Is Earth 2.0 Land A Good Investment?

‍Earth 2 is the latest concept to hit what’s becoming widely known as the metaverse: an opportunity to invest in virtual space that is identical to real life.

That being said, Earth 2 is not a sound financial investment. Other than a surge in current publicity, there are no actual benefits to owning virtual space other than personal satisfaction and pure financial speculation. It is little more than an advanced video game with no lasting economic value.

We’ll look at what Earth 2 is, and how it is sold, and why you shouldn’t consider investing heavily in Earth 2 as an untested market.

‍What Is Earth 2?

Earth 2 is a fully digital, virtual space that recreates the real-life Earth (dubbed Earth 1.0 by industry insiders) in exact detail. Plots of land in the Earth 2’s sectioned map correspond with real world geo locations on planet Earth in a virtual reality, much like a more robust and interactive version of Google Maps.

Marketing for the platform focuses on the blend of virtual and physical reality offered by Earth 2. It is seen as a futuristic concept that is at the cutting edge of investment opportunities for discerning users.

The main appeal is that the costs of this “virtual land” are a tiny percentage of land prices in the real world, making Earth 2 seem like a better investment than an actual land purchase.

Earth 2 currently has hundreds of thousands of users in various countries, and this new concept of virtually recreating the entire planet is attractive to those who want to make easy money in this “second Earth.”

Perceived Benefits of Purchasing Resources on Earth 2

There are numerous benefits promoted by the Earth 2 development team, although most are simply psychological.

Chief among these are the feeling of personal freedom by owning your own virtual land in Earth 2, and the comparison to other virtual reality video games like Second Life or an MMORPG like World of Warcraft.

How to Buy Land in Earth 2

Purchasing land in Earth 2 is a simple process. You can visit the official Earth 2 website, or another approved vendor, and create an account to access Earth 2

Once you have an active Earth 2 account, you can browse the available “tiles” of land across the planet. These parcels of land have a standardized pricing structure that makes assessing the value of your buying decision fairly easy.

Vendors and resellers make much of the fact that the Earth 2 technology and the platform have not been around for very long, so there is still plenty of opportunity for investors to choose their desired options.

How to Earn Money from Earth 2

Earth 2 is promoted as a means to financial independence. Parcels in Earth 2 can be used for advertising or rented out to other tenants, much like real-world land.

Additionally, virtual land is touted as a speculative market, much like any other resource. In that way, it does not differ conceptually from any other natural or artificial resource.

Basically, land purchased in Earth 2 is worth whatever the market will bear, and if demand increases sufficiently then the price for a tile of land will increase as well. You can buy virtual land and trade virtual land with other users.

How Does Buying Into Earth 2 Work?

If you wish to invest in Earth 2, you will need to deposit real currency into your Earth 2 account, which is converted into a platform credit represented as E$.

The exchange rate is 1:1, meaning that 1 E$ is equal to $1 USD.

This is not the same as a cryptocurrency, which is a true exchange from one form of currency to another (like traveling from one country to another and exchanging between the two local forms of tender). It is simply a purchase of credit that can only be used on the Earth 2 platform.

In this way, Earth 2 is not “the new bitcoin” or anything similar. You simply use actual money to purchase virtual property, and the only available avenue for making money is reselling land to new investors.

Can You Withdraw Your Investment in Earth 2?

Some users have complained that the Earth 2 platform does not issue refunds on cash invested into the system. If you want to withdraw money that you’ve invested, it can be a difficult process.

Additionally, since it can be hard to get your money out of the system, the only way to “turn a profit” is to get others to buy land or resources within the system, ideally at a higher price than you paid during your initial investment. Again, this is valuable only within the system itself, and does not create any real-world value.

What Benefits Does an Earth 2 Investment Offer?

In realistic terms, there is no actual value to purchasing virtual land. Since the land technically does not exist except within the computer simulation, you do not physically “own” anything other than usage rights.

Resources that are harvested within the virtual space cannot be transferred to the real world, unless they are sold to other investors. And since there are no benefits other than intrinsic value (which is purely subjective), Earth 2 only retains value if investor interest remains high.

All of this should be a huge red flag

Is Earth 2 a Ponzi Scheme?

Those who oppose Earth 2 have called it a Ponzi scheme as a way to discredit potential investors. On its surface, it certainly looks like one.

A Ponzi scheme is a form of investment fraud. In this kind of deceptive financial practice, money from newer investors is used to reimburse older investors. In other words, today’s customers are paid from the profits generated by tomorrow’s customers.

The danger here is that the investment generates little or no net gain, and can incur significant losses over time if it fails to attract a significant amount of users willing to spend money on what they would consider a good investment opportunity.

Can Earth 2 Become a Legitimate Investment?

Unless the market for a virtual world grows drastically, there is little reason to take Earth 2 seriously as a potential investment.

The key will be creating value outside of its own virtual space. As a comparison, any in-game currency is only valuable in the game itself, and does not translate to legal currency in the real world. Therefore, any “value” created is limited only to the in game currency available within that game.

One way that Earth 2 could create value or utility outside of its own system would be to build software applications that can only be used within the virtual space, which connect to the real world in some way.

An example would be a payment gateway or purchase opportunity that leads to real-world resources, which can only be accessed through the Earth 2 framework.

If the concept of a virtual world grows, companies could erect “virtual locations” on their digital real estate that provide the illusion of visiting that business much in the same way you would in the real world, or by browsing their website.