Blockchain technology enables the connection between the real-world economy and metaverses, making it possible for such parallel realities to become the primary source of income for many people.
Jobs at the Metaverse. For now, the fundamental tool to get a job in the Metaverse is blockchain “play-to-earn” games. Most of these games use NFTs to create real digital economies. As with Decentraland or The Sandbox, other metaverses replicate aspects of real life in them. For example, many users earn income by speculating on digital lands.
Jobs at the Metaverse to earn money
When discussing jobs in the Metaverse, one should not think they replicate the same jobs as in real life. No metaverse is yet so developed as to need the professional services of plumbers or cab drivers in parallel realities. However, you can’t rule out the possibility in the future. However, a cab driver’s car can be a suitable advertising medium. For now, most people who earn salaries in the Metaverse are through video games.
The video game industry is quickly growing worldwide. In Spain, it was one of the few industries that grew by 18% during the pandemic, with a turnover of 1,747 million euros last year. According to data from the Spanish Video Game Association (AEVI), the video game sector generates more than 9,000 direct jobs and more than 23,000 indirect jobs, in addition to a direct impact on the economy of €3,577 million.
Axie Infinity
An example of this is the popular video game Axie Infinity. Many families already use a digital game based on NFTs hosted on the Ethereum blockchain to supplement their salaries. The key to Axie Infinity is to allow players to create real, self-sustaining digital economies inside the game.
The income this digital game facilitates can be well above the minimum wage the nuclear family receives in some countries. As a result, Axie Infinity has evolved from a simple game to a livelihood for many people. Several families have decided to spend much of their time playing Axie in the Philippine community of Cabanatuan. The documentary Play-to-Earn NFT Gaming in the Philippines tells how the inhabitants of this rural community have turned blockchain gaming into their primary source of income. On Axie Infinity, a player can earn up to $400 a month, almost doubling the country’s minimum wage.
In other countries, such as Venezuela, the proceeds obtained by playing Axie exceed 100 times the minimum wage. For this reason, many families are already dedicated only to playing this game. An excellent example of the money that moves in Axie Infinity is that Katana, the decentralized exchange (DEX) launched just a week ago, already exceeds 1.7 billion dollars in trading volume.
CryptoMines and Alien Worlds
Axie Infinity isn’t the only game that lets you make money on metaverses. The CryptoMines video game replicates the galaxy in its Metaverse. This video game aims to collect workers and spaceships to navigate through the Metaverse in search of ETERNAL, the game’s cryptocurrency. You can exchange ETERNAL for real money at any moment.
Alien Worlds is another video game with similar mechanics. You can become a space explorer with mining tools to explore planets and mine Trillium (TLM), the game’s cryptocurrency. Each planet within this Metaverse is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) that receives Trillium from Smart Contracts from the central planet. Farmers World is another example. It is a farming game inspired by the popular Facebook game Happyfarms, where players can grow plants, cut firewood, fish, or raise livestock to get money.
Speculating with land
On the side of the metaverses themselves, Decentraland and The Sandbox attract more and more investors daily. In Decentraland, you can buy virtual land instead of web domains, but the idea is the same: buying a virtual space allows you to develop any activity you can imagine. Many investors see in Decentraland the possibilities that the Internet had in its beginnings. In this type of Metaverse, users can monetize their talents, buy land, art, music, or trade with different objects.
Currently, people buy most of Decentraland’s high street spaces, and many large companies already see the possibilities they bring. Sotheby’s, the world’s oldest auction house, opened a digital replica of its gallery in London, enabling auctioning products within this alternative world. Multinationals such as Coca-Cola have also made their mark on Decentraland.
But the ways to make money in these metaverses go beyond that. Virtual architects, designers, and workers are already needed to construct the buildings of the metaverses and designers of virtual costumes for our avatars.