Imagine we could live, play, and work in a virtual world built on top of blockchain technology. Well, now we can! A metaverse is a virtual world built on top of blockchain technology where people can work, play, and connect with other people in the metaverse. This article will look at how you can earn money in the metaverse, some of the most popular metaverses, and why metaverses could be the future of the internet.
What Is A Metaverse?
As mentioned, a metaverse is a virtual world built on top of a blockchain where users can work, play, and connect with other users. This is made possible with blockchain technology, a decentralized network of interconnected peers that are able to verify transactions on the network without the need for a 3rd party intermediary. All activity that takes place in the meta world is processed in the form of blockchain transactions and is stored on the distributed ledger.
These metaverses offer players several ways to earn cryptocurrency, which we will go over in the next section of this article. Players are able to earn cryptocurrency by exchanging various forms of in-game assets, which are represented with non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Metaverses gained a lot of popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic. After people around the world lost their jobs, they were desperate to find a way to earn an income. Queue the metaverse. Let’s take a look at ways that you can earn in the metaverse.
Ways To Earn In the Metaverse
Although the concept of a metaverse is still in its infancy, there are still a few ways to earn cryptocurrency in the metaverse. Each metaverse currently in the market offers its own way to earn cryptocurrency. However, a person can only really earn cryptocurrency in three ways when it comes to the metaverse. The three main ways to earn in the metaverse are: raising creatures, owning land, and resource mining. Let’s discuss each of them.
Raising Creatures
Some metaverses allow users a way to earn cryptocurrency by purchasing and raising creatures. These creatures are often referred to as sprites and are NFT-based characters in the game. You can earn cryptocurrency by purchasing these sprites, raising and developing them, then selling them for a profit. Depending on the metaverse that you’re playing in, you can also earn rewards by taking part in battles with other players in the game. This is one of the most popular ways to earn cryptocurrency in the metaverse, with citizens in the Philippines relying on this method as a source of income when their country was struck by Covid-19, leaving a majority of the unemployed. People in the Philippines played the popular game Axie Infinity, a game where you purchase sprites, train and develop them for battle, and then sell them for a profit.
Owning Land
Land in the metaverse is now being seen as the real estate of blockchain technology. A lot of money is being pumped towards owning land in the various metaverses available. The total spent on metaverse land has already surpassed the 100 Million Dollar mark. Large companies and some celebrities are joining the race to own land in the metaverse.
The land is represented as an NFT, which can be purchased and sold at a profit given its demand. However, the average price for land in the metaverse is over 100 thousand Dollars. If you’re fortunate enough, you could also find a project that offers land at around 800 Dollars. These metaverses are still in the early stages of their development, so you will need to do some research to establish the project’s potential before purchasing land.
Once you own land, there are a few things that you can do to earn from it. Like real-world land, you can rent it out. As more companies become aware of the metaverse, they will want to advertise in it. They will need to rent land to put up their advertisements to do so. Other ways to earn from owning land include unlocking in-game assets exclusive to landowners or selling the NFT that represents the land for a profit. When selling, you can also fractionalize your NFT to sell portions of your land for when you do not want to sell the whole land at once. Some popular metaverses to own land in are Decentraland and The Sandbox.
Resource Mining
Some games require that you mine resources to spend the mined resources to mint wearable NFTs. In other games, you can also mine and mint in-game assets that can be sold on an NFT marketplace. A popular metaverse where you can mine resources to mint wearable NFTs is Decentraland. In Decentraland, you can mint wearable NFTs by mining virtual meteors in a land called Wondermine. These wearables can then be sold on any of the NFT marketplaces in the market. Like League of Kingdoms, other games allow you to collect and sell in-game resources as NFTs.
These are the main ways that you can earn cryptocurrency in the metaverse. Although there are currently only three ways to earn cryptocurrency in the metaverse, new projects are looking to add more ways for their users to earn. Some projects also include more than one way for players to earn cryptocurrency, like Decentraland.
The Rise of Play-To-Earn
With the growing popularity of metaverses and the ability for people to earn cryptocurrency in them comes the birth of the term: play-to-earn. This is the basis of Game Finance, or GameFi for short, as players can now play blockchain games in the form of the metaverse and earn cryptocurrency. This is growing into a viable option for people to earn money as more people join the metaverse due to the impact of Covid-19. This growing popularity has led to a race between projects in the space to create a metaverse that attracts the largest market share. This race results in metaverses that offer players more ways to earn and subsequently earn more. As this race for a better metaverse continues, the viability of play-to-earn games as a source of income will grow.
Most Popular Metaverses
The three most popular metaverses currently in the market are The Sandbox, Axie Infinity, and Decentraland.
The Sandbox
The Sandbox is a metaverse that allows players to create in-game assets and experiences and then monetize. These assets are created using SandBox’s VoxEdit software, 3D pixel art, and animation editor. Apart from monetizing game experiences and assets, players can also buy land in The Sandbox and rent it out or sell it at a profit.
Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity first gained popularity in the Philippines due to the impact of Covid-19 and is a metaverse where players can purchase, battle with, and sell in-game characters called sprites.
Decentraland
Decentraland is a fast-evolving metaverse that offers players a few ways to earn cryptocurrency. Players can either mine virtual meteors for resources and then mint sellable NFT wearables in the marketplace or play other games in Decentraland that enable them to mint NFTs. Players can also buy, sell, and rent out virtual land.
Metaverse As The Future Internet
There is a growing belief that the metaverse is the future of the internet and is also referred to as Web 3.0. With the growing strain on the number of available jobs worldwide, the metaverse offers people a world where the possibility for jobs and expansion is only limited by imagination. Furthermore, thanks to blockchain technology’s borderless nature, people can also expand their reach outside of the jurisdiction that they reside in and become more independent since they are entirely responsible for themselves in the metaverse. Should metaverses evolve to the point where people can go full time into them and earn enough money to pay their bills, we could see a new world begin to shape. This new world could be where the metaverse plays a critical part in our lives. We will work and earn in the metaverse, but we will also socialize, trade, and run new decentralized economies all in the metaverse. This will result in the metaverse becoming the next internet.
To Recap
A metaverse is a virtual world built on top of a blockchain. These virtual worlds unlocked a new concept in the blockchain space: play-to-earn games. Play-to-earn games offer people several ways to earn cryptocurrency simply by playing them. You can earn cryptocurrency by either owning land in a metaverse, raising sprites, or mining resources needed to mint NFTs. Some metaverses, such as Decentraland, offer multiple ways for users to earn. Due to Covid-19, play-to-earn games grew popular as more people had to stay at home and were left jobless. This popularity has led to a race to create a better metaverse that offers users more ways to earn and a more immersive experience.
CORE Gravity
CORE Gravity is the brainchild of the CORE MultiChain team. Built on CORE MultiChain’s high-performance blockchain, CORE Gravity offers users a multiverse with several ways to earn cryptocurrency as well as a more immersive experience. This is made possible thanks to CORE MultiChain’s ability to leverage the best functionality of every blockchain connected in its blockchain ecosystem.
