When Investing in Virtual Land or the Metaverse, Why Meta Is the Best Choice?

TradingKey - Interest in digital real estate peaked in the early 2020s, but now that interest in it has cooled, and prices have dropped, the practical questions start for investors. If investors want exposure to virtual land or the Metaverse, how should investors approach it? For virtual land investors, the answer will depend on how well investors understand what they are buying, the risks, and what approach balances the real-world fundamentals with the upside potential. In that regard, buying Meta Platforms (META) is the most legit way to invest in the Metaverse as opposed to buying virtual land which is very speculative.

What Is Virtual Land and What Is the Metaverse?

Virtual land refers to a parcel of property within a digital world. Ownership of the parcel is recorded on a blockchain (i.e., public ledger) by way of an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) acting as a digital deed. Thus, the NFT acts as proof of ownership of a specific plot of land, as well as provides the ability to transfer ownership and provides an immutable record of any transactions that have occurred in relation to the virtual land. Additionally, in most of these worlds, the supply of land is limited (e.g., supply cap); therefore, an artificial sense of scarcity is created. As a result, owners have the ability to build structures, host events, lease land to display their brand, or simply purchase virtual land as a status symbol. Overall, though, while virtual land can be used for several purposes, it performs more like a high-risk digital asset than like a typical real estate investment.

If you want to understand the Metaverse, it is still very rudimentary, digital spaces where people can work, socialize, shop, and play. It is still very fragmented, and most people have yet to envision the interconnected world that will come with the Metaverse. The growth potential of the sector will come with improvements to the hardware, software, and content. The length of time it may take for the sector to reach that potential needs to be well understood by investors.

Why Investors Consider Virtual Land and the Metaverse

The investment case boils down to two tenets. The first is utility and digital scarcity. A limited number of parcels in a popular world can sustain experiences that generate attention, drive commerce, and, at times, pay rent. The other is platform growth. Demand for the best locations may rise further if a virtual world gains more users and creators. At the same time, the risks are considerable. Platform risk is high: if a world goes stagnant or closes its doors, land associated with that world can become worthless. Liquidity is questionable, prices are volatile, and there are practical concerns over wallet security. Regulation is evolving, and policies could impact the way assets are bought, sold, or taxed. This makes virtual land unsuitable for the conservative buy-and-hold investor.

Investment Options Across the Metaverse Stack

On the other hand, if you want exposure to immersive worlds without buying a plot in one, you can buy shares of the companies creating the infrastructure, tools, and experiences for them. Roblox (RBLX) operates a leading virtual platform with potent network effects. Cloudflare (NET) provides worldwide content delivery and security for live, interactive traffic. Unity Software (U) also has a significant share of the 3D creation tools used by developers to build environments and avatars. Nvidia (NVDA) delivers the processing and the software for graphics rendering and artificial intelligence—two of the building blocks of immersive experiences. For those looking for a more generalized play, the Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF (METV) has a basket of companies in the theme. These different paths have varying risk profiles, and not a single one of them is dependent on the Metaverse to keep its business afloat, so this does help limit the downside versus the pure-play virtual worlds.

What Is Meta?

For the benefit of those who don’t know what that is: Meta is the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It generates most of its revenue and profits by selling ads on its social apps. Meta has also invested billions in virtual and augmented reality via its Reality Labs division, including the Meta Quest line of headsets, first-party software such as Horizon Worlds, and an emerging developer ecosystem. Its size allows the company to get terms on distribution and financing that are unavailable to other firms. It can subsidize hardware to build its user base, weave identity and social graph into immersive experiences, and provide creators with an audience on day one. Reality Labs has lost a substantial amount of money to date, though, and management has reprioritized spending toward higher-impact projects—and reports indicated the scaling back of Metaverse investments in 2025.This balance of ambition and discipline is important because it keeps the company in the race while acknowledging the Metaverse is a long game.

Why Meta May Be the Best Choice

Ownership of virtual land directly in one world implicates risk directly to that one platform and requires long-term user engagement in that particular world. By comparison, Meta diversifies exposure between hardware, software, and a gigantic social distribution web. Its headsets have propelled consumer VR adoption, providing the company a direct conduit to users and developers. Its advertising business produces the cash to fund multiyear research and development cycles, even if the payoffs are slow. If immersive experiences through Meta attract mainstream users, the company could tap additional revenue sources, potentially including hardware sales, app stores and services, as well as advertising sales in virtual spaces. And if the Metaverse develops at a more moderate pace, the company still has the solid ads business and expanding AI capabilities to fall back on, and this makes the investment case less a bet on one theme. Having this mix of real revenues today with optionality around the Metaverse tomorrow is a more grounded approach than buying up land in a singular world or hinging on narrowly focused plays that require perfection to execute.

How Meta Stock Performed in 2025

The Meta stock in 2025 was a year of transition. Investors paid less attention to broad Metaverse narratives and more attention to the core advertising engine, cost discipline, and the pace of Reality Labs spending. Reality Labs remained at a loss, and reports indicated the company started cutting some Metaverse projects toward the end of the year. Results and guidance drove reaction in the market, with Trump era-related strength tied to advertising and margin expansion, volatility linked to hardware demand, and further-out Metaverse-related swings. What to pull out of this is that 2025 was a year of recentering and laying a sustainable path, not drawing Metaverse benefit. As always, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

How to Get Exposure

If you want to play more directly, and at high risk, you can open a crypto wallet, do your research on active platforms, and buy a parcel on a marketplace after considering sales history and neighborhood activity. This path involves a comfort level with wallet security, the fluctuations of your tokens, and the chance of diminished liquidity when or if you want to sell. You can also invest in Metaverse-related stocks via a brokerage account if you prefer a more traditional route. This means doing your own research on the ticker, figuring out how many shares you want to buy, and then placing an order with a market or limit instruction. For broader exposure, an ETF such as METV gives a basket exposure, but fees can slightly eat away at long-term returns. Both are important, but incrementally building your position over small periods of time can also help take the edge off your risk.

In 2026, virtual land should be considered a speculative digital asset that is highly dependent on platform health, user engagement, and crypto sentiment. The Metaverse is still a long-term play—there’s a nontrivial amount of uncertainty regarding hardware, content, and infrastructure—but it’s definitely got real potential if those items keep moving in the right direction. For investors seeking to gain exposure based on a firm foundation, Meta stock presents a reasonable middle ground with a healthy near-term business and appealing long-term Metaverse upside. Not that this is risk-free; this just has more holes to hide in and more paths to victory if immersive computing takes off, compared to owning a single plot in a single world.