Investing in digital real estate can be a profitable venture but finding reputable sites to buy from as well as storing your investments safely can be confusing at first. We outline everything you need to know in this article about investing in digital real estate.
What is Digital Real Estate?
A Web2 definition of digital real estate would be that digital real estate is a term used to describe the front-end architecture that takes up space on the internet. Social media accounts, URLs, websites, and domains are all forms of traditional real estate.
Web3 added a few more things to that list, including Metaverse real estate, protocols, and projects within the real estate industry, including Parcl. Digital real estate nowadays should be considered more like an ecosystem.
Digital Real Estate Investing
Digital real estate investing can be done in a few ways. There are currently a few platforms that we think are best for beginners.
These platforms use blockchain technology to remove the middleman, ultimately making transactions cheaper and more secure. Other tech like synthetic assets and smart contracts allow tokenized ownership of a property or just no minimum investments in real estate, a refreshing change from buying a full property in order to gain exposure to the real estate market.
Web3 technology now allows the average person an easier, cheaper, and faster way to make money from real estate investing by investing in digital real estate first.
Companies such as Parcl, Propy, and Lofty are all building a way to open up real estate investing to millions of people currently priced out.
Click here to learn more about Digital Real Estate Investing
How To Invest In Digital Real Estate: Crypto Wallets
Typically the most popular wallets will be compatible with owning Metaverse property and holding tokens to invest in the wider digital real estate ecosystem; these include:
Phantom
With the increasing popularity of the Solana network and Solana NFTs, Phantom quickly became a huge favorite for the community due to its fast and easy-to-use application.
It offers various staking options, incredibly fast swaps and has recently released its iOS App, previously only offering an Android App.
MetaMask
Launching back in 2016, Metamask is certainly one of the most used cryptocurrency wallets, mainly due to beginners' advantage. It was built for users to hold Ethereum and interact with other projects on the Ethereum blockchain.
Ledger
Ledger is the industry leader in cryptocurrency wallet security; they've built a great reputation for being the more secure wallet provider on the market and have several products to offer users.
If you're holding crypto worth over a few thousand dollars, Ledger would certainly be the way to go. Especially when the value of your digital real estate increases, you'll need the safest place to store it. Ledger is a more expensive option but certainly worth it for security reasons.
Coinbase Wallet
Coinbase wallet provides Coinbase users with a self-custody option rather than storing their cryptocurrency on the Coinbase exchange. Self-custody means that you have full control over your funds. Whereas when you store them on an exchange like Coinbase, you don't solely control the coins themselves.
Coinbase is one of, if not the largest exchanges in the cryptocurrency market, and you can certainly feel at ease when you use one of their products.
Crypto.com
Crypto.com has two options to store your cryptocurrency, similar to Coinbase. They have their Crypto.com wallet and their Crypto.com app. The wallet is non-custodial, meaning you have full control, but you also have to pay transaction fees when moving funds around.
The app is the custodial wallet, meaning that you need to fill out KYC, and they can have control over your funds. The benefit to the app wallet is that you don't pay any fees.
If you're a fan of Solana and want to know the best Solana based crypto wallets to use, check out our top picks.
What Platforms Can I Own Digital Real Estate On?
Buying into digital real estate can either be through investing in Metaverse land or using blockchain tech to make physical real estate investing easier, cheaper, or faster. You can do this using a Metaverse platform or a protocol like ours.
Decentraland // Metaverse
Decentraland is one of the most popular Metaverse crypto projects on the market. It regularly breaks records for the most expensive land sales. The name of the land in Decentraland is called LAND, and one of the most expensive sales had sold for $3.2 million. The project is built on the Ethereum blockchain.
Sandbox // Metaverse
The Sandbox originated as a game for mobile and Microsoft Windows back in 2012. However, later on in 2018 was bought by Animoca Brands and began the pivot to building Sandbox into a Metaverse crypto game. A decision that would change the gaming and Web3 industry.
The feature that scaled the Sandbox platform is the VoxEdit interface, which allows you to create your own in-game assets, and the Game Maker allows you to build 3D games without spending your own cash.
Parcl // Real Estate Synthetic Investing
The Parcl Protocol allows you to invest in US neighborhoods and real estate without owning the physical property. The protocol uses synthetic asset technology to make investing in property easier, cheaper, and faster than traditional investing and even other real estate crypto projects.
The benefit of using Parcl is that you can invest in places like Soho and Manhattan without buying a property, and there is no minimum investment needed. Parcl is on a mission to build a protocol that provides access to the real estate market, a market that millions of people are currently priced out of.