A Journey into Metaverse Virtual Real Estate with Jason Cassidy - Step into the Metaverse pocast: EP15

Good day everyone and welcome to the Step into the Metaverse podcast. My name is Marc Vermenhorn and I'm also known as the Digital Speaker. I'm a future tech strategist and I think about how emerging technologies change organizations and society. This podcast is part of my new book called Step into the how the Immersive Internet Will Unlock a Trillion Dollar Social Economy. The book is available as an ebook, hard copy and audiobook. As part of this book, I did nearly 100 in depth interviews with the stakeholders involved in creating the open Metaverse. Investors, the developers, the artists, the collectors, etc. And I have turned a selection of these interviews into this podcast as I think that these conversations are too valuable to leave them on my computer. In this interview I interviewed Jason Cassidy. Jason is the co founder of the Metaverse Group, which is the first virtual real estate company in the world, offering exposure to the industry of virtual land via the Metaverse. They facilitate the buying and selling, renting and investment of virtual real estate. Jason also founded Non Fungible, which is an NFT luxury art curator and NFT artist incubator. During the interview we discussed pros and cons of real estate in the Metaverse, especially because the interview took place just a few days after the Metaverse group had purchased 160 parcels of land in Decentraland for what was then worth US$2.4 million. We also covered the role of NFTs for the next iteration of the Internet. Enjoy the conversation.

Please go ahead with a brief introduction of what you do and who you are.

Certainly. So my name is Jason Cassidy and I'm a Canadian. I live down in the Caribbean now and the a bit of an intent behind that. We'll get into that in a moment. But my journey in cryptocurrency started all the way back in the year 2012, which in crypto terms is ancient now. And I came from BlackBerry and if you got to put yourself back in the time machine when this is when Apple just started to take market share from BlackBerry. And at that time I saw the writing on the wall and I thought, you know what, I'm 30 years old. It feels like this is an opportunity for me to move in a different direction. And then over the next year and a half I worked with BlackBerry to kind of wind my career down because I was looking after the calorie division for the entire company in terms of testing. So it was a big responsibility and it wasn't one of those things you could just jump out of and give two weeks notice. But long story short, leaving BlackBerry catapulted me into a position where I had a lot of free time. And I was introduced to the White Paper by Satoshi Nakamoto in late 2012. I locked myself in my room and did not come out probably for two weeks, and had that eureka moment that a lot of us had back then. And I didn't really know how big it was, but I knew it was going to be big. And so that kind of got me into the space. And for the last decade, I've been doing everything from consulting with companies, helping world governments understand how to make real, sensible laws. I've worked with the Ontario Securities Commission, the osc, which is a great group of people that really do care about making sure that Canadians get into cryptocurrency and have a good experience. So that was fun. I'm also the owner and founder of Game Credits, which is the first gaming cryptocurrency in history. It was launched all the way back in February of 2014. And our focus is on NFTs and the Metaverse. So that's very apropos to the conversation here. And I've also got myself involved with what looks like the first real estate company for the Metaverse. It's called Metaverse Group. And you can think of us at Metaverse Group as kind of the century 21 at the residential level of real estate, and like the Brook street at the commercial level, we're looking to break down those barriers so that individuals that want that beautiful single parcel for themselves, or a corporation that's looking to come in and have an online presence, they can do that in a safe fashion. So I think that's a good primer for the conversation today, because, as you can see, I've been involved in the Metaverse space going back to 2017, went Decentraland, which is the most prominent metaverse as of today. They were just getting their start, Mark and I was fortunate enough to be there when it really wasn't much to talk about, frankly. It was more of an experiment than a thing like it is today. So that perspective, I think, has helped guide me to doing some cool things at Game Credits because we're building our own metaverse called Genesis Worlds, and also being in position to help guide the industry to actually have sensible laws. And like you talked about earlier, there lay a blueprint so that the Metaverse is something that actually works out for humanity and doesn't become something that goes off the path and becomes something that humanity doesn't really want or serve a purpose. And I think there's some concern right now that if we don't lay the groundwork for that, it potentially could end up in that direction. So I think we'll talk a little bit about that on the call too. How do we make sure, like you said, that this is something that ends up being what we want and not growing into something else? So that's a little bit about my background and why I'm so passionate about the Metaverse. And I'm excited to have some questions in a Q and A session with you here on where the Metaverse is not just today, but where it's going to be in three to five years from now.

Yes, definitely. And of course, you made some big news this week. Was it last week with the purchase of the land in Decentraland?

You're right. And to show you how fast things move in the Metaverse, last week are correct. We made a purchase for US$2.4 million in Decentraland. It's 116 parcel estate in the fashion district. And for us, it cements our vision of building long term there with partners. So for us, we also believe that the fashion industry is going to be the next big thing in NFTs in the year 2022. So this was a way for us to put our stake in the ground and show our partners that we're really looking to build with them. Now, that was a record as of a week ago. However, just a couple of days ago, there was a new world record. So we set the world record last week at $2.4 million for the largest purchase of Metaverse real estate. And just days later, there was a purchase in the sandbox, which is another prominent metaverse, and that was for $4.6 million. So, Mark, I think it's a clear indication at the end of this year that this is a thing. This is going to be a real big land rush. And I believe that you're going to see next year is going to be just crazy in the sense that the public is going to start to get excited about this. They're going to see that this is more than just the next iteration of Second Life, which is what most people have as a frame of reference from the old days of what a metaverse could look like. This is now blockchain backing it. So it gives so much more utility and power. But like you said, with that power comes responsibility. And there's going to have to be some rules laid down for this new economy so that it actually functions healthily.

Yeah, it's amazing. How fast things are going. Indeed. It's really cool. What is the metaverse according to you?

That is probably the most important question that we're going to tackle today, believe it or not, because it's so early on. There is no definition. And this is something that I battle or have fun with, depending on who I'm talking with every single day in my career. Some people believe that a metaverse is an extension of a game. And again, that Second Life reference is for some people, what they see, a metaverse. For others, a metaverse is a place that you can have a virtual complement of your identity, and you can do things that you may not be able to do in the physical world. So, for example, in the COVID 19 era, moving around frictionlessly isn't something that we can take as a guarantee. So having a virtual compliment opens up a whole new set of opportunities for people. You've got the commerce aspect. You can now potentially engage in commerce in a more engaging way. So instead of going to a website and going through the traditional e commerce experience, which we're all used to, by the year 2021, you can now have a fully immersive experience, potentially in virtual reality or augmented reality, depending on what metaverse you're in, and connect with the consumer or connect with that friend of yours. If you're in academics, you can connect with that student. We're already seeing that there's some schools that are looking at remote learning the metaverse. So to me, a metaverse is a place where anyone can jump in and take part of this new economy that's backed by cryptocurrency. And they can have a virtual representation of themselves called an avatar, and they can really do what they want, how they want, and they can control that. I guess for me, the big thing is that people now have sovereignty over what they're doing. They can control their assets. So for me, the metaverse is more than a game, it's more than an economy. It's a shared virtual experience. I suppose if I had to put it into a couple words, that is very good.

I think the social component is, of course, crucial to this entire metaverse, I would say.

I think it really is. The social component cannot be undervalued. And if we look at the existing metaverses, they're built on community support. And this is something that's a little bit different even from a lot of crypto community projects, like fungible currencies, for example. With metaverses, this really is community driven, and I'll use decentraland again, as an example, because Decentraland, having launched initially in 2017, is, as today, the most advanced metaverse in the blockchain space. That may not be the case down the road, but as of today, it is. So they're a great example to look at for lessons learned, things they did well, things they could have improved upon. One thing that Decentraland did very well, Mark, is that they got their community engaged at the very beginning of the building phase. So there was a sense of ownership, they had a stake in it. There was more than just the financial, there was the emotional. They had put a lot of time in. They actually had to say in how that virtual space got developed. And that's a lot of maturity on the part of Decentraland leadership team to give sovereignty and give some opportunity to the community. So the social aspect of being able to have a say in what happens, or just being able to log in to the metaverse and see your friends in an actual interactive way. So you're getting out of the zoom world and you're getting into a virtual space where your friends, you can do anything you want. The social aspect, I think, is what's going to drive the metaverse. As more and more people hear about this, I think you're going to see social activities will go into that virtual space because it's a safe place, it's a fun place, and it's placed often without limitations.

Absolutely. How important is real estate for you in the metaverse, and how will this develop in the years to come?

For myself, as someone who likes physical real estate, I connected with the concept of what virtual real estate is, and it's. It's a complex topic, and it can be a very simple topic, depending on how you look at it. So one thing I love to tell people is that if you are someone who's already in physical real estate, like you're a landlord or you've owned commercial real estate, a lot of the headaches and the challenges that you face in the physical real estate world, they don't apply, they don't translate over to the virtual real estate world. And I'm going to give you an example. If you've been a landlord, you may have been in the case where you had a tenant who did not pay rent on time, or you may have a tenant that did damage to the property. They maybe they had a house party. These are issues that do not exist in the virtual world because these are controlled by smart contracts. As rentals become a very common thing, Mark, in the future, probably sometime Even next year you're going to see Decentraland will have a rental system built in to the ui. So if you're a landowner and you own virtual real estate in Decentraland, you they'll make it as easy as a click, click, click to go ahead and potentially rent that land out to somebody. And in the physical world, if they don't pay rent, you're going to have to go ahead and follow up and potentially that could lead to an eviction. But in the virtual world, the smart contract will say if the rent is not paid by a certain time, the tenant loses access to the property. It's controlled on the blockchain, it's transparent, it's immutable, so you don't have to worry about late paying tenants. The eviction process is very simple. And of course they're going to be paying in cryptocurrency. So there's another efficient aspect to it. So, you know, getting building permits, having a leaky faucet that floods your first level floor, these aren't issues that you have in the virtual space. You do have other challenges though, that you don't have in the physical space. So there's a trade off of those realities, I would say.

Yeah. And so of course, smart contracts I send it, that plays a major role because it will really enable this automated, you know, whether it's rent or whether it's other type of decision making or payments. What about NFTs? What role do NFTs play in the metaverse?

So NFTs are what represents this virtual land. So when we talk about buying virtual real estate, you're really buying a non fungible token. And that's what NFT stands for. And just for the education aspect, fungibility speaks to the likeness or the sameness. So $100bill in my wallet mark is the same as the $100 bill in your wallet. They have the same value, they're interchangeable, they're fungible, and they have the aspect of fungibility. But if your daughter or your son painted a picture for you, that would be unique, that is their artistic creation that could potentially be tokenized into an nft. And just like your home, that has a deed to it is unique and has unique properties, dimensions of the home, the land, this is the same thing for the virtual space. Each piece of land has its own X and Y coordinate, so it exists in a certain place. And as we know with real estate, location, location, location, this is the same in the virtual world. You probably want to be close to neighbors that are Upkeeping their property that are bringing in foot traffic, that are bringing a lot of prestige to the area because it will raise the value of your real estate, will bring more people buy only good things can come from it. And these are all represented by non fungible tokens and so on Ethereum you have the ERC721 standard. And these virtual pieces of real estate are represented by a crypto token as an NFT, which is based on ERC 721. Now the cool thing about this is once you get the land, you can start building on it. And one of the things that you can deploy onto your land is an ERC 1155. So on Ethereum, which is probably where 95% of existing metaverses that are on the blockchain are built, you are going to see a lot of ERC721s, which is the virtual real estate that is this crypto token that sits in your metamask or your Ethereum based wallet. And if you want to start building things, whether it's a structure, whether it's an amusement park, whether it's a virtual bench, those assets are going to be represented by ERC 1155. And those are all just crypto tokens. And these are things that you can trade, you can buy, you can sell. The NFT space is quickly catching up with the fungible space. And in my opinion, because you have the creative aspect in the NFT space that you do not have in the fungible world, the NFT space will eventually surpass the fungible space and market cap. I believe that will happen in the next four or five years. We'll have to sit back and see. But regardless, NFTs represent value in the metaverse and they represent unique properties in the metaverse.

Yeah, I think that's such a cool development. And we've only recently started with nft. So where do you think it will go in the next five to 10 years?

I'm a really big fan, Mark, of NFTs. As I mentioned, I got into crypto in 2012, but I didn't really feel like I was home until around 2017 where the advent of NFTs really became a thing. And it started on Ethereum, but it's on every major blockchain. So wax Bitcoin, sv, you're going to see Solana. These are networks that are smart, contract based and are really good to do stuff like NFTs. So I'm seeing a whole new slew of humanity mark that's getting onboarded and they're excited about cryptocurrency and they're excited about blockchain, but it's not because of Bitcoin and it's certainly not because of Ethereum. They're excited because of NFTs. They are being drawn into the collectibles, the art, the music, the real estate, the fashion. This is something that's relatable to people that may not care about Bitcoin or litecoin or these fungible currencies that don't have an emotional connection to them. There's nothing that really binds them to it. But NFTs are bridging that gap, Mark. And that's why I believe that they will, in the next five to ten years, become ubiquitous. You're going to see everything is going to become into an NFT as possible, and you're going to see a thriving economy where, I do believe, let's say by the year 2026, 2027, a lot of university students are going to have programs where they get a digital wallet when they sign up with their curriculum, and they'll have NFTs. And if you pass courses, your diploma is going to be an NFT because it's unique to you. It's your name, it's your grade, it's your path. You've walked to earn that. So this is going to be everywhere. I think people will be using nft, Mark, but they won't know it. They'll just see it as something that's unique to them, but it's going to be backed by the power of an NFT.

I wrote a book in 2017 about blockchain and how blockchain will be able to be used for social goods. And at that stage, that was, I think, just before the NFTs hit Ethereum. So we didn't include it in the book, but we did describe these kind of things that would happen, that you would be able to have your identity on the blockchain, you would have your certificates on the blockchain. But obviously with the NFTs, that all comes together. That's really cool. Indeed it is.

Yep. This stuff is all coming.

So I've heard the term the future is physical. It's a bit of a horrible word, but it sort of says, you know, the convergence of the physical and the digital world. Which aspect of life do you think will change due to this?

Well, that's a really good question. So this is coming from someone who's been in the Metaverse blockchain space since almost day one? Not quite. I can't say that, but very close. So there's some bias in my answer, but I want to say that the positive outcome of Metaverse is that it connects people in ways that Blockchain hasn't been able to do yet, and certainly no other technology has been able to do. So the difference between picking up the phone and calling your grandmother, who may be over in New Hampshire, and you're over in Europe, that connection, which has now evolved to a zoom, is going to evolve to something that's more immersive. And you are going to see that individuals in their 40s and their 50s and their 60s will slowly adopt this as it makes sense. So it will capture people's hearts and minds. It will allow people in countries that are being pushed out of that economic prowess that a lot of us have in these first world nations. Yes, cryptocurrency as a general technology has lowered the barrier, but I think you're going to be able to see people's imaginations finally take off. It's been very limiting still in crypto, as far as I'm concerned with imagination, but the metaverse opens that, and that's the good aspect. Now, I also want to talk about some of the risks, because there's some serious risks here. One risk is that the metaverse becomes, for lack of a better term, a garbage heap for advertising. So the lowest common denominator sometimes is advertising, because it's the easiest thing to get up on a build. So if you're going to deploying a scene in the Metaverse, you've got advertising space there, it makes sense to potentially use it. But if we only have people coming in to just advertise, then it becomes like watching commercials in between sitcoms. There's got to be more substance to the Metaverse. So this is why I think it's important that we get young people in that are interested in building things. We get people that have unique skill sets that can translate into the metaverse and add value. So, example would be looking at schools across North America and Europe that academia has had an issue with enrollment. It's been dropping year over year now for about nine consecutive 10 consecutive years. And academia is very aware about this. And they're not subject to the business cycle like most of our companies are, where if you don't provide a service or a product that the public likes, you may go to business. Schools are funded from different ways and means, so they have a different business cycle. And so sometimes they adopt things slower. But after 10 years of enrollment dropping, schools across the world are saying, how do we engage with students? What are we not getting that's clicking with them? Because for some reason we're not getting the message across. And part of the reason is the engagement is not interactive enough. Attention spans have dropped. People want things quick, and if they're not getting the opportunity to it, they're going to go somewhere else. So education is one of the areas that can really help steer the metaverse in the right direction. As far as I'm concerned, you're going to see more uptick, more engagement if you're able to actually go into a virtual environment and interact with your professor or your fellow students. If you're asked to go on your laptop and study and look at a dissertation for two hours, you're probably going to have trouble staying engaged. And the results are already speaking for themselves. We know that this is not an easy thing for some people that are used to being in a physical classroom to go into the virtual space of just sitting there on their laptop that's not interactive enough. They're distracted and the results show from that. So I think the metaverse, well, it's not a band aid to this. I think it's definitely a step in the right direction of keeping people engaged. And this applies to people that are going into high school, all the way up to higher education, and people that are going to go back and retrain themselves for a different career path. It's all applicable. Mark, if you want to be engaging with people, give them an engaging experience. If you want them to eventually lose interest, tell them to read something online for three hours. They're eventually going to lose interest because there's no engagement there at that self study. And I think education has to be a little bit more than self study at this point.

I completely agree with that. Then again, these are some of only the, you know, the metaverse becoming a garbage or sorry, advertising environment is only one of the dangers. What are some of the other dangers that you foresee?

The other concerns I have is that you have corporations come in early on and they push out individuals like entrepreneurs. I suppose that the prices of land goes up too fast. And I think, frankly, it already has. So I'm hopeful that this is just the awareness moment. And then after that, Eureka hits. For a lot of people, the market will come back to what I consider equilibrium because corporations are not being priced out. They see this as a very cheap way to be viewed as progressive. They're adopting technology, you know, they're putting their neck out there. It's great for pr. But that's not where the best innovations often come from. Those come from people that have nothing to lose. They're betting on themselves. They're not tied down with red tape and a large political structure that may be a pyramid. And they're using their imagination. These are the people that tend to really be the ones that create a foundation. The corporations are important, and I work with them every day. And it's a great thing to see them getting involved. But there's got to be a healthy medium to have an economy. This is why we're middle class. This is why small businesses are some of the best experiences that I've ever had that most of us can also relate to. So being priced out, having the corporations come in, buy up all this land, and price out the entrepreneurial spirit, that's something that I don't want to see. And how do you protect against that? Well, I think one of the ways is awareness, getting these people involved. Decentraland's done a great job of being community first, as I mentioned. So they were really looking to get community first because they knew the corporations would eventually come in afterwards. So this is something that, if you're a Metaverse founder and you're listening to this, make sure you get your community involved first. These are the people that have their hearts and souls into this. Corporations may have a thousand different investments in a thousand different areas. You definitely want to have people that believe in the long term vision in there early as foundational pieces. It's good for the economy and it's good, I think, for the community itself to see that they have a say in what's happening. So that's one way that you can avoid that. And the other way that I think you can avoid that is making sure that the corporations are thinking about community, that they also work to get their communities involved as well.

Yeah. So of course we have some well known Metaverse spaces. Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, Decentralized Sandbox. The latter, of course, being decentralized versions. But what are some of the less familiar upcoming spaces that we need to.

Be aware of right now? You're seeing it's a gold rush or a land rush, or both in the Metaverse. So there's a big distinction that I want to make here, and it's an important distinction that everyone's clear on. During the ICO era, the initial coin offering era, the barrier to actually create a coin was very low. Probably between five and $10,000 and maybe a couple hours of putting together a smart contract and Deploying it onto Ethereum in the last couple of years, the NFT phase, getting off the ground. Collectibles are a big thing. So CryptoPunks or the Bored 8 Yacht Club are examples of crypto collectibles that are worth millions of dollars apiece. The barrier to create a collectible series based on an animal, let's say, which seems to be very popular in space, to make animals the next big thing. The barrier for there is even lower, if you can believe it. The barrier to create a series like that is even lower than it was to create a coin in the ICO era. So why am I talking about this? Because creating a metaverse is a completely different endeavor. If you go out and you say, my name is such and such, and here's my company and we're building a metaverse, well, hold on a second. That's a pretty big statement. So the first thing that I at Metaverse Group do as a founder is my job is to assess other metaverses and I talk to founders. And my gold mark is to make sure I understand if they understand what they're actually building or are they looking to make a quick buck. Because metaverses are a long term commitment. This is not something you can put out, make some money, and then sail off down to the Caribbean. This is a long, long term commitment, and you're talking years and lots of money and lots of blood, sweat and tears with people helping you out. So there are a couple metaverses out there that I think understand what they're getting into and I'm excited about. One of those is Embersword. They've just done their land sale. It is an RPG style metaverse. They've got a nice mix of funding, the team has experience, they're very humble from what I can see. They put community first and they seem like they're in it for the long term. They haven't rushed, they've been around for a while, and they're just getting to the point where they're going to be launching their own token. So they've had a roadmap and they've stuck to it, and they've not sped up their timeline to try and make more money. I'm thinking that that could be a metaverse that I would be betting on to have some success because they're doing all the little things right. And a lot of metaverses that I'm seeing now, most of they're not doing it right. The other metaverse that's existing that I'm excited about is Somnium Space. And right now, Sandbox and Decentraland get all the attention, and rightfully so. But if you're listening to this, you don't want to sleep on Somnium Space. Archer, the founder is very passionate. He's probably the most passionate person I've seen in the Metaverse. That's a strength as far as I'm concerned, because that passion has been managed and tempered in the right direction. And he has done wonderful. They've got funding from some really big VC partners I know the Winklevoss twins, maybe through Gemini, have recently invested in. Somnium Space is a VR capable experience. So you and I could actually go in right now, Mark, with our VR headsets and actually experience what I consider to be one of the most immersive virtual worlds I've ever seen in my life. So they do have some challenges because they don't necessarily have the big star names like some of the Decentraland partners and Sandbox have with the Ataris of the world or the Adidas. However, they're getting some serious attention from some serious people in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. They've got a high IQ for crypto and they're very passionate. And because their passion has extended down to the community, that community is one of the strongest in the Metaverse. So they're not someone you want to sleep on. I think that's a metaverse that will be around for many years to come.

That's great to hear. So, and how do you think that once, you know these emerging incidents here, how are we going to move between these different spaces? Will we use portals or will we? Because there is no Google in the Metaverse. So how are we going to do this?

Another good question. So the whole promise of metaverses, the whole pitch that we were sold on years ago was, well, if we build a Metaverse on a blockchain, we can have interoperability, we can have cross pollination. You guys can take your experience that you have in Metaverse A, and you can translate and move it over to Metaverse B. Well, that seemed pretty cool when I was sold that back in 2015, 16 and 17. We're about to go into the year 2022, and I don't see a whole lot of that. And I have some theories and comments on where that's going. I know that some of the existing metaverses, like Sandbox and Decentraland, Somnium Space, it's definitely on their radar in the future. I believe that Metaverse is going to be complementary and Compatible, opposed to combative and competitive. And what does that mean? That means that if you want to go out there on your own as a metaverse and try and carve out a little piece of that market share and not work with other communities, not work with other metaverses, you are putting a gun to your head. That is not the future of gaming. You can have that experience over at Fortnite and some other companies, and I think these companies like Fortnite that they can make money despite themselves right now.

And kudos to them.

They've done a really fabulous job. They're geniuses. But that's not the direction that game is going in. And that's a very clear message, and I know they're aware of that. So you're going to see in the future, Mark and I can speak to with confidence, because at Genesis World, which is the metaverse that Game Credits is building, we're working with other metaverses that have a similar roadmap, a similar timeline, similar cultural setup within the companies, so they harmonize well. And we're talking about building our metaverses out with each other in mind. We're not waiting until we put the plumbing in and then two years later try and dig some kind of fix. We're actually building plumbing into each other's metaverses, if it makes sense. And this is a big, big thing, because you have to have some trust between the companies. You have to move at a pace that makes sense for everyone else. But if you do it right, you share your communities, you get to share in the economy, and you bring a lot of value add, because your avatar can then go from our metaverse at Genesis Worlds to another metaverse, and you can take those ERC 1155, your wearables, your hat, your sword, your shield that you have in Genesis Worlds, and you can take that, eventually have that show up in another metaverse and then another metaverse and then another metaverse and then another metaverse. And so the money you spend on these NFTs, your sword or your shield, it has more money because a person in a whole nother metaverse could want to buy it, even though they've never even heard the metaverse that you actually are using it in. That is the future of gaming. And that's where I think you're going to see metaverses that do well. They're going to embrace that and they're going to build that into the roadmap. They're not going to just use it as a PR speak to get everyone Excited. That's going to be part of the culture of the company.

Yeah, that's just great to hear. And so another concept, of course that's been around in blockchain is the concept of decentralized autonomous organizations. How important are those for the metaverse?

You're asking a lot of really important questions as far as I'm concerned. So that speaks to your knowledge about the space. I'm glad you're writing about this. Daos are something that's not well understood, but it's vitally important. And I've seen decentralized autonomous organizations that have completely collapsed because they weren't put together. Right. And I've seen some daos that really they make me proud of being in crypto because they've actually produced something of value as a new leadership structure. So now apply that to the metaverse. Well, I think it's vitally important and we mentioned that Decentraland earlier on the call was the first metaverse in the cryptocurrency space and the most advanced one going back to 2017. Well, the founders, Argentina, Ari and Esteban, they were very clear early on, guys, eventually Decentraland is going to be become community owned and focused, which means the leadership team here will be ceding control to a Dow and we'll be part of that dao. So we're not going anywhere. We're part of the community where we founded the company, but we're going to give the reins up to the greater community that we want to be part of. There's not going to be a walled garden where we're only making decisions and you guys find about it later on, whether it's good or bad. We promised you that we're going to be going to centralized fully. We also told you that's going to take some time. It's four years. We're going to start to that process. So Decentraland is going through what is one of the world's most interesting experiments right now as we speak, because they're actually now governing that metaverse in a dao. And so far, so good. So my answer to how important is it? It's vitally important. And how challenging is it to actually put together? It's very challenging, but it's worth the work to do because if you pull it off right, you've got something that's setting you up for potentially a century, smooth operations. And I don't think you can say that with the traditional pyramid structure.

Yeah, that's for sure. Especially companies growing fast but also collapsing faster than Ever before. So how should brands dive into the Metaverse? What tips do you have for a retailer or a manufacturer or whatever company that wants to step into the Metaverse? What kind of tips do you have for them?

The two Cs. Be courageous and be curious. And I guess you can add a third, be cautious. So brands that adopt technology, that do well, they do well, they're seen as progressive. They get the benefits of being around early as that economy grows up, and they become part of the economy. So they're not going to be removed from it early on if they're part of the foundational piece. So if you're a brand out there, and it doesn't matter if you're a small business, in fact, if you're a small business, you should be listening to this more importantly than you're a billion dollar corporation, frankly, because you can make decisions very quickly. That billion dollar corporation will not be making decisions quickly, and we know why. So brands have a lot to gain from a reputation perspective, but they also have to protect that reputation. And so when I say the third C is the cautious part, you're going to want to do some homework. And that's why companies like Metaverse Group and there's other companies out there as well that are coming into the space that are setting the roadmap. So you definitely want to make sure that you've done a little bit of research, because you want to make an investment in your real estate in a metaverse that actually has a roadmap for success. And you have to be able to identify what a roadmap for successes and one that just says it's for success and actually has no substance. So these are not necessarily easy things. But corporations that are interested, small businesses that are interested, they will take the time to do the research, because the Internet has a plethora of that available. Or you can always reach out to someone like Metaverse Group, that's been doing this for a while, because we love working with companies, we love working with individuals that have aspiring ideas. You have a lot to gain, and you have a lot more to gain than you have to lose. But by getting involved in the Metaverse, I'll just say that, yeah, this is true. I love Metaverse. It's just so diverse. For me right now, buying real estate in the Metaverse is like you and I being downtown New York City circa 1900, and we're buying up a city block together. As a speculative play, we can see what New York looks like now, 120 years later, but it'd be tough to conceive. That's what it could have been back in the year 1900. I think you're going to see that what took 120 years in the physical world to develop is going to take about 5 to 10 in the virtual world. That's because of the technology and the fact that we don't have limitations like we used to. So for me, people understanding that this is an opportunity. If you missed out on Bitcoin at 5, 10, 100, $500, this is your second opportunity. The NFT space is giving people that missed out on the first wave of innovation. You're getting a second chance, if you can believe it or not. And I couldn't believe it either when I saw it at first. But it's real and you can see it's real now. So if you want to get involved in this economy, one of the ways to do that is through real estate. And of course, at Metaverse Group, that's what we focus on. So big surprise that it's my answer. That's my passion. This is a way for you to take control of your destiny in this new digital frontier. And for me, Mark, it's the final frontier, this metaverse world that's being built around us virtually. So if you're curious, again, the three Cs apply. Be curious, Go out there and challenge yourself. Get out of your comfort zone. There's more seas coming up right now. Be courageous, be curious, but also be cautious. Look into what these metaverses offer. Look into some reviews, talk to some people, join the discord, see what the community's like. But, my Lord, take a look at real estate right now. This is not a fad. This is not a child's game that's on Nintendo. This is something that's actually going to bring the entire physical economy into its orbit. So take a look at physical real estate, take a look at virtual real estate. Understand the differences, and if you like what you see, I highly encourage you to jump into the Metaverse real estate world, because that could be something you could monetize and cash flow for potentially the rest of your life.

Wow, that's some great tips for people out there. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your input and your time. Jason, it's great the work that you are doing in this space, and you're obviously really propelling the space as well with the work of the Metaverse Group, and that's fantastic to see.

Thank you very much to kind words. Awesome. You take care. Bye bye, Bye, bye.

And that wraps up the conversation with Jason Cassidy. If there's one thing that stands out for me from the conversation, it is how passionate Jason is about virtual real estate. Digital real estate indeed plays its role in the Metaverse. Although I hold a contrarian view to buying and selling virtual real estate, which is why my new book Step into the Metaverse, I discuss the pros and cons of virtual real estate at length. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform so you will be notified when any of the other interviews will become available. Thank you and see you in the Metaverse.