The metaverse has existed in the form of multiplayer online games for decades. But we may soon enter an era of immersive experiences that are almost indistinguishable from the real world — facilitating new ways of interaction for gamers, corporate brands, and NFT owners. The foundations of real civilization are already seen in prototype next-generation metaverses like Decentraland and CEEK VR, where people now own lands, engage socially, exchange resources, and exercise ownership rights.

The foundation of the metaverse economy is built around non-fungible tokens, which are records of digital ownership kept in the blockchain and allow for the verification of identities, properties, and other possessions.

Beyond the publicity surrounding multi-million dollar purchases of digital art, the value of NFTs is also embedded in the potential for widespread mainstream adoption of NFT rentals — the ability to lend, rent, or sublease a property in the metaverse by transferring an NFT’s usage rights from one person to another.

Blockchain technology is paving the way for a fresh wave of innovation and spotlighting the digital/virtual real estate market. The terms "digital real estate" and "Metaverse" have become more and more common in the Web3 community during the past few years. Physical real estate has grown to be the largest asset class in the world, and given the direction digital real estate is heading, it will probably catch up with physical real estate over the next couple of decades.

Akin to rental services being the most significant revenue stream of the physical real estate industry, NFT rentals will also play a crucial role in establishing the virtual real estate sector. Unlike centralized brokerage services for physical real estate, permissionless protocols like Double Protocol will be key in virtual real estate rental services in the metaverse — thanks to blockchain technology.

How Double Protocol Aid Metaverse NFT rentals

Conventionally, Airbnb connects private apartment owners to people who may need such accommodation for a pre-defined period while on travel, vacation, or any other need. Leveraging on the same concept, Double Protocol provides a rental gateway to individuals who may want to utilize a metaverse NFT land for a predefined period, connecting them to metaverse land owners who may be willing to rent them out to them.

NFT rental is creating a new revenue niche for utility NFT owners dubbed metaverse landlords. Individuals with access to funds are snapping up blue-chip NFT lands in popular metaverse like Decentraland and putting them up for rent to create a revenue stream, opening up a powerful business model.

The idea behind rentals is tied to two major reasons: the short-term need of people for NFTs and the unwillingness or inability to afford to buy such NFTs at a given time. Whichever is the case here, Double Protocol opens up a gateway for such people to access and use NFT in the metaverse for a specified period.

Since lands in the metaverse are linked to NFTs, when a user leverages Double Protocol to acquire the right to use an NFT in the metaverse, they automatically initiate a tenancy agreement between the metaverse landlord (NFT owners). The renter (tenant) pays an agreed rental fee to the metaverse landlord and gains the right to use the NFT land for various purposes including building games, shopping malls, business hubs or even subleasing the metaverse NFTs.

The property transactions that power the metaverse are made possible by NFTs. These tokens offer unquestionable ownership proof that is more secure than any other existing land title, thus putting to rest the possible cases of fraud or copycats in demonstrating land ownership.

Double Protocol — Enabling NFT Land Rentals

Double Protocol is an NFT rental platform that enables the lending and renting of in-game and in-metaverse NFTs. Double connects NFT owners with users who want to rent them. Beyond NFT rental services, Double Protocol also offers services such as subscriptions, licenses, usage right trading, free trials, and rent-to-own — a service that grants usage rights to the renter, who subsequently becomes the owner of the NFT after completing a series of installments payment over an agreed duration of time.

As already pointed out, Double Protocol services cut across many areas, but this piece focuses on NFT rental for metaverse lands. As of the time of publishing this piece, Double protocol has already integrated Decetraland Metaverse and Warena with a host of other integrations in the pipeline.

Double Protocol leverages token standard ERC-4907, an extension for ERC-271 with Dual-Role and Expires function to enable NFT rentals. Through ERC-4907, the rental protocol enables Metaverse landlords to monetize the usage right to their digital lands.

Dual-Role defines the right of the NFT owners (landlord or rentee) and the NFT user (tenant or renter), the user has the right to utilize the NFT land within the defined usage right for a specified time. Once the tenancy agreement period elapses, the tenant automatically loses access to the NFT land.

Double Protocol makes rental accessible and affordable to greater players across the board by pioneering a collateral-free rental protocol that doesn't require a renter to put up any kind of collateral. According to research from the Asian digital asset platform Matrixport, “it is critical to have an active rental market available to lower the cost of participation and improve existing users’ engagement through rental income.”

As the NFT rental sector continues to develop, Matrixport believes that a “collateral-free rental model with a product design that separates ownership and utility of an NFT will win.”

Development in the Metaverse is Moving Rapidly

Since Giant companies like Facebook announced their intention to dive deep into metaverse development, the sector has continued to attract builders and investors at a breakneck speed. A lot of people want to be involved in whatever the virtual world holds for the future, nobody wants to be left out — either as an investor, landlord, or user.

If you stroll around Decentraland Metaverse, you may see people chit-chatting by fountains, attending hosted shows, staring at advertisement billboards, shopping in upscale stores, or being invited to play high-stakes poker by casino croupiers. All of these are the outcomes of individuals who have acquired properties in virtual real estate and created settings that have the uncanny ability to catch the interest of other residents of Decentraland.

Through Double Protocol, renters or users wishing to develop virtual real estate in such space link Decentraland can snap up NFT lands and make their dream come through without having to purchase such lands. As the metaverse continues to develop rapidly, the fast-paced NFT rental sector will play a crucial role in establishing the “Airbnb of the Metaverse”, a value-added virtual world open to all — both landlords and users.