The global excitement around virtual worlds provokes demand for internal assets and plots of land in blockchain projects of the Metaverse category
At the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, the topic of metauniverses was widely discussed. During the event, a special press conference was organized to introduce the WEF’s “Defining and Building the Metaverse” initiative .
More than 120 people participated in the creation of the project. At one of the panel discussions, the first two documents of the initiative were discussed, referring to which the participants analyzed the issues of accessibility, control systems and the role of the consumer in the metaverses of the future. During the forum, a working prototype of the WEF’s own metaverse, the Global Collaboration Village, was also demonstrated.
As often happens, global trends resonate with what is happening in the crypto market. A December survey by CoinWire, which included more than 10,000 people interested in cryptocurrencies, showed a significant interest of people from the industry in the metaverse as a whole. More than 60% of respondents believe that technology has the power to reshape the mechanisms of social interaction and entertainment.
VIEW FULL COINWIRE CRYPTO REPORT 2022 HERE
Survey participants also believe that the spread of the metaverse will change the scenarios for interaction with finance, business and education. More than half of those who have invested in some form in companies claiming developments or patents related to the metaverse have confirmed that they also own crypto assets.
Coins are getting more expensive
There are at least three major metaverses with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of domestic assets: The Sandbox, Decentraland, and Otherside. The growing excitement around virtual spaces provokes a demand for project coins. For the first month of this year, the domestic cryptocurrencies of the leading metaverses are already showing growth by tens of percent, creating a trend towards an increase in the price and less capitalized assets of the “Metaverse” category .
Decentraland’s domestic currency (MANA) has doubled in just two weeks. The coin began to grow in price on January 13, when the developers announced several technical innovations on the project’s official Twitter account , and proved to be one of the most profitable crypto assets for investment that grew in the first month of this year.
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The price jump of MANA provoked a short-term interest in the project. According to the DCL Metrics website , there was a noticeable increase in the number of unique and new users on January 16, however, at the time of publication of the article, both categories returned to the indicators of the beginning of the month.
The native token The Sandbox (SAND) in the same period showed an increase of more than 80%, and the internal currency of the Otherside universe (APE) has grown by about one and a half times since the beginning of the year. The growth of the latter is attributed to the excitement around the launch of a collection of NFTs that give access to the new Dookey Dash game from Yuga Labs, the company behind Otherside. Non-Fungible Token (NFT) passes have been issued to image owners from the Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and their daily turnover in the secondary market after launch exceeded $27 million.
Some crypto projects do not imply the creation of metaverses as such, but aggregators classify their coins into the “Metaverse” category. As a rule, these are developers of games in the Play-to-Earn (P2E) segment or other services indirectly related to virtual worlds, whose assets, like digital land plots, are traded on the open market in the form of NFTs.
As in the case of the AI coins example, a common narrative emerges around a certain group of cryptocurrencies , and their developers try to release updates at a favorable time in the market, fueling interest in services and provoking demand for their internal tokens. So in January, coins of such projects as Internet Computer (ICP), Axie Infinity (AXS), Theta Network (THETA), Enjin Coin (ENJ), WEMIX (WEMIX) and others showed a noticeable price increase.
Virtual Lands
As far as plots of land in the metaverses are concerned, this form of investment has performed quite well in the past year. According to a report from the marketplace Parcel.co, despite the turmoil in the crypto market, the turnover of virtual real estate transactions in 2022 grew by 180%, exceeding $1.4 billion compared to $0.5 billion in 2021.
The leader in sales of plots was the Otherside project, whose own metaverse was launched in May last year. The excitement around the lands was provided by a large-scale marketing campaign from Yuga Labs and the general plot connection of Otherside with the sensational BAYC and MAYC NFT collections. According to analysts, within three months after the launch, the volume of digital land trading in Otherside reached $900 million, and in general, over the past year, the project took over 75% of the turnover.
Other market leaders in 2022 sales include The Sandbox (11%), Decentraland (5%), NFT Worlds (8%) and Somnium Space (1%). The largest sales were also recorded by the market leaders: 333.33 ETH in Otherside, 100 ETH in The Sandbox and 81 ETH in Decentraland. Lots in several less capitalized metaverses still in development are also traded as an asset on NFT marketplaces. Their turnover in the secondary market last year is estimated at $60 million.
The growing adoption of VR technologies and the development of virtual worlds have spurred the demand for virtual earth, the authors of the report write. This provoked sales both within the crypto community and from global brands. Going forward, the market outlook remains optimistic as the Metaverse realm attracts more attention and investment. According to analysts, in 2023 the market will focus on Web 3.0 games, the digital fashion industry, and various use cases for virtual sites.
