Floor is Rising Ep 58: Investing in Virtual Land – Market Structure and Use Cases – PangeaDAO
Primer: In this episode of the Floor is Rising, Punk 8621 and Albert Wegener, the pseudonymous founders of PangeaDAO talks about what PangeaDAO is all about. They also shared their mission of levelling the playing field of retail investors in terms of investing in metaverse land.
Background
Punk8621
Started off in algorithmic trading
Back in 2017, woke up one day and bought a Crypto Punk
“But I just remember, like, I went from in a really short time thinking this is really stupid to thinking, wow, this is the future. And it was like a flick in my mind. And I think a lot of people have that flick.”
- Punk8621
Thinks that NFTs are the gateway drug into the metaverse. The mind had been challenged so many times that when the opportunities of the metaverse open up, he can jump right into it
Hard to get into the metaverse financially and creatively all alone:
High costs of entry
Huge competition from VCs and large whales
Need the right connection with the right people to get into deals early
After getting the land, will need the right tools
Started PangeaDAO out of this selfish desire to figure out a way into the metaverse
This naturally grew bigger as he realized that there are more and more people with the same problem
Albert Wegener
Former web2 founder
Entered crypto in 2016 and got into NFT during the CryptoKitties wave, then started with Hashmasks
The whole team are friends in real life and had made the transition to Web3 over the past few years
Had always been sharing thoughts about the space with each other
Last Sept/Oct in 2021, they talked about the potential of the metaverse but the main barrier to entry is the price of a plot of land in Sandbox
The conversation grew into the need to allow access to everyone in order for the metaverse to grow to its full potential
A successful Metaverse cannot be just consisting of landowners that can spend 15k to 20k on a plot of land at that point in time
Disadvantages of retail investors
Why are retail investors at a disadvantage when investing in Metaverse land?
When a project has just started, they need financing, so a big player will often get contacted and invited to early seed rounds
These big players will be able to invest large amounts into the project at an early stage
Due to this early investment, everything within the Metaverse will be heavily skewed in their favour
This is normal but retail investors need to know that. By coming together as a group, they can remove this disadvantage
“Land is only as valuable as what you do with it.”
- Punk8621
Without the means to do anything to appreciate the value of the land, one will have to rely on the popularity of the world so that the price of the land can go up
A cooperative like PangeaDAO can work with creators already in their network to develop the land to raise its value and utility
Examples: building a gallery and having games on the land
What is PangeaDAO?
A collection of investors, artists, creators, and builders that want to gain exposure to different kinds of Metaverse land
They will work together to first acquire the land and then develop the land to create revenue-generating opportunities on the land
It is not only about the revenue - will be about creating cool stuff in the metaverse that has lasting value and benefits the community
The main goal of the DAO is to allow an easy way for any individual retail investor to get access to a diversified portfolio of metaverse land assets
Legal Structure
A large part of the team is US-based
Incorporated as a Colorado LCA
Taking a lot of big steps to make sure they are fully legally compliant
Building a project that can last years down the road for all its members
Use Cases of Metaverse land
Infrastructure
Example: Decentral Games ICE poker - built a casino structure within Decentraland where people can play poker with friends and earn passive revenue from that
Event spaces
Holding Fashion week in Decentraland
A fun way to connect with others
In the future, every company is going to have an HQ in the metaverse
The future of work is more interactive and fun with positive experiences
Financial structure
Due to the ethos of wanting to help the average retail investor, they declined to take any institutional money prior to the public sale
Most of it is done through bootstrapping and finding the right partners to work together
Public institutional money will be in the same position as any regular retail investor and they will buy at the same time
They only have a presale allow list, about a week before the public sale to bootstrap liquidity for their token launch
This is a small limited presale for early supporters and partners
A community that has room for everyone
Kizu asked if the metaverse might price some people out, just like in the real world. Will there be divisions between the wealthy and poor?
Even in the digital world, there will be winners and losers
There are lots of smart people in the space, so if something goes bad, they can just build a new digital world
“And at some point, if something goes bad, we're just going to build a new digital world. There's no scarcity of land, there's just scarcity of content creation and good utility. So if there is a world where it sucks, we're just going to stop going and go to the next one.”
- Punk8621
In a way, this is like the real world where people felt that the current financial system isn’t working out for them, so they went out and start a new one
These people who started these protocols helped a lot of people and they in turn became rich
Sabretooth think it is the use of the word ‘land’ that brings a lot of existing mental framework associated with physical land
A more accurate description would be an SDK from software engineering
Digital land originators like Decentraland are creating a platform with an SDK and people are using the SDK to develop on top of it
Metaverse - for a small but hardcore niche of people?
Albert Wegener do not think so
More and more people are spending time online every year
More likely to pursue relationships in the online world
Metaverse also leverages the power of influencers, like celebrities who adopted these platforms and brought the masses onto them
E.g. Snoop Dogg had an event at Sandbox
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