Nobody can ever accuse Mark Cuban of mincing words about the metaverse.
The Dallas Mavericks owner and prolific investor aired his particularly unfavorable opinion about metaverse real estate on the Altcoin Daily YouTube channel.
“The worst part is that people are buying real estate in these places,” Cuban said of metaverse platforms like the Sandbox and Decentraland. “That’s just the dumbest s*** ever.”
Cuban added, “Did I say it was dumb? That’s not strong enough.”
The billionaire, who has his fair share of investments in the crypto world, said concepts in metaverse real estate may be successful after a community is formed around it, but is useless when based on a traditional real estate approach before the concept is proven.
The values of metaverse real estate seem to back Cuban up. The Information recently reported major drops in value in the virtual market, coinciding with a similar drop in the value of cryptocurrency and NFT values.
Trading for land on six platforms, including the Sandbox and Decrentraland, is down 97 percent from its November peak, according to WeMeta. Trading volume was $229 million that month, but only $8 million in June.
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Total sales dropped from 16,000 in November to 2,000 in June. Additionally, the average price of land in the metaverse was $3,300 in June, down almost 80 percent from a peak of $16,300 four months prior.
Commercial real estate ventures in the metaverse have involved property owners developing land by creating virtual storefronts and selling or renting to companies looking to sell products or employ marketing.
While Cuban isn’t afraid to bash the online platform, he’s not beyond making his own questionable real estate purchases. Last year, the “Shark Tank” star bought the entire town of Mustang, Texas, as a favor to a friend. The 77-acre hamlet, 55 miles south of Dallas, had been on the market since 2017 and boasts a population of 23.
— Holden Walter-Warner