Peter Minuit is credited with spearheading the purchase of the island of Manhattan for the Dutch from the Native Americans in 1626 in exchange for 60 guilders. Accounting for inflation, that price equates to $967 in today’s dollars. An incredible deal in a city where real estate is changing hands at an average of $1868 per square foot and over $9000 per square foot in the ultra luxury market. Did you missyour chance to secure some of this prime real estate while prices have only gone up? Interested in paying as low as $.11 per square foot? This startup gives you a second chance.
Arcona is building the first-of-its-kind complete digital world that layers on top of Earth using distributed GIS, augmented reality, 3D simulation, artificial intelligence all built on Blockchain to ensure transparency. The company is founded by a team of three augmented reality veterans with experience in travel that is responsible for building the first AR parks and the team has successfully launched eight full scale parks covering various European landmarks. Now this team is bringing a virtual world for everyone with a marketplace where you can buy, trade develop, and sell digital real estate in this world.
But creating a virtual layer for the entire Earth is an ambitious project and the team at Arcona is highly cognizant of that. That’s why have created a tiered structure for the roll out of their platform. It’s also why they have opened up the platform for developers to take advantage of an open innovation ecosystem to claim their own pieces of virtual real estate within this new frontier. Developers will be able to use Arcona’s 
proprietary algorithms that are based on neural networks an AI, leveraging computer vision, prototyping, applied mathematics, and neurobiology to save time and have a robust foundation for their AR applications.
The initial set of algorithms is available in beta version for free on Github. The full version will release in the summer. “Arcona is focusing on solutions for developers of outdoor AR projects, taking 50-60% of labor-intensive work off their shoulders and saving 40%-50% of the project budget. Currently animation of virtual content (done by 3D artists), positioning content, and creating the app interface are the most time-consuming and costly part of the outdoor AR projects,” remarked Ilya Korguzalov, Arcona cofounder.
If you’re a developer interested in leveraging Arcona’s tools and want to learn more for building in an AR ecosystem, click here
The full-featured platform launches in the second quarter of 2019. A layer of Digital Land with a total area of ~600 square miles will cover popular spots in 10 of the largest largest cities in the world including the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, City of London, the Historic Center of Mexico, Soho in New York, the 1st arrondissement of Paris, the Forbidden City in Beijing, the area around the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the ancient center of Rome, Sultanahmet in Istanbul and the Asakusa district in Tokyo at the time of launch.
In order to finance the project, the team at Arcona is holding an ICO that started on April 15th and runs through May 15th. The tokens in the ICO are the virtual currency of Arcona’s ecosystem and these tokens are used to purchase virtual land in it. After the ICO, there will be a series of closed auctions for Arcona token holders where the starting price for digital land is set for 1 token for 1 square meter or 10.76 square feet. A token is priced at .0025 Etherum, which equates to $.99 based on Etherum trading at $510. So a little division helps us determine that the digital land available on Arcona will start as low as $.11 per square foot – a good deal. These auctions will be held prior to the Acrona token launching on cryptoexchanges, so getting in on the best pieces of land will be reserved for ICO participants.
To sweeten the deal, during the ICO, Arcona will be raffling one plot of Digital Land every six hours Financial District in New York, Tokyo, London, Forbidden City Beijing, Paris, Mexico City, Barcelona, Rome, Istanbul, and Saint Petersburg to token holders. At the recent Blockchain Mix Conference in December, a writer was awarded the first plot in New York City 328 square feet of prime real estate in Soho. There is also a generous referral scheme in place to get tokens as a part of the ICO.
Interested in owning you piece of the virtual world, get yourself some tokens here while they are still affordable
The prospect of owning a finite amount of digital land is even compelling within the Arcona ecosystem because of a number of factors. The marketplace serves as an exchange where transactions can be consumed in a transparent manner with the use of Blockchain and smart contract technology ensures that. Scalability is also addressed as Blockchain is equipped to handle a project of this magnitude with millions of potential owners. Artists and designers are offered copyright protection through the smart contracts. Arcona is also partnered with Advir, a programmatic monetization platform specifically for AR and VR, to allow digital land owners the ability to monetize their parcels of digital real estate through advertising and banners. Just as billboards cover part of the earth, billboards will be utilized in the virtual world and places with high levels of virtual traffic and visitors will be able to earn serious dollars. Brands are already starting to take notice as a number of brands have committed to building out virtual spaces within Arcona. Opportunities for brand building and monetization are already integrated into the platform and this will make this ecosystem a self sufficient one that is poised to flourish as its popularity gains.
To learn more about Arcona and invest in the next real estate frontier, please visit this link and watch this video below.