Scroll to the bottom to watch the video this is from. You won’t be dissapointed.
“Buy land, it’s the one thing God isn’t making more of”
I’ve heard that phrase spouted multiple times to investors and people looking for something to do with their money. If climate change has anything to say about it that phrase might not even hold weight anymore.
In 1992 the term “metaverse” originated in a science fiction novel titled “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson. In the book, it depicted exactly what companies like Meta, Microsoft, and even Nvidia are looking to build. Virtual worlds that they hope consumers and businesses will flock to so they can live out their ideal digital lives and even attend the occasional awkward meeting or two.
The creation of this new digital escapism comes conveniently packaged with another capitalistic venture that’s sure to degrade this digital society just as rapidly as it has our meat space…the sale and purchase of “digital land”.
I’m fairly new to blogging and I generally blog about my journey into Information Security. I operate on the red (attack) side of the field and generally post CTF writeups and the like. However, I like to write, and I’ve asked some friends what technical topics they’d like me to dive into. A friend, who is coincidentally a realtor, wanted a breakdown of how to buy this digital land.
So, while I will happily explain how to procure said land, first I’ll share my opinion on why it probably isn’t the best idea.
In 1995 the “Internet Bubble” burst. Before this period it was believed that there was immense future profit to be had investing in any business that had anything to do with this new fun technology called the internet. The Internet had originally been developed by DARPA in the ’60s and was eventually picked up by universities all over the country to have a central knowledge and resource-sharing destination.
After a while corporations and businesses saw value in this magical technology that connected people across the world. They used it to their advantage to create websites and services that allowed them to reach a person that had never or may never be physically close enough to consume their products or services. Millions of dollars were poured into these various ventures.
Then in ’95 the economists started to really gauge the monetary impact of these investments and found there was more hype than profit, which brought about the bursting of the “.com bubble”.
In more recent years digital assets have taken on a new life. In what has been dubbed “Web3”, digital assets such as cryptocurrency and artwork have left many people wealthy and a lot more people disappointed. It’s hard to know when exactly to get in on the next hot thing while hoping you aren’t setting up your life savings for a “rug pull”, which is when a creator decides to suddenly close a project while conveniently walking away with everyone’s money.
Unfortunately, none of these investments into NFT artwork or Cryptocurrency is federally protected which means when you lose your precious monkey picture or current shitcoin it’s just…gone. You have no protections for your investment outside of your own operational security aptitude.
Ok, I’m done with all the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) now. Let’s talk about the best way to gamble our hard-earned gains on the promise of getting in on what could be the next land of opportunity!
Buying land in the metaverse is similar to the process of buying NFTs. As a matter of fact, the land parcels purchased in the metaverse are an NFT.
A Non-Fungible Token in its simplest definition is a representation of ownership of an asset. The Non-Fungible part means no two NFTs are alike. For example, if you and I both have a $5 bill in our pocket, they’re both the same thing. They have the same value.
No two NFTs are alike. Therefore ownership of them makes them unique to you.
Consequently, purchasing land is primarily done with cryptocurrency. So the first step to buying these parcels of land is to create a crypto wallet to store both your NFT proving ownership of your land and any cryptocurrency you may own.
When setting up your crypto wallet, security is paramount. Outside of making sure you have things like MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) setup for your account login, you will also receive a seed phrase which is a series of words that verify you own this wallet should you lose access entirely.
Now because of my security background, I’m going to add some things you should consider about your crypto wallet to make sure you don’t fall victim to scams and assholes in discord chats.
- DO NOT share your seed phrase with ANYONE for ANY reason.
- DO NOT screenshot your seed phrase and save it to anything that is cloud-based (iCloud Photos etc.).
- Do your research and choose a wallet that works for you. There are several options from hardware to software such as apps for your phone, but recent news shows not everyone is trustworthy or reliable.
- Make sure you do everything you can to back up your wallet. Write down your seed phrase and put it in a safe or somewhere you know you’ll have access to should the need arise.
Once you create your wallet and acquire some cryptocurrency your next step is going to be choosing a metaverse in which you will purchase your land. There are several options but the most prevalent are The Sandbox, Decentraland, CryptoVoxels, and Somnium Space.
All of these metaverses have their pros and cons, but fortunately, you don’t have to necessarily do a deep dive into each of them as the most popular and respected NFT marketplace, OpenSea, is a one-stop shop to become the digital land owner you dream to be in any one of these popular metaverses.
Now the only thing left to do after choosing your metaverse is to find a plot of land you’d like, and click buy! Once you purchase your land and transform into the regal land owner you are the next thing you’re going to want to do is confirm the NFT for your land shows up in your wallet, and voila! That’s it! Be prepared to ride the roller coaster of emotions that is the NFT and cryptocurrency marketplace!
Ok…my final thoughts. I know most of this post sounded satirical and sarcastic. That’s the point! As I mentioned before there are a lot of people that are making money, but don’t put all your eggs in one basket. That applies to anything you do financially in life. People are losing tons of money left and right in these markets and it’s not necessarily because they made a bad gamble.
When you can please watch this video from Honest Ads. Not only is it hilarious, it sums up a lot of sentiments some people have.
It’s because much of this technology is very new. Therefore there’s a bit of a gold rush to be the next person to put out a cryptocurrency or NFT collection. With that rush, developers are cutting corners someplaces and putting security behind user experience in the line towards a functioning app.
You could do everything right. Create a secure passphrase, never share your seed, and choose a good exchange or wallet. But all it takes is a flaw in a contract. Overlooked code that leaves the exchange or wallet vulnerable to exploitation. Or it could be a slimy owner of the exchange or crypto coin that decides life on the run would be more fun on a yacht as they abscond with the entirety of your fortune and many others.
There is a lot of hype around much of this market and many like it. So choose wisely when you get in. While they may be making more land, I’ve never heard of God doing a rug pull.
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