An engineer by training, Soudagar says he's always had a penchant for business. About a year ago, he stumbled upon Decentraland while doing research into cryptocurrency investments.
"I kind of stumbled upon the the idea of buying and selling for profit ... and I really took it as a business," he said.
Parcels of land have sold for anywhere between $300 and $200,000. Spots closest to Genesis City's central plaza are most expensive, Russo explained.
In order to succeed, Decentraland will need both capitalists looking to make large returns and idealists on a quest to build a better parallel world.
"The speculators are giving the market liquidity, but it's the idealists that are making it interesting," she said.