Although it may be beyond your wildest dreams, on this Black Friday you can become a landowner in an emerging digital world. Arcona, an augmented reality project (AR), will begin a presale of tokens that will allow users to buy pieces of AR land that will cover the Earth’s surface by 2019.

In the best traditions of the holiday season, all buyers will receive special gifts. During the first five days of presales, crypto enthusiasts will have the chance to win a trip to St Petersburg, Russia’s cultural capital, to meet Arcona’s team in person. 

Arcona integrates virtual and real worlds, providing a link between an AR layer called the Digital Land and natural landmarks on the Earth’s surface. The owners of AR layers will be able to sell or rent out their pieces of the virtual world, while Arcona will use blockchain technology to protect their proprietary rights. According to the project’s founders, Digital Land will provide numerous opportunities for business owners, content creators, investors and developers.

“The population of London exceeds 8.5 million and the number of tourists reaches 19 million every year,” explains Ilya Korguzalov, Arcona’s co-founder. “If you own digital land in the city center, all of these people are your potential customers. An interesting and high-quality AR project in a popular place will attract thousands of users. You can organize an AR show or a performance that will capture the attention of a huge number of people.”

Other ways to generate income from these zones include advertising, such as placing AR banners on the digital land. According to Arcona’s calculations, one AR banner will cost at least $50-60 in the world’s prime locations, such as the Forbidden City in Beijing.

“Real billboards and other ads in the world’s top locations are incredibly expensive,” Korguzalov said. “However, if you have 100 meters of digital land, your income could reach a minimum of $6,000 by displaying just 10 banners.” 

By 2018 the first digitized zones will appear in fashionable neighborhoods in 10 global cities favored by investors and tourists, including Soho in New York, the Asakusa district in Tokyo, the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona, and the historical center of Rome. The company behind the project, Piligrim XXI, has already created eight AR parks in six European countries, including Spain, France and Italy.

Arcona represents a new development in the area of blockchain-powered AR technology and is a result of two years of work by Piligrim’s team. As part of the new project, Piligrim XXI will make its unique remote positioning algorithms, which enable users to place objects remotely, accessible to all Digital Land owners. Algorithms were developed through extensive research in recursive convolutional neural networks, generalized artificial neurons, distributed GIS systems, AR technology, 3D simulation and artificial intelligence (AI).

Arcona presales will be held for exactly one month, from November 27 to December 27. One token will buy one square meter (3.28 feet) of Digital Land at the auction, which is set to take place in spring 2018. The price of one token is 0.0027 ETH, equivalent to $1 USD.

In 2021 the augmented and virtual reality segment is expected to reach a market size of $215 billion (USD). With Apple’s announcement of its new ARKit project, Facebook’s unveiling of its AR Studio, a new tool that lets 3D artists and developers create interactive photo and video effects, and Snapchat’s deep integration with AR, augmented reality is now the hottest item on investors’ agendas.