum amount of credits that can be spent on the build. Lands have a maximum credit for builds of 150, 400 and 850 for small, medium and large lands respectively. Allows for higher detail/items to be placed on builds (e.g. walls cost 2 credits, gates cost 1 credit). One thing to keep in mind would be that 850 credits for a large amount of space may not be sufficient for large builds. XL Lands have 12.5x the amount of space in cubic meters but only offer 5.66x the amount of credits for builds (Will have to build and experiment within Somnium Land to actually determine whether 850 is sufficient for a large plot of land).

Use Cases of Somnium Lands:

Personalization and building land for custom use (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8l4XA4R_nU&ab_channel=SomniumSpaceVR) (e.g. Display of personal NFT collection)
Building of land for monetary purposes such as rent or provision of goods and services (e.g. Selling services for building within Somnium, Artists can use land to sell their creations, Entrepreneurs can use the land to provide a marketplace for NFT trades)

Somnium Worlds:

Somnium worlds are fully programmable and customizable. There are three different types of worlds: small, medium and extra large, with the worlds providing storage worth 75, 200 and 500 MB respectively. Purchasing an empty world would mean building the world from scratch and will be able to personalize interactive games, experiences, etc. New worlds will be released in batches every year, with the next release being an auction in Mid November during their tertiary land auction.

One of the main differences for Somnium Worlds compared to land parcels would be the scope of your build and the size of your build. Worlds are much larger as they are only restricted by storage space whereas Somnium Land parcels are restricted by both size and credits. Due to the lack of size of Somnium Land parcels, the builds are restricted to structures/buildings whereas Somnium Worlds incentivizes creative freedom due to the lack of boundaries, and allows the owner to create games, experiences, cities without any boundaries. One thing to consider would be that Somnium Land Spaces are much more user-friendly as users are able to build in-game with relative ease, whereas for Somnium Worlds, will have to be created through UnitySDK. However, Worlds should not be seen as a replacement to Somnium Land spaces but instead seen as complementary as Worlds can only be accessed through a land parcel of the same size (e.g. XL World can only be deployed by an XL Land).

Circulating Floor Marketcap for Somnium Worlds (Assuming 1 eth is $4,500):

  • Small: $2.25 million (50 total supply, 10 eth floor)
  • Medium: $2.35 million (42 total supply, 12.45 eth floor)
  • XL: $6.75 million (30 total supply, 50 eth floor)

Worlds Sizing:

  • Small: 75 MB (1 eth provides 9.375 MB)
  • Medium: 200 MB (1 eth provides 14.285 MB)
  • XL: 500 MB (1 eth provides 20.83 MB)

Future News/Implementations for Somnium Space VR:

  • Going multi-chain with implementation of Solana NFTs to be displayed within Somnium, and will also include a NEAR implementation/integration in 2022.
  • Tertiary Land Offering (14th Nov-18th Dec) assets on sale will be: Somnium Land Parcels (S, M, XL), Somnium WORLDs (S, M, XL), Estates, Special Limited edition Avatars and Cars

Somnium Land and Somnium Worlds Investment Thesis:

Advantages:

  • Likely to be more specialized compared to its competitors as they are able to target and capture a niche market as Somnium Space caters towards the more experienced players/designers/developers in terms of building and development due to the use of UnitySDK for Somnium World editing and creation. However, Somnium Space is also able to appeal to the general market for Somnium lands as it is much more user friendly.
  • Allows users to explore the Somnium metaverse, their Somnium lands and their Somnium Worlds through virtual reality whereas competitors such as Sandbox do not provide this feature.

Disadvantages:

  • Somnium has implemented a ‘teleportation’ feature for quick travel within the Somnium metaverse that requires a Teleportation Hub. With the Teleportation Hub currently having a circulating supply of 50 and a floor price of 33.3 eth, average and news users will not have access to fast travel and this can cause daily users to turn to other competitors. Somnium has a dilemma as to whether they should implement quick travel for the average user such as increasing the supply of the teleportation hub, whilst facing the potential of upsetting users who purchased the teleportation hub due to increased supply or to limit the supply of teleportation hubs to benefit larger users but at the expense of the majority of their user base.
  • Requires higher end devices to run smoothly and this can act as a barrier for new users.
  • The number of daily active users for Somnium is unknown but is likely to be much lower compared to other metaverse lands based on social media following (Somnium Space: 20k twitter followers, Sandbox: 233.1k twitter followers, Decentraland: 208.5k twitter followers, Treeverse: 42.5k twitter followers, CryptoVoxels: 55.5k twitter followers).
  • Unknown total supply is likely to be the main risk for an investment within Somnium Land and Worlds

Sandbox Land:

Similar to Somnium Land parcels, Sandbox Land is a piece of the Sandbox metaverse that will allow users to personalize and create experiences for themselves and others, through the use of building, creating and terraforming with a total supply of 166,464 land plots.

Sandbox Land Utility:

  • Staking: Owning Sandbox Land allows owners to stake $SAND tokens in the lands they own to earn passive rewards (gems and catalysts)
  • Rent: Allows for easy monetization of land if users are unwilling or do not know how to build and develop experiences. Able to rent land out to developers.
  • Governance: Owning land provides the ability to determine the future of the platform, as it provides owners with a voice in the governance of the metaverse
  • Able to form districts by combining lands from two or more owners that will be entitled to special governance rules.

Sandbox Premium Lands:
Sandbox Premium Lands provides more benefits to owners compared to regular land. Firstly, one of the main advantages of Premium Lands would be that they are located adjacent to major partners and social hubs. This allows for increased user traffic for Premium Lands and provides monetary benefits such as higher rent for owners and more traffic for sales for users who sell goods or services (e.g. advertising through billboards within the Sandbox metaverse, income from pay-to-play games) within the Sandbox metaverse.

Other than the in-game monetary benefits, the second main benefit to Sandbox Premium Lands would be that the purchase of Sandbox Premium Lands directly from Sandbox will come with limited and exclusive assets that could be seen as desirable by in-game collectors and users.

Floor Marketcap for Sandbox Lands (Assuming 1 eth is $4,500):

  • Circulating Floor Marketcap: $1.09 billion (100,700 circulating supply, 2.42 eth floor)
  • Fully Diluted Floor Marketcap: $1.81 billion (166,464 total supply, 2.42 eth floor)

Future News/Implementations for Sandbox:

  • Halloween Collection Drop for avatars within the Sandbox metaverse -Snoop Dogg
  • Land Sale for curated and designed Sandbox Lands

Sandbox Land Investment Thesis:

Advantages:

  • Able to appeal to the main market of users looking to get started with metaverse lands. Firstly, easy controls and building mechanics compared to Somnium Space. Secondly, the background, build and environment of Sandbox Land is very similar to Minecraft, a popular open-world adventure game. This could easily attract more users due to a sense of familiarity compared to other metaverse lands. This can be accelerated through the increased general adoption of the metaverse (e.g. Facebook rebranding) and the increased time people are spending online due to lockdowns.
  • Sandbox seems to be gaining traction and general adoption at a rapid rate, with over 1.2 million monthly active users.
  • Extremely high number of Smart Money buyers (Nansen) such as Pranksy purchasing into Sandbox Lands.

Disadvantages:

  • Average price of land plots have increased by 382% (0.6567 eth average price 3.17 eth average price from 26th October to 2nd December according to Nansen) within the past few days due to the increase in popularity of metaverses due to Facebook’s rebranding to Meta.
  • General look and aesthetics of Sandbox Lands are extremely similar to CryptoVoxels and may push users to competitors that have unique aesthetics such as Decentraland.

CryptoVoxels:

Cryptovoxels is a virtual world and metaverse built on the Ethereum blockchain. It is an open-type environment where there are no objectives and users are free to do and build anything they want within the Cryptovoxels metaverse.

Cryptovoxels Land:

Cryptovoxels Land is a collection of NFTs with a current circulating supply of 6,543 NFTs that provides land ownership for users within the Cryptovoxels metaverse. Each land plot has a specific location and coordinates within the Cryptovoxels map and metaverse. Land owners are able to freely customize and edit their land for creative builds, and it seems that Cryptovoxels have been able to capture the cryptoart market of the metaverse, with the majority of builds being art galleries for the display of personal NFT collections (Over 400 art galleries for display on the Cryptovoxels website) or for the sale of art from NFT artists. Cryptovoxels land sizes are completely different from one another.

Cryptovoxels Land Utility:

  • Monetization: Land owners within the Cryptovoxels metaverse are able to monetize their land through rent (Current cheapest available land for rent costs 0.2 eth per month or 1 eth per year), sale of created in-game goods such as furniture and collectibles, and the marketing and sale of art and NFTs through art galleries within the Cryptovoxels metaverse.
  • Personalization: Editing of land within Cryptovoxels is relatively easy (Builds can be copied for new users to experiment and personalize to their liking, music can be easily played and added to plots of land through a mp3 file or youtube player), and allows land owners to personalize their land in any way they see fit. Land personalization is also friendly to new users, as it allows users without plots of land to create and build on a ‘trial’ plot of land.

Floor Market Cap (Assuming 1 eth is $4,500):
Circulating Floor Market Cap: $69.78 million (6,543 total circulating supply, 2.37 eth floor)

Future News/Implementations for Cryptovoxels:

  • Introduction and launch of Google Play Store Early Version App
  • Considering implementing Twitter and Facebook as login methods

Cryptovoxels Investment Thesis:

Advantages:

  • Strong community that incentivizes daily play through user-created and hosted events such as virtual nightclub events, generative art exhibitions, and daily in-game trading competitions.
  • More user-friendly compared to other metaverse projects as new players do not have to purchase land (currently at 2.37 eth floor) in order to experiment with building and creating. In addition, users do not have to create accounts in order to explore the Cryptovoxels metaverse, allowing for a quick introduction for new users.
  • Cryptovoxels is also compatible in VR, and this is beneficial in the long-run as when the VR industry for gaming continues to grow, the requirements for VR by users will likely increase, and Cryptovoxels will be able to capitalize on this market within the metaverse.
  • Similar to Sandbox, the aesthetics of Cryptovoxels are very similar to Minecraft, and thus will likely be easier to target new users due to the sense of familiarity and nostalgia.
  • One of the first metaverse projects to capture the cryptoart market, with a significant amount of builds and community events focused on generative art and displayed within popular art galleries within the Cryptovoxels metaverse.

Disadvantages:

  • Total supply is currently unknown, with further land drops occurring in the future based on districts and will likely be on the outer edges of the Cryptovoxels map
  • Lack of objectives within the game such as a play-to-earn aspect relies on the community to provide activities and events to consistently have a high number of DAUs. This may lead to boredom within the Cryptovoxels metaverse and users switching to competitors.

Treeverse:

Treeverse is a browser-based metaverse MMO (massive multiplayer online) and aims to replace social online platforms such as Discord, Clubhouse and Twitter while simultaneously gamifying the experience for their users by developing the game into a blockchain MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role playing game) in the first half of 2022.

Treeverse Founder’s Private Plots:

Treeverse Founder’s Private Plots are a collection of 10,420 NFTs that provide owners with private homes within the Treeverse metaverse. Owners of Private plots allows for customization of your private home such as displaying other NFTs within your collection and socializing with friends by inviting them to your private plot. Private Plots are not shown on the Treeverse metaverse map. Accumulating multiple private plots allows owners to have access to bigger homes.

2 Private plots are classified as big home
5 Private plots are classified as large home + exterior (island)
10 Private plots are classified as XL home with floor + large exterior (island)

Treeverse Founder’s Private Plots Utility:

  • Personalization: of private home to suit the owner’s liking
  • Socialization: Able to socialize with other users within the Treeverse metaverse by inviting users into private homes

Floor Market Cap (Assuming 1 eth is $4,500):

Circulating Floor Market Cap: $58.6 million (10,420 circulating supply, 1.25 eth floor)

Future News/Implementations for Treeverse:

  • Treeverse has recently raised at a $25 million valuation in a seed round co-led by IDEO Ventures and Animoca Brands and including other investors such as SkyVision Capital, Stani Kulechov
  • Treeverse Public Plots are planned to be released in the future to accompany private plots within the Treeverse metaverse. However, details of public plots have not been released.

Treeverse Land Investment Thesis:

Advantages:

  • Has the same idea as Sandbox by using nostalgia to attract users to Treeverse. The Treeverse metaverse looks extremely similar to popular games such as Pokemon and Runescape, able to attract users more easily.
  • In their recent Q&A, owners of Founder’s plots will receive bonuses such as airdrops but this isn’t confirmed as it is not included in their roadmap.
  • Treeverse road map includes multiple features that other metaverse competitors have not included such as: pets, guilds, seasonal events and NFT locked regions adding a higher social aspect to Treeverse compared to other metaverse projects. Treeverse is also planning to implement features that are already implemented in other projects for added competition such as: trading marketplace, NPCs, minigames

Disadvantages:

  • Treeverse is new compared to other metaverse projects and thus the development of Treeverse is still behind key competitors such as Decentraland, Sandbox, etc. Adds another dimension of risk due to slower development
  • One of the main disadvantages of Treeverse Founder’s Private Plots are that they are all identical. This would mean that there are no added aspects such as rarity in terms of size, looks or location.
  • Treeverse Founder’s Private Plots are not shown on the Treeverse map and are instead private. This would turn away users who are looking to purchase lands within various metaverses to build and show off their lands to the public.

Decentraland:

Decentraland is a decentralized virtual reality platform where users are able to create, experience and monetize their content and applications.

Decentraland Land:

Decentraland Land is a collection of 97,135 NFTs that have specific coordinates within the Decentraland metaverse. Each piece of land within Decentraland includes a record of its coordinates, land owner, and a content description file that describes the content of the land. Land parcels within Decentraland have a fixed size of 16mx16m, with larger builds combining adjacent lands to form estates, incentivizing users to purchase adjacent plots for future use. To ensure the value of land remains stable, the amount of land within Decentraland corresponds with the fixed total amount of MANA (Decentraland’s token).

The value of land within Decentraland is mainly based on location, with land parcels closest to Genesis Plaza and districts such as Vegas City and Crypto Valley commanding a higher premium due to higher player traffic within those areas.

Decentraland Land Utility:

  • Monetization: Land owners have the ability and freedom to decide what content to monetize and the amount they charge for it. Decentraland Land monetisation has two main aspects. The main aspect would be the sale of goods and services such as 3d models, images, games, videos or sound contents that can only be accessed once a payment is fulfilled and thus Decentraland has one of the most efficient in-game marketplaces compared to other metaverse projects. The second main aspect would be renting land to other users looking to build and develop within the Decentraland metaverse.
  • Personalization: Land owners are able to personalise their homes, galleries, and builds any way they see fit

Decentraland Land Marketcap (Assuming 1 eth is $4,500):

Circulating Floor Marketcap: $1.40 billion (97,135 circulating supply, 3.21 floor)

Future News/Implementations for Decentraland:

  • Introduction of the Play-to-Earn Incubator for minigames developed within the Decentraland metaverse
  • Metaverse festival conducted within Decentraland with a variety of celebrities such as DEADMAU5 and Paris Hilton

Decentraland Land Investment Thesis:

Advantages:

  • One of the main advantages of Decentraland would be that it is able to target both new and experienced users due to the number of different methods for building and creating. New users are able to experiment with the simple builder tool, and the SDK allows experienced users to create social games and applications. This is similar to Somnium Space VR, but instead of the SDK only being used on Somnium Worlds, it can be used on any land plot in Decentraland.
  • Currently, Decentraland has one of the most efficient in-game marketplaces, as the sale of goods and services can be autonomous, as purchases can only be received once payment is fulfilled.
  • Atari’s partnership with Decentraland to launch a casino within the Decentraland metaverse where users are able to gamble on traditional casino games with cryptocurrencies is one of the largest in-game metaverse partnerships. A reputable casino within the metaverse is likely to attract a huge influx of new users looking to experience gambling in the metaverse.
  • Introduction of the play-to-earn incubator in the future will provide developers within Decentraland providing play-to-earn games with further resources such as increased land and MANA for further development. This will likely incentivize increased activity within the Decentraland metaverse, as well as attract users looking to create play-to-earn games with limited resources.

Disadvantages:

  • Despite having one of the most efficient in-game marketplaces, there is a significant loophole in the marketplace as the sale of videos and images have to be uploaded to content servers for sale, and thus the content is always discoverable on the content servers. However, Decentraland is currently aiming to limit how content within the content servers can be seen by other users.
  • Decentraland is only supported on browsers such as Chrome and Firefox and is not supported on mobile devices or virtual reality headsets.

Aavegotchi Metaverse (The Gotchiverse):

The Aavegotchi metaverse also known as the Gotchiverse, is a 2D pixelated metaverse for Aavegotchis, where they are able to socialize and encounter each other, participate in mini-games, call smart contracts and participate in governance of the AavegotchiDAO. Aavegotchi Realm acts as the social layer for AavegotchiDAO, enabling event-based, gamified governance. Aavegotchis will convene in a pixelated town square to review proposals, debate and cast votes in real time.

Aavegotchi Land:

Aavegotchi Land Parcels are a collection of NFTs that come in three varying sizes, with each size providing greater deposits of Alchemica (ERC20 Tokens) and a larger building space. The total supply of land parcels within the Gotchiverse is 420,069. The first two years (Known as Act 1) will unlock and distribute 155,069 land parcels. Realm parcels will be distributed through incentivized GBM auctions (80% of total supply) where bidders will outbid each other until a final price is matched, with outbidded bidders receiving GHST tokens as an incentive reward. The second method of distribution for land parcels would be through raffles (20% of total supply).

Aavegotchi Land Sizes:

  • Humble: Contains small deposits of Alchemica and building space, 40% of total land supply (8m x 8m)
  • Reasonably Sized: Contains reasonable deposits of Alchemica and building space, 40% of total land supply (16m x 16m)
  • Spacious: Contains huge deposits of Alchemica and building space, 20% of total land supply (32m x 32m)
  • Partner: Unknown deposits of Alchemica and building space, 69 in total (64m x 64m)

Aavegotchi Land Utility:

  • Monetization: Aavegotchi Land parcels are able to generate monetary benefits for land owners through the farming of their land parcels, producing quantities of Alchemica (ERC20 Tokens).
  • Personalization: The Alchemica (ERC20 Tokens) farmed through the land parcel can be used for receiving/exchanging aesthetic NFTs or special structures that can be used to decorate and build on top of your land parcel.
  • Socializing: Land owners are able to construct special structures on their parcels to enable voice chat for people within that parcel, as well as being able to upgrade the structure for global voice communication.

Circulating Floor Marketcap (Assuming 1 GHST is $2.8):

  • Humble Land Parcels: $195.3 thousand(646 circulating supply, 108 GHST Floor)
  • Reasonable Land Parcels: $304.6 thousand (544 circulating supply, 200 GHST Floor)
  • Spacious Land Parcels: $938.7 thousand (289 circulating supply, 1160 GHST Floor)

Fully Diluted Floor Marketcap (From Aavegotchi Bazaar):

  • Humble Land Parcels: $50.81 million(168028 lands, 40% of total supply, 108 GHST Floor)
  • Reasonable Land Parcels: $94.10 million (168028 lands, 40% of total supply, 200 GHST Floor)
  • Spacious Land Parcels: $272.87 million (84013, 20% of total supply, 1160 GHST Floor)

Future News/Implementations for Aavegotchi Metaverse:

  • Land raffle is currently going on for 4,000 realm parcels
  • Aavegotchi bazaar updated to include land parcels

Aavegotchi Land Investment Thesis:

Advantages:

  • Aavegotchi Lands are one of the first yield-bearing land parcels, as land parcels within the game can be farmed by land owners for Alchemica (ERC20 Tokens) which can be used to purchase aesthetic NFTs or structures for personalization of land. Aavegotchi Lands method of monetization is much more interesting compared to other metaverse projects that focus on rent and sale of goods and services.
  • Likely to gain traction much more easily compared to other metaverse projects as Aavegotchi is backed by AAVE.
  • Land parcels within the different areas of the Gotchiverse can only build specific structures and installations that influence gameplay and thus incentivises players to acquire land parcels in various regions of the Gotchiverse.

Disadvantages:

  • Aavegotchi Lands are currently not available on Opensea and are only available on the Aavegotchi Bazaar, and thus new users may be confused as to how to purchase Aavegotchi Lands on secondary markets.
  • Aavegotchi Lands currently have the highest announced total supply of any metaverse project with 420,069.

League of Kingdoms:

League of Kingdoms is a MMO strategy game where players have to collude and fight against each other for dominion within the League of Kingdoms world.

League of Kingdoms Land:

League of Kingdoms Land will start from a genesis continent consisting of 65,536 NFT lands, each representing a coordinate within the League of Kingdoms metaverse. Ownership of Land within League of Kingdoms is significantly different compared to other metaverse projects as League of Kingdoms Land does not allow for personalization of custom builds, but instead allows for other players to build ‘Kingdoms’ on your land. Kingdoms can be seen as individual builds on owned land in order to form an alliance for further development through the League of Kingdoms game, with 16 Kingdoms being the maximum limit per plot of land. There are currently 5 different zones within the genesis continent, but there are no differences between owning lands from the various zones.

League of Kingdoms Land Utility:

  • Monetization through Reward Pool: Reward pools are accumulated based on a percentage of the revenue generated from League of Kingdoms, and land owners are able to claim a portion of the reward pool based on the number of lands they currently own. 10% of the revenue generated from in-game purchases for League of Kingdoms are directed to the reward pool.
  • Land Level and Development Points: Increased contribution such as development of the land through in-game activities such as gathering resources allows for land level to be increased once a certain threshold is met. Increased land level and land development through more active kingdoms would lead to higher rewards for land owners.

League of Kingdoms Land Floor Market Cap (Assuming 1 eth is $4,500):

  • Circulating Floor Marketcap: $10.33 million (4,174 circulating supply, 0.55 eth floor)
  • Fully Diluted Floor Marketcap: $162.20 million (65,536 total supply, 0.55 eth floor)

Future News/Implementations for League of Kingdoms:

  • Introduction of events for in-game resources such as the Halloween event
  • League of Kingdoms working with Yield Guild for advice and implementation
  • Introduction of governance tokens in the future for elected land owners

League of Kingdoms Investment Thesis:

Advantages:

  • One of the strongest benefits of owning League of Kingdoms land would be that if the genesis continent gets too overcrowded, a new continent will be created with identical specs and thus owning a piece of land in the genesis continent will entitle owners to the exact same piece of land when another continent is released. This incentivizes buying of multiple plots of genesis land.
  • League of Kingdoms Land Utility highly rewards land ownership but the significant portion of rewards are only given to land owners who are actively contributing towards the game and developing their land. This is better compared to other metaverse projects that monetize land through rent as land owners can purchase land for the sole purpose of profit instead of the success of the metaverse and thus land monetization through in-game contribution will likely be much more successful in the long-run.
  • The introduction of microtransactions for League of Kingdoms is likely to be extremely successful (Clash of Clans: $7.7billion total revenue, Rise of Kingdoms: $1.15billion total revenue, Three Kingdoms: $1.2 billion total revenue) and this will significantly benefit land owners in the future as the game continues to grow.

Disadvantages:

  • One of the main disadvantages would be that the process of KYC is required for land owners to claim their reward.
  • Relies on consistent and relatively high DAI rewards to be paid to incentivise new users to purchase land. This can only be achieved by increasing the number of DAUs and the number of people who transact with in-game purchases. The daily reward pool is at 1759.76 DAI, and assuming that this is split between lands equally (4174 lands), and with a floor price of 0.55 eth per plot of land (About 2475 DAI), would take around 5870 days to farm back land cost through the reward pool. The small daily reward pool can be seen to influence the number of land owners, as currently there are still a significant number of land plots that currently do not have an owner (https://land.leagueofkingdoms.com/map).

Cyber Curated:

Cyber Curated aims to provide a metaverse for artists and collectors, as an easy method of showing off their art and their collections, through the use of online galleries which can be shared and visited through the use of a link for easy access. There are two different types of online galleries: paid and free-to-use. Paid Galleries are a collection of NFTs that can be bought off the secondary market, with the main difference between paid galleries and free-to-use galleries being aesthetics, layout and the number of frames that can be included within that gallery.

Free to use Galleries:
White Cube: 20 frames
Warehouse: 25 frames
Cyber Classic: 32 frames
Wolfgang: 44 frames

Paid Galleries:
Genesis: 38 frames
Temple: 56 frames
Void: 67 frames

Cyber Curated Gallery Utility:

  • Monetization through sale of art: Artists are able to significantly benefit from Cyber Curated as they are able to display their art within a gallery for the public to view in a realistic setting, thus allowing them to gain more popularity and increased sales. Sale of art cannot be done through Cyber Curated itself, but buyers and collectors are easily able to purchase the artwork of OpenSea if it is listed as it is linked within the galleries.
  • Personalization: Art collectors will also significantly benefit from Cyber Curated as they are able to personalize and show off their collections in methods they see fit, such as rearranging their digital art through the use of frames within the gallery and changing the look and layout of their galleries by purchasing curated galleries.

Cyber Curated Paid Galleries Circulating Floor Market Cap (Assuming 1 eth is $4,500):

  • Genesis: $2.66million (33 total supply, 17.88 eth floor)
  • Temple: $1.49 million (33 total supply, 10 eth floor)
  • Void: $1.96 million (44 total supply, 9.9 eth floor)

Future News/Implementations for Cyber Curated:

  • Introduction of audio for galleries to be implemented in the near future

Cyber Curated Investment Thesis:

Advantages:

  • Large art institutions and collectors will likely pick up a Cyber Curated gallery in the future as Cyber Curated solely focuses on art for their metaverse. Cyber Curated aims to safeguard ownership and authenticity of digital assets and thus does not allow users to curate digital assets that are not owned, compared to other metaverse projects that allow photos of digital assets to be uploaded. Institutions and art collectors will likely prefer Cyber Curated due to its specialized nature, and this can already be seen by the number of popular galleries that have been created and visited on a daily basis (VincentVanDough, Justin Aversano’s Twin Flames, 6529). This is fostered by the ability to assign roles within the Cyber Curated metaverse, such as curator and delegate roles for collectors to assign for constant updating of their galleries.
  • Cyber Curated metaverse is available and compatible in VR, allowing for an immersive experience when visiting various galleries.
  • Cyber Curated is extremely user friendly, with new users being able to set up their galleries within a matter of minutes.

Disadvantages:

  • One of the main disadvantages of Cyber Curated would be that there is no socialization aspect within the Cyber Curated metaverse, as you are not able to interact with other people viewing the same gallery. Competitors such as Cryptovoxels and Decentraland, are able to have an added aspect of socialization when users display their art.
  • The number of frames available within paid galleries are not significantly higher than the free-to-use galleries, and thus people may find it redundant to purchase paid galleries at extremely high prices just for the aesthetic and layout of the gallery. In addition, there is currently no limit for the number of free-to-use galleries that can be created for one wallet and thus frames play less of an issue for collectors with large art collections.

Concluding Statements:

After researching the eight different metaverse projects above, one of the main takeaways that can be concluded would be that various projects have focused on the different aspects of the metaverse. Projects such as Sandbox, Decentraland, Somnium Space VR and Cryptovoxels aim to digitalize daily life, with emphasis on the creation and development of daily activities such as building and developing lands for monetary and personal use, and socializing with other users within their respective metaverses. This is definitely the area of the metaverse that seems to be heavily concentrated and focused on currently, and as they further develop it will be interesting to see how they differentiate themselves from one another, as they can be considered relatively similar due their land monetization methods and general aesthetics.

Projects such as League of Kingdoms and Aavegotchi on the other hand, aims to monetize the gaming experience for everyday players, whilst giving back to the community through various play-to-earn methods. I believe this is where the future of the gaming industry is headed, as gamers are able to put in time into something they enjoy doing while getting paid for their effort. This can already be seen in developed play-to-earn metaverse games such as Axie Infinity, and I believe this is where the metaverse will find the majority of their success as games such as Aavegotchi and League of Kingdoms are able to differentiate themselves from one another relatively easy, due to their respective genres.

Disclaimers and Risks:

Please review the Disclaimers, Terms and Risks for the legal notices of this document, its content, and its risk factors. In particular, you should Do-Your-Own-Research (DYOR) before any investments, and note the risks relating to forward-looking statements as set out in this document.

Risk Warning:

Trading and/or generally investing in any cryptocurrency involve significant risks and can result in the complete loss of your capital. You should not invest more than you can afford to lose and you should ensure that you fully understand the risks involved. Before investing, please consider your level of experience, objectives, and risk tolerance, and seek independent financial and legal advice if necessary. It is your responsibility to ascertain whether you are permitted to use the services of Impossible Finance based on the legal and regulatory requirements of your country of residence and/or applicable jurisdiction(s).

Subscribe to Impossible Research
Receive the latest updates directly to your inbox.
Verification
This entry has been permanently stored onchain and signed by its creator.