How To Make Money With The Metaverse In 2022

When Zuckerberg introduced the metaverse, most people watched the announcement and moved on. A smaller group started asking a different question: where is the money in this thing? This video breaks down four real paths to making money with the metaverse, ranging from passive income through virtual real estate to active income through selling design skills on Fiverr.

Some of these are slow burns that pay off as adoption grows. Some can generate income within days of starting. Not all of them require you to actually enter the metaverse yourself. What they all share is that they are built on real platforms, real affiliate programs, and real demand, not speculation about what might happen in 2040.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear breakdown of Decentraland and three other ways to profit from virtual land without coding or investing millions
How to use the Coinbase affiliate program to earn 50% commission for three months on every crypto referral
A keyword research roadmap for creating metaverse content with low competition and real search volume
Why Udemy’s gap in metaverse courses was a massive opportunity, and whether a similar gap still exists in your niche
How Fiverr freelancers were charging $25 to $1,500 for metaverse graphic design gigs
The “report on what’s happening” content strategy that small channels were already using to get hundreds of views within hours
How to identify which method matches your current skills so you can start this week, not six months from now
Not sure which income path fits you? Run your situation through finder.platformproof.com for a personalized recommendation.

What the Metaverse Actually Is (and Why That Matters for Making Money)

Zuckerberg’s announcement positioned the metaverse as your entire way of life moved online. You become a virtual person operating in a virtual world from the comfort of your home. Think of it like Second Life but built on modern infrastructure, with real commerce, real property ownership, and real financial rails underneath it.

The useful mental model here is to think of the metaverse as Earth. Everything you can do in the physical world, someone will eventually figure out how to do in the metaverse. Buy property. Rent it. Run a business. Advertise. Teach. Sell. That framing makes it easy to spot opportunities. Ask yourself: what does this look like in the real world, and who makes money doing it?

When you think about it through that lens, four categories jump out immediately: real estate, cryptocurrency, information products, and service selling. Those are exactly the four methods covered here.

Method 1: Virtual Real Estate on Decentraland

Decentraland is the most widely recognized virtual land platform. On it, you can buy parcels of digital land, rent them out, flip them for profit, or use them to run advertisements. The currency required to purchase land in Decentraland is MANA, a cryptocurrency specific to that platform.

At the time this video was recorded, MANA was trading at $4.74. Prices have moved considerably since then. The point is not to time the market, but to understand that the underlying mechanics of land investment apply in the metaverse the same way they apply in the physical world.

Flipping Virtual Land

The simplest play is buying low and selling high. Watch which plots are undervalued based on location relative to high-traffic destinations. Just like house flippers look at comparable sales in a neighborhood, you look at what nearby Decentraland plots have sold for and whether the plot you’re considering is priced below that.

This is not a short-term guaranteed win. Virtual land prices are volatile and tied to metaverse adoption curves. But for someone willing to hold for one to three years and who understands the speculative nature of the trade, it is a real mechanism.

Renting Virtual Land

Instead of flipping, you can also hold land and rent it out. The comparison Alston draws is to Airbnb: you own the property, someone else needs a space, and they pay you for temporary access. Businesses launching in the metaverse need land to build on. You supply it; they pay you periodically.

This is a passive income play once you own the property. The active part is the initial purchase and setting terms with tenants. After that, the income recurs without ongoing work from you.

Advertising on Virtual Land

The third Decentraland play is the most interesting for affiliate marketers. Buy a plot near a high-traffic destination, then place an ad on it. In the video, the example used is buying land across from a virtual McDonald’s. People walking past your billboard see your ad, scan the QR code or visit the URL, and end up on a product page you’re promoting.

This is affiliate marketing inside a virtual world. The mechanics are identical: someone sees your ad, clicks, buys something, you get a commission. The only difference is that the ad placement is a piece of digital land rather than a banner on a website.

It is worth noting that Decentraland is not the only virtual land platform. Sandbox is another option, and others exist. Decentraland was the most established when this video was recorded, but the competitive landscape may have shifted. Do your own research before purchasing.

Method 2: Cryptocurrency and the Coinbase Affiliate Program

Each virtual world in the metaverse has its own cryptocurrency. For Decentraland, it’s MANA. Other platforms have their own tokens. This creates two income angles: trading the crypto itself, or becoming an affiliate for the platform where people buy it.

Trading Metaverse Crypto

If you’ve ever felt like you missed the Bitcoin or Ethereum wave, metaverse-specific cryptocurrencies represent a different entry point. They’re earlier in their adoption curve, which means more upside potential but also more risk. The approach here is not to speculate blindly, but to understand what drives each token’s value, namely adoption of the underlying virtual world, and invest accordingly.

The content strategy that pairs with this is simple: create videos or blog posts reporting on what’s happening with the crypto. When the price dips, explain the dip. When it rises, explain the catalyst. Offer projections backed by the news around the metaverse. In the video, small channels with 2,000 subscribers were getting 590 views within 20 hours of posting. A three-minute video about MANA got 1,000 views in 17 hours. The demand for information was outpacing the supply of content creators covering it.

The Coinbase Affiliate Program

This is the passive income play within the crypto category. Coinbase runs an affiliate program that, at the time of recording, paid 50% commission for the first three months on every referred user. The strategy is to create content teaching people about a specific metaverse cryptocurrency, then include a Coinbase affiliate link in the video description or blog post so viewers can sign up and start buying that crypto.

The content writes itself. Explain what MANA is, why someone might want it, and where to get it. Your affiliate link takes them to Coinbase. Coinbase handles the onboarding, the trading, and the compliance. You earn a percentage of what they spend on trading fees for three months.

You don’t have to limit your content to a single cryptocurrency either. Cover several metaverse tokens. Each piece of content becomes a referral vehicle. People promoting hardware wallets were finding success in this space too, since concerned crypto buyers were moving away from digital wallets toward physical storage devices.

Content Strategy for the Crypto Angle

In the video, Alston pulled up keyword research data showing that Decentraland-related keywords were already accumulating hundreds of thousands of monthly searches, with only 811 total keywords in the database. That gap between search demand and available content is where new creators can find ranking opportunities.

Specific examples included price prediction posts. “Decentraland price prediction 2030” was a real search term showing up with lower competition than you might expect. Creating that kind of content early, before the crowd arrives, is how smaller channels claim positions that pay dividends for years.

The same applies to evergreen questions: “What is Decentraland?”, “How do I buy MANA?”, “What is the Decentraland map?” Whenever new properties are purchased or significant events happen on the platform, there’s a news hook to create timely content around. Then the Coinbase affiliate link sits in every post and video, quietly earning commissions as readers decide to get started.

Not sure which of these four paths fits your actual situation?

Answer a few quick questions at finder.platformproof.com and get a recommendation built around your skills, schedule, and starting budget.

Method 3: Create an Online Course About the Metaverse on Udemy

At the time of recording, searching “metaverse” on Udemy returned 24 results. Searching “Spanish” returned 701. That ratio tells a story. There was massive unsatisfied demand for structured learning about the metaverse, and almost no one had built courses to meet it.

Udemy course creators earn revenue every time a student purchases their course. You create the content once. Udemy handles hosting, payments, and student discovery. Your job is to build the course and promote it, ideally through the free content channels you’re already building: YouTube, Facebook, or even from inside the metaverse itself.

What to Put in a Metaverse Course

The structure Alston suggests works well: frame the metaverse as Earth, then walk through each major component. What does property mean in this context? What is the role of cryptocurrency? How do the different platforms interact? How will the metaverse change daily life? What are the income opportunities?

Existing courses were running four to fourteen hours in length. That scope signals that buyers expect real depth. A surface-level tour won’t convert. The courses that will succeed are the ones that genuinely answer the questions a first-time metaverse participant has, from “what is this?” all the way through “how do I start making money from it?”

How to Get Initial Students

The promotional channel is the same one you’d use for any of the other methods: YouTube. Create free content answering the most common beginner questions. Mention your Udemy course in the description. People who find your free content and want more structured learning will convert to students.

Udemy also has its own internal discovery mechanism. When the marketplace has only 24 courses on a topic and your course is one of them, you get visibility by default. That kind of passive discovery is harder to come by once a category matures and hundreds of competitors exist.

The window for being early in a new category doesn’t stay open forever. The creators who recorded their first metaverse courses when this video was made had a significant head start over those who waited until the topic felt mainstream. That same principle applies today in whatever emerging technology or trend is new to your audience.

Method 4: Sell Metaverse Design Services on Fiverr

The fourth method is the most immediately actionable for people who have any graphic design background. The metaverse needs custom assets. Virtual mansions. Custom environments. Branded spaces. Unique accessories that people and businesses want for their metaverse presence.

At the time of recording, there were 303 services on Fiverr related to metaverse accessories and design. Prices ranged from $25 to $1,500 per gig. The range reflects the difference between a basic design task and a fully custom environment build. A designer who can produce quality work at the $200 to $500 level can earn meaningful income without needing the scale of a large channel or a thousand students.

How to Get Your First Fiverr Clients

The specific tactic from the video is to create a Fiverr gig, then immediately go into the “manage custom requests” section. People post custom requests when they have a specific need they haven’t found a seller for yet. Responding to those requests proactively gives you a better shot at landing your first gig than waiting for buyers to stumble across your new listing.

Once you complete a few gigs and accumulate reviews, Fiverr’s algorithm starts surfacing your profile to more buyers organically. The early grind of reaching out to custom requests is what gets you past the zero-review starting point. After that, the inbound leads become more consistent.

Using Fiverr Income to Fund Other Metaverse Investments

One of the practical points in the video is that Fiverr income can serve as seed capital for the other methods. If you want to buy Decentraland land or invest in MANA but don’t have the startup funds right now, selling design services gives you a way to generate cash quickly. Then you redirect those earnings into the more passive plays.

This is a sequencing strategy worth considering regardless of which primary income method you’re targeting. Active income from services funds passive income from assets. That order is less romantic than “invest and wait,” but it is more accessible to people who don’t have capital sitting around waiting to be deployed.

Honest Drawbacks to Know Before You Start

The metaverse opportunity is real, but so is the uncertainty around it. Here are the parts worth thinking about before committing significant time or money.

Virtual real estate is speculative. Unlike physical land, which has utility even if nobody develops it, virtual land in a specific platform has zero value if the platform loses users. Decentraland could be dominant today and irrelevant in three years if a better alternative captures attention. Buy land as part of a diversified strategy, not as your entire plan.

Cryptocurrency is volatile. MANA at $4.74 could go to $10 or to $0.40 within months. Trading crypto requires a stomach for that movement. The Coinbase affiliate angle is lower risk because you earn on activity rather than price direction, but the affiliate commissions still depend on people actively trading. If the market goes cold, fewer people sign up and trade.

Content creation takes time to compound. The keyword research strategy and YouTube content approach both work, but not overnight. Creating a library of metaverse content that ranks and drives affiliate traffic is a six-to-twelve month project before you see meaningful passive income. The early months require consistent output with limited returns.

Course creation is front-loaded work. Recording and editing four to fourteen hours of curriculum before you have a single paying student is a real time investment. If you don’t already know how to record and edit video, add that learning curve to the equation. The upside is that courses can sell for years once they exist. The challenge is finishing them in the first place.

Fiverr freelancing trades time for money. It’s the most reliable way to generate fast cash from the metaverse theme, but it doesn’t scale passively. You do the work, you get paid. You stop working, income stops. It’s a great starting point or a bridge strategy, not a final destination if your goal is passive income.

A Simple Decision Framework: Which Method Should You Start With?

Pick the method that matches what you can actually do right now, not what sounds most exciting in theory.

If you have design skills: Start with Fiverr. Get three to five gigs completed, earn reviews, then use that income to fund one of the other methods.
If you’re comfortable on camera or writing: Start with content creation around Decentraland or metaverse crypto, then layer in the Coinbase affiliate link and a future Udemy course.
If you have investment capital and risk tolerance: Look at Decentraland land. Research recent sales prices, understand the platform’s user growth trends, and treat it like the speculative real estate investment it is.
If you have deep knowledge of the metaverse: The Udemy course gap may still exist in a sub-niche even if the broad “what is the metaverse” courses now have more competition. Find the specific question your audience is asking that nobody has built a course around yet.

None of these paths require all four methods at once. Pick one, commit to ninety days of consistent effort, and evaluate results before adding another.

Find Your X

The metaverse is one context. Your skills and your situation determine which version of the opportunity actually makes sense for you. Some people are designers. Some are writers. Some have $500 to invest. Some have zero capital but ten hours a week. finder.platformproof.com matches your actual starting point to the income path that fits it rather than making you guess which of the four methods to try first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to actually enter the metaverse to make money from it?

No. Three of the four methods covered here, creating crypto content, building a Udemy course, and selling design services on Fiverr, require no time spent inside a virtual world. Only the virtual real estate approach on Decentraland involves actually visiting and interacting with the platform. The metaverse is the topic of your content and business, not necessarily where you do the work.

How much money do I need to start with Decentraland land?

You’ll need MANA cryptocurrency to purchase land. The amount depends on which plot you’re buying and what the current price of MANA is. At the time of recording, MANA was trading at $4.74, but prices fluctuate significantly. Land in high-traffic Decentraland districts tends to cost more than land in low-traffic areas. Set a budget you can afford to lose entirely, since this is a speculative asset class.

Is the Coinbase affiliate program still available?

Affiliate program terms change over time. The video referenced a 50% commission for the first three months on referred users. Before building a content strategy around it, verify the current terms directly on Coinbase’s website. Even if the specific rate has changed, the underlying strategy of creating crypto education content with an affiliate link attached remains sound.

How long does it take to start earning from a Udemy course?

It varies. Creators who actively promote their courses through YouTube and social media can see their first sales within days of launch. Creators who rely entirely on Udemy’s internal search may take weeks or months to accumulate organic traffic. Building an external audience first and then announcing your course to that audience is generally faster than waiting for Udemy to surface it to cold visitors.

What design skills do I need for Fiverr metaverse gigs?

The services on Fiverr in this space ranged widely. Basic gigs at the low end required familiarity with graphic design tools and the ability to create simple 2D assets or visual designs. More complex gigs at the high end involved 3D modeling and environment design. If you can use Canva, Photoshop, or Illustrator, you have a starting point. The more specialized your 3D skills, the higher the rate you can charge.

Is metaverse content still worth creating today?

The answer depends on current search volume and competition in the specific angle you’re considering. The broader “what is the metaverse” content category has more competition now than when this video was recorded. But sub-niches within it, specific platforms, specific cryptocurrencies, specific use cases, may still have the gap between search demand and available content that made early creators successful. Always run keyword research before investing time in a content strategy.

Can I promote multiple metaverse cryptocurrencies rather than just one?

Yes, and Alston explicitly suggests this in the video. You’re not limited to MANA. Different virtual worlds have different tokens. Covering several of them gives you more content to create and more keywords to rank for. Each token has its own audience of people researching it, all of whom can be sent to Coinbase through your affiliate link when they’re ready to buy.

What’s the fastest of these four methods to start earning from?

Fiverr is the fastest path to cash. Once you create a gig and respond to custom requests, you can land a client within days. The other methods take longer: content needs to accumulate search traffic, courses need to be built and promoted, and land investments are long-term plays. If you need income soon, start with Fiverr, then use those earnings to fund the slower-burning approaches.

Sources

Decentraland official site: decentraland.org
Coinbase affiliate program (terms subject to change): coinbase.com
Udemy course marketplace: udemy.com
Fiverr metaverse design services: fiverr.com
Ahrefs keyword research tool (referenced in video): ahrefs.com