admin
??virtual-property prices are going through the roof虚拟地产的价格正在飞涨?
investors are paying hard currency for software real estate?
投资者正在用真金白银购买虚拟地产
?
“ridiculous and cool.” that is the architectural brief for a new office tower under construction in the crypto valley, a business district of decentraland, a virtual platform built on the ethereum blockchain. the edifice—owned by tokens.com, a blockchain investor—will be a cross between a nightclub in ibiza and the bellagio resort in las vegas.?
“荒谬而又酷炫。”这是一座在建办公大楼的建筑设计概要。这座位于加密谷的办公大楼是建立在以太坊区块链上的虚拟平台 decentraland 中的一个商业区。区块链投资机构 tokens.com 是这座大楼的所有者，这座大楼将混合伊比沙岛的夜总会和拉斯维加斯的百乐宫度假酒店的风格。?
in a fantasy world unencumbered by something as pedestrian as physics, a rotating company logo will float above the tower as nearby clouds shoot out company-branded thunderbolts. the tower’s purpose—to provide office leases for firms and event space for crypto conferences—is humdrum by comparison.
在一个不受乏味的物理法则束缚的幻想世界里，一个旋转的公司标志将漂浮在大楼的上方，附近的云朵会发出公司标志的闪电。相比之下，这座大楼本身的功能（提供办公租赁和加密会议场所）就显得平淡无奇了。?
gamers have traded pixelated property and other digital assets for years. now the activity has been turbocharged by the growth of unique digital artefacts known as non-fungible tokens (nfts), and by the hype around the metaverse—a emerging virtual market which could, depending on whom you ask, ultimately generate revenues of between $1trn and $30trn.
多年来，游戏玩家早已习惯于交易像素化地产和其他数字资产。如今，这种交易方式因非同质化代币（nft）这种独特的数字产品的增长以及围绕元宇宙（一个新兴的虚拟平台，最终可能产生1万亿至30万亿美元的收入）的炒作而变得火热。?
real money is changing hands. some sales involve replicas of the physical world. users of legacy, an nft-powered recreation of london, have spent $54m on plots of land in the game (which is still in development with no launch date).?
这些交易是实打实的。有些买卖设计实体世界的复制品。基于 nft 打造的游戏 legacy 想要复现伦敦，其用户已花费5400万美元在游戏里麦迪（该游戏仍在开发中，尚未确定发行日期）。?
superworld, a virtual planet where people can buy digital versions of any place on earth, says the average user spends some $3,000 on property purchases. the taj mahal and the eiffel tower are selling for the cryptocurrency equivalent of around $200,000 and $400,000, respectively. their current owners paid under $400 each.
在虚拟星球超级世界中，人们可以购买对应地球上任何地方的数字复制版。该公司表示，其用户人均花费3000美元购买虚拟地产。泰姬陵和埃菲尔铁塔的加密货币售价分别约合20万美元和40万美元。它们现在的所有者当初购买时都花费不到400美元。?
wholly invented worlds are also drawing investors. in november republic realm, a company that manages and develops digital real estate, paid $4.3m for land in a platform called the sandbox, the biggest virtual-property investment to date. that same month tokens.com spent $2.4m for a plot in decentraland’s fashion street district.?
完全虚构的世界也吸引着投资者。去年11月，管理和开发数字房地产的 republic realm 公司花费430万美元在名为沙盒的平台上购买了土地，这是迄今为止最大的虚拟地产投资。同月，tokens.com 以240万美元的价格在 decentraland 的时尚街区买了一块地。?
nightclubs and casinos where users can win virtual money line the streets of the gambling district. in its art 
district sotheby’s, a real-world auction house, has opened a virtual gallery. smaller parcels that fetched around $20 apiece when decentraland launched in 2017 can now sell for as much as $100,000. somnium space, a competing platform, reported more than $1.8m of land sales by its users over a 30-day period in november.?
在赌博区的街道上，夜总会和可以让用户赢取虚拟货币的赌场随处可见。现实世界里的拍卖行苏富比在 decentraland 的的艺术区开设了一家虚拟画廊。2017年 decentraland 平台刚上线时，一小块地产的价格约为20美元，如今已经卖到了10万美元。据说在11月的30天时间里，其竞争对手平台 somnium space 的用户出售了价值超过180万美元的虚拟土地。?
in other virtual worlds, concert halls stream performances by the digital avatars of pop stars such as justin bieber and ariana grande. empty virtual shops could soon be leased by fashion houses such as gucci, dolce & gabbana, burberry and balenciaga, all of which have sold branded items in one metaverse or other.
在其他虚拟世界中，音乐厅里会播放贾斯汀·比伯和爱莉安娜·格兰德等流行明星的数字化身的表演。空空如也的虚拟商店可能很快就会被古驰、杜嘉班纳、博柏利和巴黎世家等时尚品牌租用，这些品牌都已在各式各样的元宇宙中销售自己的品牌商品。?
will the digital-property boom last? as in the physical world, profits depend on footfall and people’s willingness to spend real money. for that to happen at scale the user experience must improve. popular metaverse platforms such as decentraland and the sandbox are clunky. the average user may not want to shell out on the graphics cards, virtual-reality headsets and superfast broadband that gamers use to make cyberspace feel more real.
这一波数字地产的热潮会持续下去吗？正如在现实世界中那样，利润取决于客流量和人们花费真金白银的意愿。想要实现这一点，就必须改善用户体验。诸如 decentraland 和沙盒之类的元宇宙平台都不那么好用。普通用户可能不会像游戏玩家那样，为了让虚拟空间感觉更真实而花高价购买显卡、虚拟现实头盔和超高速宽带。?
the second risk is volatility. virtual-property sales typically involve the exchange of the cryptocurrency unique to a given metaverse. decentraland has mana; sandbox uses digital tokens known as sand. the price of these can swing wildly, even relative to established crypto monies such as bitcoin or ether, themselves hardly a predictable asset class. they could crash to zero if a particular metaverse bombs.
第二个风险是波动性。虚拟地产的销售通常涉及特定元宇宙平台专用的加密货币。decentraland 平台使用 mana 币；沙盒平台使用名为 sand 的数字代币。这些货币的价格可能会大幅波动（即便是相对比特币或以太币等成熟的加密货币而言），它们本身就很难成为一种可预测的资产类别。一旦某个元宇宙平台暴雷，其相关加密货币可能会跌得一文不值。?
to lower the risk, early investors such as republic realm are diversifying their holdings. the firm says it owns land in 23 metaverse platforms. but unlike physical land, the value of which is in part a function of its scarcity, each virtual realm is in effect limitless. so, in principle, is their number.?
为了降低这种风险，republic realm 等早期投资者正在分散投资。该公司表示，其在23个元宇宙平台上拥有虚拟土地。但不同于实体土地的价值在一定程度上取决于其稀缺性，虚拟土地是无限的。理论上，虚拟世界的数量也是无限的。?
hundreds of wannabe metaverses already exist and more will emerge as crypto technology improves. that points to a paradox. soaring virtual-property prices are predicated on the metaverse taking off. but a booming metaverse means less scarcity and lower prices. the laws of physics may prove easier to work around than the law of supply and demand.?
目前在建的已有数百个元宇宙，随着加密技术的发展，未来还将出现更多元宇宙。这就指向了一个悖论。虚拟地产价格的飙升是以元宇宙的腾飞为基础的，但元宇宙的发展意味着其稀缺性和价格的降低。相比于供需定律，更容易打破的或许是物理学定律。
本文翻译：vinnie
?重难点词汇：
unencumbered [??n?n?k?mb?rd] adj. 没有阻碍的；没有负担的?
humdrum [?h?mdr?m] adj. 单调的；无聊的 n. 单调；乏味
?
【考研限时福利?】
?????
