Multi-metaverse madness as digital land becomes the new frontier

Michael Gord, co-founder of The Metaverse Group, talks about how virtual real estate could mean profits for 'landholders,' and how NFTs are evolving.

Video transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: So you may have seen the headline that big name companies spending thousands upon thousands of dollars to purchase parcels, real estate, digital real estate, in Decentraland. And this is part of the Metaverse. And Metaverse Group, based out of Toronto, is-- they're going to correct me if I get it wrong, but I'm going to say kind of the real estate broker for this kind of stuff.

So let's bring in Michael Gord, the Metaverse Group co-founder. It's good to have you here. I want to understand what you folk are pioneering because in layman's terms, you're selling parcels of real estate, but it's all digital. I did a quick search, and I saw that Decentraland actually goes back to about 2015. But it's on steroids right now. So tell us what's up.

MICHAEL GORD: Yeah, so I think our vision is Brookfield. We buy and own land. We create experiences, whether it's entirely in-house or whether we're flexible with doing joint ventures for our land or other creative models in a similar way as Brookfield, and also to create investment structures, like REITs, that investors can participate in this virtual land boom, you know, without needing to do it themselves. So, yeah, that's our stage. So the types of experiences are--

ADAM SHAPIRO: Well, let me interrupt because I want to make sure I'm getting this, because I think it's fascinating, but a potential investment opportunity for all kinds of people because, essentially, what you're doing is within Decentraland, which has only-- you know, it's a limited finite amount of parcels which are actually mapped out, as you point out. You can use a crypto coin that people purchase in their wallets to then purchase the properties. But then you can sell them, much the way I might-- if I had a store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, I could then sell that. Only the key here is it's all digital.

MICHAEL GORD: Exactly. You can-- well, with owned lands, you can do whatever you want with it. You can sit on it and wait for it to appreciate. In an ideal scenario, you can sell it. But I think really higher value, both in the physical world, as well as in the digital world, is to create experiences, like the concert stage that you're seeing on the screen now, that provide value for real world businesses to participate in that can generate cash flows for, and as a result, have your land trade at a multiple, like it would in the real world.

JARED BLIKRE: Hey, Michael, can you tell us about some of the people or organizations that you're partnering with? We were just talking-- we were just looking at that concert B-roll that was sitting right there. What kind of-- who's interested in this project? I know there's a lot of hype around it right now. Facebook just changed their name to Meta. So who's getting on board here?

MICHAEL GORD: So we actually had a concert livestreaming. And I call that-- it's a conference center that we didn't build that. But there's our office. Cool. So, for example, yesterday, there was this festival that was happening in Miami during Art Basel.

There was about seven artists, like professional DJs, that were playing, DJs like Dillon Francis that have a fair amount of name brand recognition that were playing in Miami during Art Basel and that we broadcasted to our stage in Decentraland so that the global audience that was not necessarily at Miami Art Basel would be able to watch the show. And the result is that there was-- it looks like, you know, probably thousands of people that showed up and were making it rain digital dollars, which is pretty cool. I actually didn't even know that was possible.