Metaverse Group New and corrected entries. Corrections are new entries; nothing is edited in place. https://metaversegroup.com/2026-09-02T00:00:00Z Metaverse Group — the operating company for virtual worlds https://metaversegroup.com/ 2026-09-02T00:00:00ZMetaverse Group is the operating company for virtual worlds. We assembled the first institutional virtual real estate estate, hosted Metaverse Fashion Week, and are still here after the category repriced. Is the metaverse dead? https://metaversegroup.com/answers/is-the-metaverse-dead/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZAnswered by an operator who held through the crash, with the numbers: what died, what did not, and the test for telling the difference. What happened to the metaverse? https://metaversegroup.com/answers/what-happened-to-the-metaverse/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZThe sequence, dated: what was promised in 2021, which assumption failed, what it cost, and what was still standing afterwards. Who owns the metaverse? https://metaversegroup.com/answers/who-owns-the-metaverse/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZNobody owns it, and that is the whole argument. Who owns the worlds, who owns the land inside them, and what ownership actually gets you. How do metaverse companies make money? https://metaversegroup.com/answers/how-do-metaverse-companies-make-money/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZFive revenue models that survived the crash, and the three that did not — with which condition each one depends on. The concierge — state what you need to Metaverse Group https://metaversegroup.com/concierge/ 2026-09-02T00:00:00ZOne sentence about the outcome you are after, drafted in your own mail client and read by a named human at the operator. No network calls, no storage, no tracking. The Register — the encyclopedia of virtual worlds https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZThe reference work for virtual worlds: 22 entries, each with a permanent reference number, a publication date and a definition written to be quoted whole. Metaverse — REG-001, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/metaverse/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZThe metaverse is the category of persistent, shared virtual spaces in which people are present as avatars and can own, trade and operate things. It is not a product and no company owns it — it names a class of platforms in the way that "the web" names a class of sites, which is why claims that it… Virtual world — REG-002, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/virtual-world/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZA virtual world is a simulated space that multiple people occupy simultaneously and that continues to exist between their visits. The defining property is shared persistence: the world is somewhere you go rather than something you run, and it is in the same state for everyone who arrives. Persistent world — REG-003, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/persistent-world/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZA persistent world is one that continues to exist and change while you are not in it. Persistence is the first precondition for commerce inside a world: without it there is nothing for a business to occupy, no property to own, and no reason for anyone to return. Virtual real estate — REG-004, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/virtual-real-estate/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZVirtual real estate is land inside a persistent virtual world, held as property and enforced by the platform or the chain rather than promised. It is investable as an operating estate with tenants and occupancy, and was systematically mispriced when held as a passive position, because land withou… Footfall — REG-005, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/footfall/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZFootfall is the number of people who arrive at a location inside a virtual world for their own reasons, independent of the operator's marketing. It is the scarcest of the preconditions for in-world commerce, the only one that capital cannot manufacture, and the one the 2021–22 cycle assumed would… Spatial commerce — REG-006, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/spatial-commerce/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZSpatial commerce is selling goods inside a three-dimensional space rather than from a page — a storefront a customer walks into, staffed and merchandised, where the item bought may be virtual, physical, or a virtual object carrying a claim on a physical one. In-world business — REG-007, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/in-world-business/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZAn in-world business is a company whose revenue arrives when someone is present inside a virtual world — entry to a venue, rent on a parcel, an item bought from a shelf, a service performed in-world. It is distinct from a company that sells tools to such businesses, which is a supplier to the cat… Virtual economy — REG-008, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/virtual-economy/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZA virtual economy is the system of production, exchange and pricing inside a virtual world. It becomes an economy rather than a scoreboard at the point where value earned inside can be redeemed for something outside — without redemption, every participant depends on the next entrant to realise an… Interoperability — REG-009, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/interoperability/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZInteroperability is the ability to carry an asset, an identity or a balance from one virtual world into another. It is rare in practice, usually claimed at the level of file formats rather than rights, and only meaningful when the receiving world is obliged to honour what arrives. Decentraland — REG-010, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/decentraland/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZDecentraland is an open virtual world in which land is an Ethereum token that the chain enforces and the operator cannot revoke. It hosted the first Metaverse Fashion Week in March 2022 and is where the category's reference land transaction — 116 parcels for $2.43M — took place. The Sandbox — REG-011, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/the-sandbox/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZThe Sandbox is an open virtual world with a voxel aesthetic and a creator toolchain, in which LAND is a token holders own outright. It sold land aggressively during the 2021 peak in partnership with recognisable brands, and has since recorded the deepest drawdown of the major worlds. Roblox — REG-012, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/roblox/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZRoblox is a user-generated content platform whose players build the experiences other players visit. It has by a wide margin the largest population of any platform discussed as a metaverse, and a native payout rail that has distributed real money to creators for years — in exchange for scarcity a… Fortnite Creative — REG-013, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/fortnite-creative/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZFortnite Creative is the user-generated layer of Fortnite, in which creators build islands that players visit inside the same client as the main game. It combines an exceptionally large existing audience with a revenue-sharing programme, and offers no ownership of anything built on it. Somnium Space — REG-014, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/somnium-space/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZSomnium Space is an open virtual world with on-chain land, built with a stronger emphasis on VR presence than its peers. Its land supply is smaller and its population smaller still, which makes it a clearer test of whether scarcity alone supports a land market. Otherside — REG-015, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/otherside/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZOtherside is a virtual world whose land — Otherdeeds — was sold in the largest land mint ever conducted, before the world it referred to was open. It is the clearest case in the category of land priced on the promise of a world rather than the traffic of one. VRChat — REG-016, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/vrchat/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZVRChat is a social virtual world in which almost everything — avatars, worlds, behaviours — is made by its users. It has among the longest average session times of any platform in the category and almost no formal economy, which makes it the strongest evidence that presence and commerce are separ… Augmented reality — REG-017, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/augmented-reality/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZAugmented reality is a virtual layer anchored to the physical world rather than replacing it. Structurally it is a virtual world whose footfall problem is already solved — it inherits the street's traffic — and whose persistence and property problems are not. Spatial computing — REG-018, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/spatial-computing/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZSpatial computing is computing whose interface is the space around you, containing augmented, virtual and mixed reality as cases. It is a hardware and interface term that becomes an economic one at the moment the space it renders holds property someone can own. Mixed reality — REG-019, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/mixed-reality/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZMixed reality is the case in which virtual objects are not merely overlaid on the physical world but registered to it — occluded by real surfaces, resting on real tables, persisting in the same place across sessions. It is the point at which an augmented layer starts behaving like a place rather … Digital twin — REG-020, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/digital-twin/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZA digital twin is a virtual model of a specific physical thing — a building, a machine, a city block — kept in correspondence with the real one. In an industrial context the correspondence is maintained by sensors; in a commercial-world context it is usually maintained by nothing, which is where … Avatar — REG-021, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/avatar/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZAn avatar is the body a person occupies inside a virtual world — the thing others see, that carries their identity within that world and, occasionally, beyond it. It is the unit of presence, and the primary object people spend money on in every platform that has a working economy. UGC platform — REG-022, The Register https://metaversegroup.com/encyclopedia/ugc-platform/ 2026-08-28T00:00:00ZA UGC platform is a virtual world whose content is built by its own users under a publisher's licence — Roblox, Fortnite Creative, Minecraft. It supplies vast footfall and a real payout rail to creators, in exchange for scarcity and tenure that the publisher grants and can revoke.