Virtual Property Sells for $1.5M in Ether, Smashing NFT Record

A piece of virtual land on blockchain marketplace and gaming platform Axie Infinity has just sold for a record-breaking sum in cryptocurrency. From a report: At around 23:00 UTC on Monday, one of the platform's newest community members, "Flying Falcon," purchased the digital estate of nine adjacent Genesis blocks for 888.25 ether, roughly $1.5 million at the time. The transaction marks the largest non-fungible token (NFT) transaction of all time, as tracked on-chain by crypto collectibles data site NonFungible. Formerly, the "Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco 2020 1A" NFT from F1 Delta Time held the record at $224,111 in ETH, the site told CoinDesk. "As Genesis land plots are the rarest and best-positioned plots in Axie Infinity they were a natural fit for my thesis," Flying Falcon told CoinDesk via email. "What we're witnessing is a historic moment; the rise of digital nations with their own system of clearly delineated, irrevocable property rights." While the "epic 9" plot is by far the NFT sector's largest sale to date, there are roughly three other plots going for much higher: from 100 to 10,000 ETH.

Something feels a bit dystopian here.

[SuricouRaven]

Create a virtual world. Potentially limitless. Anyone could own virtual space limited only by how much real-world processing power they can devote to it. And what is done with this? Create an artificial scarcity and start auctioning off the deliberately-limited resource.

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[RobinH]

The only thing that might be worth real money is people's attention. The question is, will there be a system to funnel people's eyeballs to that virtual spot you've purchased, and do you have a way to monetize it. If there's a huge pull for people to go to Axie Infinity, and they have to go past your spot to get there, then I guess it's worth money, no different than buying ad placements during the Super Bowl.

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[Shaitan]

Nonsense, entertainment is also an option. There are other ways to make money than selling out users and not everything one pays for is about getting money.

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[jythie]

Also don't forget money laundering.

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[zAPPzAPP]

In these kind of stupid headlines, the buyer is usually also the seller. Just trying to get some attention, or raise the apparent worth of their goods.
Its not like they pay taxes on the 'deal'...

Irrevocable property rights

[viperidaenz]

You know, until the Terms of Service change, or the company shuts down the server or goes out of business.

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[Shaitan]

That is the point of the blockchain

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[JonahsDad]

So until someone successfully mounts a 51% attack?

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[cusco]

The point of real property is that they're not making any more (except in Hawaii and Holland).

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[jythie]

Well, blockchain will not help if they go out of business, it might not even help that much with with ToS depending on how the data that is actually stored on the blockchain interacts with the game service itself.

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[Shaitan]

It certainly could depending on what is stored on the blockchain and if the blockchain is redundant and public... in other words, if the blockchain is actually used for its purpose and not just for a buzzword.

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[jythie]

*nod* and unfortunately there is a trade off there. Blockchain is many things, but 'efficient' is not one of them. One serious issue that Cryptokitties (one of the inspirations of this project) ran into is that the more of the game state you put on the blockchain, the slower and more expensive it gets. So if they want this thing to run reasonably, they probably put as little state date into the blockchain as possible, which means a lot of it is going to be server side instead.

I would not be surprised i

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[Shaitan]

"I would not be surprised if it was some kind of map like 'user Id ABC owns Lot Id XYZ', but that leaves open all sorts of possibilities for changing what XYZ actually is."

Sure does but the fact user id ABC owns that spot on the blockchain isn't in dispute. Someone else could write their own open source alternate universe using the same blockchain and you'd still have a chunk of turf. You might not know what the future will be but your flag has been planted and you have a common interest shared with everyon

Like the lottory.

[jellomizer]

In essence if someone got the right number in their property they can exchange it for a lot of money.

However selling and trading virtual property including bitcoins, is getting to a point where it isn't an economic stable entity. The algorithms that make these blockchains, tend to hit a supply limit rather fast, thus making their prices jump up very high, to a point where people are afraid to use the currency because it would be so much better to hold onto it.

I keep on thinking of the guy 20 or so years ag

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[Shaitan]

Nonsense, the price simply isn't high enough yet. Currently, the price isn't set based on the worth of the asset but by speculators and there are still bigger speculators who can balloon the market when it hits. Institutional investors are only beginning to dip toes in the water and central banks don't yet have substantial reserves.

Everyone is tempted, sure over the long term bitcoin is going to become worth more (being mined out is irrelevant, the price can grow forever, you just trade smaller bits in prac

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[timeOday]

This is why the gold standard died. Being able to create gold out of thin air, there was no means to increase the supply when needed to prevent deflation, which results in economic paralysis.

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[timeOday]

Oops, I meant, being unable to create gold out of thin air, here was no means to increase the supply when needed to prevent deflation, which results in economic paralysis.

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[jythie]

Yeah, but btc proponents tend to like the idea of deflation. These are not systems people or economists, just people hoping to get individually rich.

It's a bit like buying a floating island

[OrangeTide]

This feels a bit like buying a "floating island", when it's just a barge anchored out in international waters but someone decided it was valuable real estate. That's all fun and games until the barge sinks.

If any millionaires need help burning piles of money, I have a few ideas.

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[cusco]

It seems to me rather like the scammers who sell acreage on the Moon and Mars and convince the rubes that unlike all the previous scams **THIS** one is really going to lead to a viable property deed.

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[OrangeTide]

You too can Name a Star after Someone Special for as little as $19.95. (digital download only, printed certificate extra. digital star chart to help you find your star for only $9.95)

I think we can draw parallels with a number of scams because they have one thing in common, they're scams. ;-D

What am I missing?

[J-1000]

I don't get any part of it.
- Why I should care that it's a game based on a cryptocurrency
- How it ever gained popularity
- Why virtual property matters

I'm officially old.

Wait, maybe I do get it.

[J-1000]

It's a Ponzi scheme embedded in a video game. Aaaaah.

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[Shaitan]

It depends just because something depreciates does NOT make a Ponzi scheme. If it recirculates it isn't a ponzi scheme *note I didn't look that close at their game so I have no idea if anythign recirculates.

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[starless]

It's a Ponzi scheme embedded in a video game. Aaaaah.

Or is it a video game embedded in a Ponzi scheme?

Re: Wait, maybe I do get it.

[Anonymouse Cowtard]

It's Ponzi schemes all the way down!

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[SilverJets]

The short answer: Ethereum is a scam. Bitcoin is a real and Bitcoin is a very useful invention. Elon Musk is the last one to understand the potential of Bitcoin.

Cryptocurrency is the useful invention. Bitcoin is a scam.

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[Angry Coward]

The only part I care about is that people want to use rigs of 10 or 20 or more gpu's to "mine" imaginary coins to the point that the street price for gpu's is now +100-200% of the original retail price and even at those prices it isn't easy to find one. At some scale it becomes a problem with resource usage and electricity and the like as well. Other than the negatives bleeding into the real world people are welcome to play whatever silly virtual games they want.

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[Anonymous Coward]

This is money laundering.

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[MtHuurne]

A quick read of their web site suggests this is a blockchain experiment first and a game second. I follow gaming news and I haven't heard any talk of this game, nor do I know anyone who plays it. It might be popular among blockchain enthousiasts though.

I'm not surprised that virtual property is worth something: game companies like EA make more money these days from selling virtual goods than from actual game sales. I am surprised to see $1.5M in a single transaction: I can't imagine the game play value ever

Rich person buys expensive toy.

[couchslug]

SSL.

I have some rarest tulip bulbs

[renzhi]

for sales too, that would fit really well with that rarest and well-positioned plots of yours. We got a deal?

Seems appropriate

[Rick Zeman]

Made up "money" for made up "property."

Super - LOL

[OneSmartFellow]

"What we're witnessing is a historic moment; the rise of digital nations with their own system of clearly delineated, irrevocable property rights."

I want to say something like - if you can't actually visit the property with your body, why is it property ? (or words that somhow communicate my confusion over the ability to have rights to a virtual entity)

Then I realize, I can't "touch" most of the few million U.S. dollars of my net value, and now I am really worried.

Re:Super - LOL

[timeOday]

Even land ownership is actually virtual. The land is physical, sure. But your "ownership" of the land (the ability to access and exploit it) is a made-up construct. Many people over time have been pushed off land that was "theirs." The land remained, but their ownership of that land simply ceased to exist.

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[AnonyMouseCowWard]

Yeah, your scenario is the inverse of this one. In this case you have virtual land, that cannot be taken away from you because of the blockchain. It will always be yours until you sell, but unlike real land, you can't grow stuff on it, nor can you actually live on it. In an event where property is no longer recognized and the rule of law is gone, I'd still rather have physical land that I can maybe defend than virtual land that is definitely mine but does nothing.

Does your digital nation have a military?

[rsilvergun]

It's not a nation if it can't make it's own laws, and it can't make it's own laws if it can't defend itself.

Also this is either a nutjob who blundered into a lot of money or money laundering. Anyone know which?

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[nightflameauto]

It's not a nation if it can't make it's own laws, and it can't make it's own laws if it can't defend itself.

Also this is either a nutjob who blundered into a lot of money or money laundering. Anyone know which?

I would say there's no reason to believe those options are mutually exclusive.

digital nation? Uh, it's a game

[Turkinolith]

And not a very good one at that.

Never more true

[willoughby]

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look who He gives it to.

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[Sebby]

What the hell did I just read? I'm "nerdy" but damn, virtual property purchased with virtual currency??

Exactly. Nothing was purchased with something equally valuable (ie. nothing). Just a bunch of bits going back and forth.

In fact, I have a bunch of BitchCoin [youtube.com] that I'm willing to trade with you - just send over a bunch of bits you think are equally valuable...

Abstracting value

[t4eXanadu]

It's no different from the stock market, or paper money, for that matter. There is an agreement made that some arbitrary thing has value. The difference, here, is only in the level of abstractness.

Welcome to human culture, where we pile on layer after layer of complexity, becoming increasingly abstract from the physical source. And to think it all started with language. I wonder where it will end?

...wait, *what*?

[Rick Schumann]

What the actual fuck are they even talking about, here? 'Virtual real estate', is that what this is?
Is this a joke? Is it April 1st already?

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[MrL0G1C]

I don't get it, the person mentioned in the summary seem to have bought a space on a map of some 2bit mobile game that doesn't even seem to have many players. Makes no sense to me.

Apparently when you play this game they give you some ETH coin, no doubt the electricity you burn cost far more than the coin you get and they get a cut without needing much equipment or using much electricity themselves.

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[Rick Schumann]

The first thing that occurred to me is that someone might've been reading Snow Crash and took it too literally, somehow thought that they were getting in on the ground floor of something big. But the reality just seems ridiculous.

Something that doesn't exist

[SlashDotCanSuckMy777]

Was sold for something else that doesn't exist.

Wow

[LeeLynx]

Second Life or whatever has gotten super expensive.