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As my friend Bruce Stachenfeld says: “Real estate won’t make you rich. But it will keep you rich.” 

Something similar is currently happening in the virtual world. Online scarcity is possible. Virtual land can be valuable if it provides exclusive access to a unique flow of economic opportunities — in the same way that a domain name can be valuable. As such, virtual land can indeed be scarce. But the fundamentals are tough to read, the number of ne... See more

But at some point, other investors began to follow in our footsteps. The market became so so hot that even if you made the right choice, you would still lose money. Whole cities and neighborhoods materialized and prospered, but the price investors paid for the land made it impossible to sell the land at a profit or generate an appropriate yield.

On the other hand, this type of environment also means that some people will make a lot of money by buying early and selling before the whole thing collapses. In China, the biggest winner from the real estate frenzy was the local government, the original owner of the land. Online, the same outcome is quite likely: The companies selling these plots ... See more