Traditionally, the means of creating wealth have been well mapped out. Most entrepreneurs grew up with investment manuals written by Warren Buffet, Robert Kiyosaki, Charlie Munger and Benjamin Graham. Of course I did.

Much of this information, especially when it comes to the psychology of investing, is timeless and always relevant, but the technical details are not. Moreover, the environment – including the time and place where the books were written – simply no longer exists.

We are now entering the era of Web 3.0: a world built on distributed ledgers, virtual reality, metaverses, cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens, artificial intelligence and the internet of things.

Here are ways to position yourself to build lasting wealth in this brave new metaverse.

1. Virtual real estate

Real estate has always been the hallmark of long-term wealth for the elites. The reasons are obvious: you could make a lot of money from NFTs and cryptocurrencies one day, and lose it all the next. But with real estate, the tendency is to always make a profit year after year. Its hallmark is stability: even if it has had a few bad years, the trend is balanced over the long term.

Virtual real estate does not refer to setting up online publications and websites (some digital marketers call this online real estate, a valid but entirely different concept). What we are talking about here is real estate in a metaverse. This area will generally be referred to as “space”, as opposed to “property”.

What’s surprising is that you can actually take some traditional concepts and insert them into the metaverse, like advertising, rent prices, trade shows, retail stores, museums, and more. Specific spaces will be specifically tailored for a given VR experience, but without electricity, construction or maintenance costs.

All of this may sound quite futuristic, but it is already happening. Metamall, for example, offers casinos, lounges, arcades, malls, and just about everything you’d expect from a mall. There are approximately 6,000 spaces available divided into Cubes, Cabins, Clubs, Chalets and Castles. You can buy a Cube (in the form of an NFT), which represents a standard fashion or retail store. Then there is the option of a castle, which can be compared to a multi-storey office complex or a large government building.

While we’re probably a few years away from commercially available VR headsets and a working metaverse, the fact is that the companies and architectures are here right now, and the entrepreneurs who are capitalizing on trends before going mainstream ( usually while they are ridiculed by the crowd) are the ones who make huge profits.

Related: Luxury brands are trying to participate in the metaverse

2. Service companies

Many traditional companies are looking for ways to enter the metaverse. Most laypersons have heard of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs, but have no idea what these terms really mean.

This represents a huge opportunity for consulting and PR firms that enable legacy business models to enter the metaverse. This can be done through crypto custodial services, content management, or even tokenization/white papers. Cybersecurity is another huge area that is going to be even bigger, given the vulnerabilities in smart contracts. You can build businesses that provide these services and position yourself as a thought leader or domain expert in a given metaverse niche.

Graduates and other business newbies can also come in handy in many ways. There are several stories young people earn hundreds of thousands of dollars selling NFTs, and platforms like H3RO3S even offer students the opportunity to earn up to $1,500 per month by performing local and remote tasks with a personalized avatar. It also provides a way for students to interact and earn income, even in times of geo-restrictions. This decentralized platform has the potential to rival UpWork and TopTal, although there is still a long way to go before that.

Related: Learn more about crypto, NFTs and the metaverse

3. Direct investment

Depending on your financial situation, you can simply wait for a market drop and invest in a large number of cryptocurrencies with medium to long term potential. Yes, you will miss the initial explosive growth (Polygon ($MATIC) token grew over 4000% in early 2021), but projects like Polygon, Solana, Ethereum and Ankr are huge projects with support solid. They are interoperable, multi-chain and industry independent. In other words, they have good long-term viability and could be a solid buy in an investor’s arsenal, even if the initial leap was missed. They also have the ideal industry partnerships to position themselves smartly in the emerging era of the metaverse.

You might find these projects at around 33% off their all-time high (ATH). Sol traded as low as $80 in Feb 2022 against a previous ATH of $260. They are also proof-of-stake ecosystems, which tend to increase network participation through reasonable rewards.

Long-term investors care about compound interest rates: the real engine of wealth. There are also Web3 projects that offer an annual percentage return of 1000%, but this is not long-term wealth and your exit must be timely to retain your income. Wealth gained quickly is often lost quickly. This common trend is alluded to in the books of many of the world’s top entrepreneurs and has to do with basic human psychology.

Related: What You Need to Know About Ethereum’s Role in Web 3.0 and the Metaverse

There is no shortage of investment options in the metaverse

Of course, there are several ways to invest in the metaverse. You can do this in the architectures mentioned above (the blockchains from which the metaverse will be built). You can invest in NFTs through different platforms. You can join multiple projects early by going through the whitelisting process and expecting the project tokens to increase significantly.

You can even take a classic concept like Recurring purchases by fixed sums of Benjamin Graham and invest a certain amount in specific coins at given intervals, regardless of market phenomena.

The fact is, there’s no reason you can’t combine some of the classic investing principles with cutting-edge metaverse innovations, and make a fortune doing it.