According to analysts from MetaMetric Solutions, at the end of 2021, the total amount of sales of virtual square meters amounted to $501 million. Digital properties were sold in four large-scale metaverses: Cryptovoxels, Sandbox, Somnium and Decentraland. The real boom in virtual property happened in November after Facebook announced its renaming to Meta Platforms. Now the company is entirely focused on designing its metaverse.

One of the buyers of digital real estate was the Republic Realm investment organization, which bought a land plot in Sandbox for $3.4 million. On the purchased land, the company built 100 digital islands with villas. Buyers for these properties were already found on the first day of trading. 90 islands were sold for $15,000 each. It is noteworthy that the new owners have already put the islands up for sale, asking $100,000 for each of them.

Over the few first weeks of the new year, the demand for virtual real estate has continued to be high. Thus, in January, the total amount of sales of digital properties has already reached $85 million. According to experts, with such sales dynamics, the real estate market in the metaverses could reach $1 billion by the end of 2022. Experts also predict that, over the next 6 years, sales of digital square meters will increase annually by 31%.