It's been one week since Upland, the virtual real estate game opened up New York City's Lower Manhattan neighborhood for sale to Uplanders. I purchase four pieces for real estate, which included The Gatsby Hotel, 139 E. Houston Street for $69,420 UPX.
I flew back to San Francisco on the next flight. That cost me around 2,600 UPX. I found that New York's property prices pretty steep for my pockets right now. However, I was able to scoop up probably one of the cheapest pieces of real estate made available on Thursday, August 20th at 11:00 C.S.T. for $10,200 UPX. That property was 46 E. 3rd Street.
If you've stayed with me so far, you might be wondering why anyone would purchase virtual real estate. Does the name Ailin Graef ring a bell? She was the woman that became a millionaire in the virtual game, Second Life. She turned a meager $9.95 investment into a virtual network of over one million digital currency.
But, so what if you become a millionaire in the virtual world you might ask? Can spend it in the real world? According to an article published on May 21st, 2020 by VentureBeats, Upland partnered with Linden Labs, the creator of Second Life, and Tilla Pay, a company that is a registered money service business in the U.S. The way I see it, this is like having 5G in the cellphone world or having a faster and better computer processer just be released.
This exciting movement in the blockchain space reminds me of when I was working as a cab driver in Chicago and Uber had just entered the Chicago market. A lot of cab drivers would say that Uber wasn't going to last and spend hours telling other cab drivers why it wouldn't.
What asset do I really own?
What I actually own is a piece of data on the blockchain. Just as Bitcoin is a piece of data on the blockchain database, I own a piece of data on built on the EOS blockchain. UPX is not classified as a cryptocurrency or a fungible token as bitcoin is. UPX is categorized as a non-fungible token that can only be traded inside Upland just as they exchange Linden Dollars in Second Life. If Upland gets their approval from the S.E.C. and Tilla Pay partnership remains solid, Uplanders will be able to potentially turn UPX into fiat currency.
Of course, all of the blockchain projects, cryptocurrency, and hot new trends are all risky to part a hard-earned dollar. But if correct, just remember where you were when you first heard the new names like Uber, Google, Amazon, Lyft, Tesla, and Facebook. And, just what you had just a little extra cash hanging around.