Southeast Asian based RedFOX Labs has launched its first auction of SHOPs for the RFOX VALT metaverse, beginning on September 14, 2021, at 4:00 PM GMT+7, and lasting for 72 hours. The SHOPs being made available for bidding are in the Callinova art-themed quarter of the RFOX VALT metaverse.

RFOX VALT is a fully immersive shopping experience compatible with virtual reality. Combining gaming elements, RFOX VALT forms its own standalone metaverse experience. It brings together the best in class of crypto through NFTs and real-world applications of e-commerce, gaming, and entertainment. All SHOP, assets and billboards are NFTs and create unique opportunities for people to earn, interact and create.

The debut SHOP auction for the RFOX VALT Metaverse is a significant part of a larger metaverse movement within the crypto space and beyond. The global metaverse market is expected to reach $280 billion by 2025, representing a growth of more than 600% from just $46 billion in 2020, according to Strategy Analytics Inc.[1]

Major tech and gaming companies around the world are joining the metaverse market, like gaming platform Roblox, which went public this year and had a market cap of $52 billion as of June 2021, and WeChat, which has already been called a 2D Metaverse where customers can do practically anything, from socializing and shopping to paying for things in the real world and communicating for work.[2] Meanwhile, Facebook has been vocal about transitioning from a social media company to a metaverse one, and Epic Games has recently raised $1 billion while stating that its hit game Fortnite is a metaverse instead of a game.[3]

This interest in the metaverse has also manifested in many institutional and individual instances. Billionaire crypto investor Mike Novogratz of Galaxy Digital recently took a lead investor role in virtual real estate developer Republic Realm, particularly its $10 million investment vehicle, through his venture capital arm Galaxy Interactive.[4]

Janine Yorio, Co-President and Managing Director of Republic Realm, commented:[5]
“There was such a groundswell of interest in digital real estate in the metaverse. We felt that creating an investment product that’s fairly straightforward for individual investors to participate… would be something that would be met with a lot of positivity. We’re starting to invest in the metaverse platforms themselves in some infrastructure, so we’re just very enthusiastic about the metaverse space.”

With the RFOX VALT SHOP auction, Red Fox is giving individual investors a significant voice in dictating the future of the retail metaverse they are building. Investors can own a virtual SHOP in RFOX VALT by participating in auctions that will be held for these assets. An RFOX VALT SHOP can unlock unlimited opportunities within one of the 120 SHOPS that make up the RFOX VALT.

For the first auction, RFOX VALT is offering 25 SHOPs in the arts themed Callinova quarter through the Ethereum network. The Callinova quarter got its name from a combination of “Calli,” which represents calligraphy and is also inspired by the Jupiter moon Callisto, and “Nova,” after the supernova. The new name represents an artistic explosion of brightness, which RedFOX aims to achieve for this quarter.

RFOX VALT will endeavor to incorporate VR and AR technology, as well as future AI technology, in addition to offering digital items, including those issued through blockchain smart contracts and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). In its first iteration, the RFOX VALT will be a purely online platform offering digital assets worldwide. As e-commerce evolves further into the virtual space, RedFOX will launch localized virtual spaces in Southeast Asian countries, where both digital and physical purchases can be made via RFOX VALT.

Ben Fairbank, CEO, and Co-founder of RedFOX Labs commented:
“We are building a future that I am extremely excited about. It is a big and complex vision with many moving parts, but we are starting with one step at a time and we are extremely proud to present to you what we believe is not only the future of our ecosystem, but will also redefine digital inclusion, e-commerce, and immersive experiences.”