Clone Metaverse platforms impersonating Decentraland/Sandbox, preselling non-existent virtual land

Who Gets Targeted

Victims are mostly male retail investors aged 25 to 45 with some experience in cryptocurrencies or NFTs, as well as crypto-newbies brought into groups by friends. They generally view virtual real estate as an 'opportunity they missed out on last time.' Having only heard of legitimate platforms like Decentraland and The Sandbox without ever actually using them, they cannot distinguish between official sites and high-quality fakes. Influenced by old news stories—such as JJ Lin purchasing virtual land for tens of thousands of dollars—they develop an anchoring bias, believing that 'others have made money, I'm just late to the party.' Combined with the manufactured urgency created by shills in group chats, they often complete the entire process from joining the group to transferring funds within a few hours.

骗局怎么运作

• Step 1: Building a high-fidelity platform. Scammers use AI website builders to replicate the visual style of Decentraland or The Sandbox, register domains with similar spellings (e.g., adding an extra letter or using a .io suffix), and forge 'land contract' pages that appear verifiable on blockchain explorers. This tricks victims into believing they have passed on-chain verification, exploiting the habit of users not checking official domain names character by character.
• Step 2: Community hype and celebrity endorsement. Operators post screenshots of old news in WeChat and Telegram groups—such as JJ Lin spending $123,000 on land in Decentraland in 2022 or a plot selling for $2.4 million—claiming, 'Land prices on legitimate platforms are now unaffordable; our new platform is the early-stage undervalued gem.' They graft the reputation of legitimate platforms onto their fraudulent schemes.
• Step 3: Low-price presales to create scarcity. The platform lists 'Genesis Plots' for thousands to tens of thousands of RMB, featuring countdown timers and limited quantities, claiming they will be tradable on official markets later. In reality, the payment address is a scammer's personal wallet, and the 'land' is merely an image and a string of coordinate numbers generated in the backend, never actually minted on-chain.
• Step 4: Fake market trends and additional investment. The platform includes a self-contained market dashboard showing that land values have 'risen by 30%,' inducing victims to increase their positions or invite friends for commissions, creating a pyramid-like structure. Some victims purchase multiple non-existent plots to 'lower their average cost.'
• Step 5: Cutting liquidity and shutting down. When someone attempts to sell for profit, customer service delays the process with excuses like 'market maintenance' or 'on-chain upgrades.' Subsequently, the website becomes inaccessible, the community is disbanded, and the wallet address is emptied. Since payments are mostly in stablecoins and laundered through mixers, tracking is extremely difficult. This mirrors the public reports of 'abandoned projects' after legitimate metaverse land prices plummeted by over 90% between 2022 and 2023.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 The domain name has subtle spelling differences from official Decentraland or The Sandbox websites, and no authoritative media reports on the platform can be found via search engines.
• 🚩 The platform claims to offer 'land presales' but requires direct transfers to personal wallet addresses in stablecoins like USDT, rather than using public, verifiable marketplaces like OpenSea.
• 🚩 Market price charts are only displayed on the platform's own website, with no transaction records for these assets on third-party data sites.
• 🚩 The platform promises fixed returns or 'official buyback guarantees' and implements a referral commission mechanism.
• 🚩 Promotional materials heavily cite old news about celebrities like JJ Lin buying land, but cannot provide any proof of a real partnership with these celebrities.
• 🚩 Customer service refuses video verification or in-person meetings, and the company's registered address is a virtual office or an overseas shell company.

真实案例

• In January 2022, it was reported that a plot of virtual land on Decentraland sold for a record $2.4 million in cryptocurrency. Subsequently, the sector plummeted by over 90% between 2022 and 2023. Reporters verified that the 3 plots purchased by singer JJ Lin for $123,000 in November 2022 were worth only about $10,000 by April 2023, becoming a landmark case of 'metaverse real estate failure,' which is now repeatedly used by fraudulent platforms as a hook.
• Sina Finance's '3·15 Case Analysis' column exposed a similar case: A company called 'Yuanyu Real Estate' claimed to be developing virtual land in its own metaverse, selling 'land coordinates' that were just strings of digital code. They provided exquisite 3D planning maps and promised to build commercial centers. Investors who spent tens to hundreds of thousands of yuan later discovered the platform had no real development, the land could not be traded, and the company had vanished.
• On March 15, 2025, the China Consumer Journal and other media outlets named 'digital new scams' in a special report, highlighting how criminals exploit the elderly's lack of knowledge about online finance by hyping metaverse investments and fake virtual currency projects, listing them alongside AI face-swapping scams as key threats in the digital age.
• On June 25, 2026, the Chongqing Science and Technology Bureau issued a 'Risk Warning on Preventing Illegal Financial Activities in the Field of Science and Technology,' explicitly pointing out that some criminals are using the guise of cutting-edge technologies like 'AI computing power investment' and the 'metaverse' to conduct illegal fundraising and fraud, warning the public not to trust promises of high returns.
• In March 2026, the Pingshan Police Station of the Panyu Branch of the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau cracked an investment fraud case involving the metaverse. Scammers fabricated projects like virtual real estate appreciation to induce victims to download unknown software and transfer money multiple times. Victim Ms. Huang was defrauded of 1.14 million yuan. Police urgently froze the payments and urged the suspect to refund the funds in full; the case is still under investigation. (Source: https://news.dayoo.com/gzrbrmt/202603/18/170614_54937923.htm)
• In August 2025, Taiwanese prosecutors and investigators searched the residences of the head and two others of the metaverse investment platform ETmeta. The platform issued 'ETM platform coins' in the name of a metaverse sports ecosystem, claiming they could be settled with Tether (USDT) with guaranteed principal and interest. After the platform stopped withdrawals, 16 investors filed complaints. The case is being investigated for illegal banking operations and joint fraud by three or more people. (Source: https://today.line.me/tw/v3/article/GgLJElQ)

Official Stance

• On June 25, 2026, the Chongqing Science and Technology Bureau issued a 'Risk Warning on Preventing Illegal Financial Activities in the Field of Science and Technology,' naming illegal financial activities under the guise of 'AI computing power investment' and the 'metaverse'.
• Around March 15, 2025, official media such as the China Consumer Journal explicitly categorized 'hyping metaverse investments and fake elderly care crowdfunding' as new types of digital-age scams in consumer protection campaigns, warning the elderly of the risks.
• In April 2026, relevant warnings from the Ministry of State Security and reports from The Paper pointed out that token-based fundraising and pyramid-style digital asset projects under the hype of AI concepts have become security risks, warning the public to be vigilant against illegal fundraising using technical buzzwords.
• Since the second half of 2021, the Inter-ministerial Joint Conference on Dealing with Illegal Fundraising of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission has repeatedly issued risk warnings regarding illegal fundraising and virtual currency speculation in the name of the 'metaverse,' which remain in effect.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Only operate within the official domains of platforms like Decentraland and The Sandbox. Manually type the URL instead of clicking links in group chats, and verify the domain spelling character by character.
• ✅ Treat any 'land presale' that requires direct transfers to personal wallet addresses as a scam. Legitimate virtual land transactions should occur on public NFT marketplaces with verifiable order books.
• ✅ Before purchasing, verify on third-party data sites whether the asset has a real transaction history and floor price. 'Price increases' displayed only on the platform's own page do not constitute proof of value.
• ✅ Directly classify digital real estate projects that promise fixed returns, official buybacks, or referral commissions as suspected illegal fundraising. You can call local financial regulators or the police anti-fraud hotline to verify.
• ✅ Implement a 72-hour 'cooling-off period' before transferring any funds and consult your local police anti-fraud center to see if the project has any warning records.