Virtual-property prices are going through the roof

“RIDICULOUS ANDNFT cool.” That is the architectural brief for a new office tower under construction in the Crypto Valley, a business district of Decentraland, a virtual platform built on the Ethereum blockchain. The edifice—owned by Tokens.com, a blockchain investor—will be a cross between a nightclub in Ibiza and the Bellagio resort in Las Vegas. In a fantasy world unencumbered by something as pedestrian as physics, a rotating company logo will float above the tower as nearby clouds shoot out company-branded thunderbolts. The tower’s purpose—to provide office leases for firms and event space for crypto conferences—is humdrum by comparison.Gamers have traded pixelated property and other digital assets for years. Now the activity has been turbocharged by the growth of unique digital artefacts known as non-fungible tokens (s), and by the hype around the metaverse—a emerging virtual market which could, depending on whom you ask, ultimately generate revenues of between $1trn and $30trn.