Immediately after the announcement of Facebook changing its name to Meta as part of a plan outlined by Mark Zuckerberg to lead the development of the new age of the Internet, based on interactive virtual environments, alternative decentralized platforms that were under development attracted attention. For a hot market and very close to the top of the last bullish cycle.
Before long, Decentraland (MANA) and Sandbox (SAND) tokens both exploded, but hypeas in the case of the Meta, he relied more on a commitment to developing what had traditionally been called the metaverse than he was on actually delivering it.
Now, nearly a year to the day after that Thursday, October 28, the Meta’s progression into the metaverse is the target of both criticism and derision, while for Decentraland and The Sandbox, it’s as if no time has passed. Both are back to the adoption and price levels of their original tokens similar to those of a year ago.
sand box (sand)
Between the two, it is the Sandbox that shows numbers slightly higher than those recorded at the time. According to data from the data monitoring platform on the chain Dapp Radar, Oct 28, 2021 metaverse visited by 158 users. Over the past seven days, the average has been around 547.
Meanwhile, the platform has closed significant deals with figures like rapper Snoop Dogg and DJ Steve Aoki, franchises like The Smurfs, The Walking Dead and Care Bears, and brands like Atari and Playboy. It also promoted two alpha seasons, whose main goal was to attract users with unprecedented events and to distribute rewards in SAND.
Speaking of the sandbox’s native token, it’s currently priced at 3.2% higher than its pre-Facebook-to-Meta value. However, it was quoted at $0.82 on Monday, well below the all-time high of $8.44 set on November 25 last year, according to data from CoinMarketCap. More than 90% to be exact.
Decentraland (MANA)
Descentraland’s numbers are somewhat worse. The average number of users in the last 7 days was 121 compared to 403 users on October 28, 2021. Since then, the platform has seen millionaire sales of virtual lands in its most sought after regions, hosted its first fashion week and first art week of the metaverse and has also closed important partnerships With brands such as Samsung, investment bank JPMorgan and La Liga, the entity that organizes the Spanish professional football championship.
In keeping with users’ lack of interest in the platform, Decentraland’s native token is 12.5% lower than its value at the beginning of October last year. MANA, like SAND, rallied after the target was announced and also on November 25, it reached its all-time high of $5.90. It was trading at $0.68 on Monday, the 10th, losing 88.4% from its all-time high, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Despite the strong depreciation of the currency, which is larger than Bitcoin (BTC), the market benchmark asset, which is currently trading about 72% below its historical price record, MANA and SAND still have a market capitalization of 1.2 billion each, which puts them at a disadvantage. It places them at 42. and 43 in the overall ranking of cryptocurrencies, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Let’s agree that these are unjustified values when faced with the adoption of both platforms. On the other hand, specialists say that when these platforms actually deliver everything they promise, they will be able to reach a much higher market value than they have today.
Axie Infinity (AXS)
The numbers are no better for the category’s main success story. Although it fits into the category of blockchain games, Axie Infinity (AXS) is also a metaverse due to its development proposals, with personal avatars, virtual land sales, and a standalone universe.
Although it currently has a market capitalization of slightly less than Decentraland and The Sandbox, at $1 billion, Axie Infinity has a much higher number of daily active users: 11,312, according to data from Dapp Radar.
However, this group was already much higher than that. At the height of the game’s success play to earnThe number of daily active users exceeded 731 thousand. That is, it decreased by 98.4%.
The decline is similar to the decline in the value of its parent token, AXS, which peaked at $165.37 and is currently trading in the $12 range — a decline of 92.6%, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
ApeCoin (APE)
The latest in the list of tokens pushed to an all-time high by metaverse storytelling is ApeCoin (APE), which launched as the official token of an ecosystem built around the popular collection of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) Bored Ape Yacht Club ( pike)).
APE has been launched in what can be considered one of the most anticipated Air drop From the date of the cryptocurrency market on March 17 this year. Buoyed by hype for Otherdeed for another metaverse, the token set an all-time high price on the eve of a virtual land auction hosted by Yuga Labs, but has since fallen at a broader pace for the cryptocurrency market.
It is currently trading at a value of 38.6% less than when it launched and 86.7% below its all-time high, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Daily chart comparing the performance of MANA/USDT | Sand / USDT | AXS/USDT | APE / USDT (Binance) since October 2021. Source: TradingView
Despite the unfavorable moment for the metaverse narrative, an expert interviewed by Cointelegraph Brasil compared buying metaverse tokens today to buying Bitcoin in 2010, when the largest cryptocurrency on the market cost less than $1, the state of SAND and MANA currently.
Read more