Billionaire Mark Cuban had some colorful, insulting words for those dropping millions on virtual real estate.
The famed entrepreneur, investor and Shark Tank star disparaged the investors who have collectively paid more than $1B since last year on land in various metaverse platforms during an Aug. 7 interview on the Altcoin Daily YouTube channel, which was reported by CNBC.
“The worst part is people are fucking buying real estate in these places. That’s just the dumbest shit ever. The dumbest, dumbest, did I say dumb? No, that’s not strong enough. Super, meta, immaculately dumb,” Cuban said. “Now, after you create a community, not before, but after you create a community, then you can find places, depending on how that community works, that can have perceived value because of access or whatever. But beforehand, based off of a traditional real estate model? Dumbest motherfucking shit ever.”
Cuban’s comments come as the metaverse land bubble appears to be bursting. Real estate sales volume on the metaverse reached $8M in June, down 97% from its November 2021 peak of $229M, according to data collected by Dune.com and Technavio and reported by RubyHome Luxury Real Estate.
Values have dropped as interest has waned. The average price of lands sold across the Decentraland platform dropped from its February peak of $37,238 to an average of $5,163 on Aug. 1, Cointelegraph reported. The Sandbox, another popular platform, saw its average sale price drop from roughly $35K in January to around $2,800 in August.
Cuban has been an investor in nonfungible tokens, or NFTs — pieces of blockchain code online that can come in the forms of pieces of art or graphics that can cost millions, like the Board Apes Yacht Club collection produced by Yuga Labs.
Yuga Labs recently launched its own metaverse, one that didn’t quite have Cuban’s support, according to Watcher News.
“What Yuga’s done or is doing that is smart, they’re, you know, they’re calling it real estate. But really, it’s just a token for access. It’s just marketing nomenclature, basically,” Cuban said. “Maybe they’ll be able to build it, to turn [it] into other things, but you got to have a community first. And then again, it’s just gated access, if you will, as opposed to an address.”
The metaverse crash has come amid a broader meltdown of cryptocurrency valuations, with some companies shutting down and government agencies increasing scrutiny. Many in commercial real estate are embracing crypto and other technology on the blockchain, even amid the recent turmoil.
Contact Jarred Schenke at jarred@bisnow.com
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