The NFT-based Metaverse Using Physical Land In A Virtual Reality
In October 2021, Mark Zuckerberg completely changed the course of the future of social media and technology as he rebranded his company, Facebook, as Meta. This was a direct entry into the metaverse, which is hyping up as a digital or virtual platform where people can exist together. In essence, it takes principles of Web2 as we see in Instagram and other notable social media sites, but tries to make human participation feel like a real-world despite not being together physically.
Since then, the hype surrounding the metaverse has completely exploded. Cryptocurrencies like Mana (Decentraland) and Sand (Sandbox) which are building metaverses using blockchain technology have completely sky-rocketed, while billion-dollar companies like Microsoft has recently acquired the gaming company Activision Blizzard, which they will be using as their basis for entering the metaverse. Even huge fashion brands like Balenciaga and Gucci have been planning on getting in on this new form of digital sharing.
https://twitter.com/Meta/status/1453897361969799179?s=20&t=GDidFuic9b6BPgz-tip9cQ
But, a new metaverse termed ‘Next Earth’, is actually combining our physical land on earth into this digital environment. New Earth provides users with the opportunity to buy virtual land that exists on a virtual platform but replicates real-life places that exist on earth. With an upcoming token release that has been built on one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies in terms of transaction throughput and transaction speed, can Next Earth be the new Decentraland or Axie Infinity? Let’s take a look.
What is Next Earth?
Next Earth is a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) based replica of Earth, which can be bought as tiny plots of virtual land on the next Earth virtual platform, the metaverse. Apart from resembling monopoly and purchasing real-life locations that can sell for profit, Nex Earth has created their own marketplace where buyers and sellers can trade their LANDs or virtual plots purchased.
Each LAND itself is represented as an NFT on the blockchain and uses smart contracts based on the ERC721 token standard, which ensures proof of ownership.
A big reason for building a marketplace and allowing investors to buy any part of virtual land which they will have complete autonomy over is to separate themselves from centralized metaverse-based platforms. While Facebook and Microsoft are both planning to make bold moves in the metaverse, they will be a one-way street, where the users simply consume the content that the company lets out. This in itself is a reverse of what cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology is planning to envisage. The world decentralization, which aims to give power, autonomy and money to individuals rather than a central entity is why cryptocurrencies were formulated in the first place; something which New Earth is looking to dish out as well.
Gabor Retfalvi, the CEO and Co-Founder of New Earth states, “A metaverse that’s not monetized by these companies, but monetized by the users themselves”.
Next Earth provides NFT-based lands which represent a 10m x 10m plot of virtual land, that can be purchased and built on by the various members of the community.
NFTs Sold and Money Made
The Next Earth marketplace has officially launched in August of last year, with over 400,000 NFTs having been minted on the virtual platform already. Virtual plots of land from the New York MET to Egyptian Pyramids have been hot commodities, proving to be multi-baggers for early investors. More than 30,000 landowners have already joined and traded on the platform, while the metaverse has registered more than 200,000 interested users to date. The total marketplace has witnessed over $700,000 worth of transactions, generating over $8 million since inception, in just a few months.
The main difference between Next Earth and other metaverses is that it wants to act completely like a DeFi based virtual reality, with economic benefits that move away simply from NFT-based rewards. The CEO, Retfalvi has pointed out that he imagines virtual loans being an important concept on the Next Earth world, allowing users to make money in a variety of different ways. But another huge barrier has been broken by the company, with their upcoming release of the virtual platform’s native token, NXTT.
The NXTT Token
While a metaverse based-platform building its own native token to govern the metaverse is not new, Next Earth has decided to build its native token using Polygon, the Ethereum Layer 2. Solution. In the last few months, Polygon network’s native token, MATIC, has sky-rocketed due to the benefits it provides in comparison with Ethereum. The creators decided to choose to build their token on Polygon since it provides higher transaction speeds, more number of transactions per second and minute gas fees, which is completely insignificant in comparison with the hefty prices that the Ethereum network forces its users to dish out.
In fact, as soon as Next Earth began pre-launch, more than half a million worth of MATIC tokens had been committed to the project in just 8 hours.
https://twitter.com/NextEarth_/status/1485354261605236748
Tokenomics
The company has even explained the breakdown of the tokenomics of NXTT, which will be a major factor determining the economic success of the token and the platform henceforth.
There will be a total of 60 billion NXTT, 5% of which will be issued with a token sale. Only 20% of the total supply will be kept by the development team for an initial period of two years, in order to effectively work towards the decentralization aspect and give individuals complete control over the economics. The initial offering of the token will be available at just $0.0005, which makes the total market cap $40 million once the token price goes live.
The NXTT token is launching on January 27th itself, which is why buying now can be a risky trade, but a potentially profitable one if you get in early. In order to participate in the pre-sale of the tokens, a minimum purchase of $100 worth of the native token has to be made, ensuring that investors who are interested in the long-term value of the project are attracted.
As mentioned before, Next Earth is one of the only metaverse platforms to implement DeFi solutions. Since they are coupled with DAO’s (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) via the token’s governance code, they play a more hands-off approach. This too works into the idea of decentralized autonomies, allowing the individuals to be the stakeholders with a huge vested interest.
Finally, Next Earth is doing more than using the physical landscape of the earth and making it a virtual buying zone, they are looking to use blockchain technology and the concept of NFTs to create a more environmentally conscious world. 10% of all profits are to be sent to charities such as the Ocean Cleanup and SEE turtles, something the company has already abided by.
Out of the $8 million net profit that Next Earth generated, $800,000 has been donated across these charities.
With a real-life combination with virtual reality, the potential for Next Earth to become one of the world’s biggest metaverse and NFT based platforms is possible, if a stable token price and high user adoption is seen in the coming years.
