Real estate is almost always a hot investment—even, it seems, in the metaverse of the Sandbox, a blockchain-based virtual world that has sold at least $2 billion of digital “land.” Of the Sandbox’s 2.1 million users, 19,000—a number that’s up 375% year-over-year—“own a piece of that new world and are contributing to building it,” says co-founder Sebastien Borget. Big brands and celebs are getting in on the action too: in February, Gucci bought Sandbox land for an undisclosed sum to build an interactive shopping experience, while Snoop Dogg sold thousands of playable avatars for about $475 a pop.
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