Illuvium, a web3 play-to-earn monster collector and auto-battler game in beta, has finalized a virtual land sale for more than $72 million, bucking the adverse market attitude that has hung over cryptocurrency.
From June 2 to June 5, the digital land was auctioned off in Dutch auctions. The sale distributed 19,969 property parcels, with around 282 plots sold every hour. The game will include 100,000 land plots in all, with Illuvium intending to sell additional in the future.
Illuvium’s land plots provide fuel and materials that power the game’s gameplay. The auctioned plots are divided into four levels based on their rarity and the number of in-game resources they may produce. Landowners will receive 5% of the in-game money generated by plots.
Governance Token
Players might buy land with Ether or sILV2 — prizes earned by staking Illuvium’s governance token, ILV. The land transactions garnered 4,018 ETH and 239,388 sILV2 worth $72 million.
While ILV is presently the ninth-largest GameFi asset, with a market cap of $174.2M, according to Coingecko, the asset has experienced significant drawdowns over the recent bear trend. ILV peaked at $1,845 on December 1 and has since lost 86 percent of its value, trading at $267.5.
Closing prices fluctuated dramatically during the auctions. Tier 1 plots were purchased for between 0.3 ETH and 2 ETH, while Tier 2 plots ranged from 0.97 ETH and 6 ETH, players secured Tier 3 parcels for 3.67 ETH to 20 ETH, and Tier 4 lands sold for between 13.6 ETH and 76 ETH.
Illuvium founder, Kieran Warwick, told The Defiant that the ETH will be swapped for ILV and redistributed back to ILV stakers. The sILV2 raised was burned, destroying 2.39% of its supply.
Lower Gas Fees
The Dutch auctions used Immutable X, an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, to reduce the gas expenses associated with participating in the sales. Immutable is also the driving force for the Illuvium game. Warwick estimates that leveraging. Immutable resulted in a 60% reduction in petrol expenses, with users paying an average of $20 each transaction. Immutable X will host future sales to cut gas costs further.
“Nearly all Ethereum NFT sales result in wasteful bids that reward miners and cost the buyer. Gas wars should now be a thing of the past,” said Warwick.
Two-tier 5’stadium plots, which host Illuvium’s e-sports tournaments, will also be auctioned off soon. According to Warwick, Illuvium already has sponsors lined up to provide revenue to landowners.
Virtual land is quickly becoming a competitive asset class within web3, with MetaMetric Solutions stating that $501 million in metaverse land sales were completed in 2021. MetaSolutions also predict that this amount could double in 2022. In January alone, $85 million in plots were sold.
In November, Republic Realm paid $4.3 million for a property plot in The Sandbox, breaking the record for the most expensive single land plot sold. The transaction was completed approximately one week after a land plot within Decentraland set the previous record at $2.4M.
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