The Metaverse: 11 Ways You Can Make Money in the Metaverse

One question I have had about the Metaverse is, “How can I make money in the Metaverse?” I am a big tech nerd so having another side hustle that revolves around technology really piques my interest. So, let’s take a look at potential side hustles in the metaverse to see how we can make more money.

1. NFT Art

The NFT art market is on fire right now! If you do a quick Google search for “NFT art” you will quickly find a news article about a piece of NFT art selling at a new record price. Recently, I saw that someone bought a Bored Ape NFT for about $50 a couple of years ago and they just sold it for $1.8 million!

The idea is to buy some NFT Art and put it in an art gallery within the metaverse. Obviously, your goal is to buy the art for cheap and sell it for a lot.

2. Voxels

What is the heck are voxels? I had no idea until I started writing this article. Yay for learning new things!

Voxels are actually pretty cool. They are the “materials” used to create other items within the metaverse. Think of them as a 3D pixel that can be combined with other voxels to make buildings, clothing, cars, and other metaverse items.

If you are familiar with the game Minecraft, you are very familiar with voxels.

There are stores that are selling voxels to others. This is a prime business model to make money in the metaverse.

The next two ways to make money in the metaverse are wild to me.

3. Construction

There are now metaverse construction companies! Say what?!?!

One company, Voxel Architects, is even making $300,000 per project to help others build buildings within the metaverse. I guess you could look at these construction firms as a new generation of website developers.

4. Real Estate

Real estate has been booming for the major virtual world metaverses such Dencentraland and Sandbox. Because of this, virtual real estate companies have been popping up. You can start helping people list their plots of land and make a nice commission off that sale.

5. Advertising

Just like in the real world, you can create advertisement platforms in the metaverse. People are building advertisement signage on their buildings and so on. Also, real work companies like Nike are building their own little corner of the metaverse to help with marketing for their items.

6. Parcel Rentals

Just like in the real world, people can rent out land or space in a building within the metaverse. Sometimes people will buy land but don’t know what to build so they will rent it out to other people.

I think this is a viable place to start for people who want to start their own store because virtual land is SUPER expensive!

7. Games

Gaming is a massive industry. There is no doubt that will be true in the metaverse. There are platforms being built that are MMORPGs with their own currency and land. Also, you can build games within existing metaverse platforms like Decentraland and Sandbox. People have built arcades with classic games or even casinos. I think building out these games will take a lot of technical knowledge compared to something like building clothes.

I suspect there will be a gaming boom once more virtual reality is introduced within the metaverse. I can imagine bowling alleys, laser tag arenas, and even ax throwing as major destinations.

8. Online KTV (Karaoke)

Apparently, karaoke is a big thing in the metaverse. There is no doubt doing karaoke with friends is a silly but absolute treat. Sadly, it is tough to get everyone together at once. With karaoke in the metaverse, everyone can get together no matter where they are.

So how are you going to make money in the metaverse with karaoke? Well, you can start your own karaoke bar or you can create music NFTs to sell to other karaoke bars. Also, you could start other types of places such as virtual trivia nights or speed dating.

I think there are a lot of opportunities beyond karaoke.

9. Virtual Clothing

Yep, you can buy virtual clothing for your avatars in these virtual worlds. People are making clothing for people to buy so they can customize their avatars. In fact, a cryptocurrency investing firm just bought over $2 million in land within Decentraland’s fashion district just so they can sell virtual clothing.

Someone will need to make the clothing for them to sell. Will that be you?

As we learned in our ‘What is the Metaverse‘ article, sadly, you can’t take your clothes with you from one metaverse to another. But! These clothing pieces are NFTs as well so you could turn around to resale your avatar’s clothes for more money.

10. Collectibles

Just like trading cards (these are in the metaverse now too) or beanie babies in the real world, there are also collectibles in the metaverse. Collectibles range from clothing to a sword to a car and even up to a yacht. These collectibles are all also NFTs so they are unique and cannot be replicated. People are constructing collectibles, out of voxels, that fit within their world to sell on the open market.

11. Data Science

As a data & analytics person, I can only imagine the data these metaverses are collecting on people. Just like in today’s internet, websites can see every click you make on a webpage. I am sure they are doing this same data collection along with where you visit most and so on.

It is easy to say that data science is being used for advertising. It is also used for market analysis. Store owners and landowners want to know more about the people visiting their little slice of digital space. Also, people will want to perform market analysis on others so they know the proper pricing of products or land.

Data Science teams can buy the data from metaverse platforms and put the data into easy-to-digest reports for their customers. This allows the customer to make data-driven business decisions to make more money on the metaverse.

Conclusion

I think there are a lot of really cool opportunities to make money on the metaverse. These are only some of the ways someone can make money in these virtual worlds. I’m sure we will see more unimaginable creative ways to make money on the metaverse in the next five to ten years.

Personally, I also find these ways to make money in the metaverse a little surreal. We are seeing new industries in the real world being founded for a virtual world. It is really cool to see!

Really the metaverse is like today’s internet but in a three-dimensional digital world instead of our current flat web pages. Metaverse architecture firms are just like web developers for today’s internet. A real estate firm is just a domain name provider like Go Daddy. And a virtual world like Decentraland is basically just a web hosting provider for your land plots and buildings like Bluehost is for your web page.

Making money in the metaverse not sounding like the right side hustle for you? Well, check out our Ways to Make Money page. Here we list out 70+ side hustle to help you earn more money.

Wallet Squirrel

Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!