Last week, Apple announced its Vision Pro headset, which combines virtual and augmented reality, and feedback was mostly positive. Despite the occasional ridiculous-looking photo of someone walking around wearing it, the majority of users have shared positive feedback about the experience, contributing to Apple's stock price rise due to positive reviews. .
There has already been an announcement that Metaverse is being developed for Vision Pro. The Metaverse is a digital universe where players can interact and trade with each other. Victoria VR, the company developing this Metaverse, has seen a spike in token prices, similar to the speculative gold rush that occurred in digital real estate when the first Metaverse marketplace was launched in the early 2020s. I have already experienced it.
When the idea of real estate in the metaverse came up, there was a lot of talk about it being the “next Bitcoin.” In fact, many people who made their fortunes in cryptocurrencies were fueling the soaring prices of digital assets. People were paying top dollar for Metaverse plots like The Sandbox, Otherside, and Decentraland. However, the lasting power of most of these virtual worlds does not justify their price. At its peak in 2022, someone paid $450,000 for a virtual house in Sandbox next to rapper Snoop Dogg's digital mansion. Today, the same global parcels sell for hundreds of dollars.
The real estate industry followed suit. Brokers started selling Metaverse real estate, and eXp Realty developed its own Metaverse to connect his network of agents around the world.
The main reason why Metaverse hasn't achieved the popularity its developers hoped for is that it hasn't become a place where users want to spend a lot of time. His daily user numbers on all well-known Metaverse platforms remain significantly lower than their initial levels at the peak of initial excitement. Back in 2022, The Sandbox reported that his daily active users were less than 1,000. Moreover, last year's Decentraland “Fashion Week” featured more than 60 brands to sell digital clothing, but few buyers were interested in purchasing.
Apple has the potential to change the course of the Metaverse market. By building a compelling digital universe accessible through its headsets, Apple could lay the foundation for a metaverse with truly valuable real estate. Despite these possibilities, there are several reasons to be cautious about investing in digital assets. As Mark Cuban pointed out, digital real estate may not be as valuable as a URL due to the infinite nature of the space that can be created. But given Apple's track record of developing some of the world's most popular electronics, its digital real estate within the metaverse may have more enduring appeal in this next phase.
Insider insights
🎱 Ominous prophecy: Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell predicts more small banks are likely to close or merge because of their commercial real estate exposure.
💻 Power to do more: Dell is the latest technology company to bring employees back to the office at least three days a week.
