A piece of virtual real estate from the online world Decentraland has sold for $2.4 million (£1.8m) worth of cryptocurrency.

That’s right. For the sceptics still denouncing the perceived stupidity of NFTs, the emergence of the metaverse as a world of virtual ownership will have such individuals pulling their hair out.

Decentraland is an online virtual world where players can purchase land, explore, create, sell assets, and interact with others.

This sale of assets is grounded in the blockchain technology, being conducted through the use of NFTs.

The purchase was made by a subsidiary of crypto investment firm Tokens.com, called the Metaverse Group, using 618,000 of Decentraland’s native cryptocurrency referred to as MANA.

Equating to around $2,428,740 at the time of purchase, it marks the most expensive purchase of virtual real estate to date.

The land is located in Decentraland’s “Fashoin Street” and Tokens.com has said they plan to use it to host digital fashion events and sell virtual clothing.

Since Facebook announced its name change to Meta at the end of October, interest in virtual worlds or the ‘metaverse’ has spiked.

The two most notable of these worlds, Decentraland and The Sandbox, now have the 23rd and 34th largest cryptocurrency market cap for their in-game tokens.

Both have seen monumental growth over November, with Decentraland’s MANA up 39.8% in the past week and The Sandbox’s SAND up 72.2% at the time of release according to CoinMarketCap.

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