Shiba Inu Enters Metaverse With 'Shiba Lands,' LEASH Rockets 40%

Developers behind popular meme coin Shiba Inu said the protocol would soon offer plots of virtual lands in an upcoming, yet-unnamed metaverse, causing the prices of ecosystem tokens like SHIB and LEASH to jump as much as 40%.

Metaverses generally describe a virtual world in which people can interact as they do in the real world, but digitally. The concept has gained steam in recent years, with metaverse tokens like Decentraland's MANA and Axie Infinity's AXS worth billions of dollars.

“The Metaverse is set to be one of the biggest areas within crypto for many to enjoy…using it as another great resource to offer crypto communities incentivization, content, and regular royalties,” Shiba Inu developers said in a blog post.

The so-called “Shiba Lands” would be found inside the upcoming Shiba Inu metaverse and will be available for purchase or auction using LEASH tokens.

Developers said they are working on a "queue system" designed for the Shiba Lands sales event. Participants earn a place in the queue based on the amount of LEASH they hold. Such a system would prevent opportunistic bots from snapping up land early at low prices to sell them at a higher price to the community.

Prices of LEASH tokens were up nearly 46% in the past 24 hours, data from analytics tool CoinGecko show. SHIB has a supply of 1 quadrillion tokens, with half locked away, while LEASH has only 107,647 minted tokens.

Meanwhile, SHIB fell 8% in the past 24 hours after rising nearly 40% on Monday and Tuesday. The token was trading at about $0.000033 at press time.