Metaverse Popularity and Demand Defies Crypto Bear Market: Report

Crypto markets may have been battered by the bears this year, but metaverse and related projects seem to be holding up in the storm.

In an industry report released on Oct. 20, DappRadar revealed that Metaverse interest and demand have remained strong despite falling trade volumes.

Virtual worlds have had a calmer quarter following the hype surrounding the Otherside launch in May. The mint propelled Metaverse trading volumes to over $700 million for that month alone.

Without any heavily hyped projects launching in the third quarter, that volume has declined 91.6% from the $893 million generated the previous quarter, DappRadar reported.

Additionally, the number of land transactions declined by 37.5% from the previous quarter, indicating that “the excitement surrounding these types of projects has not subsided but is approaching a consolidation period.”

Virtual worlds holding steady

In terms of user data, or the number of unique wallet addresses interacting with a dApp’s smart contracts (UAW), The Sandbox and Decentraland have been the most active Metaverse platforms throughout the year.

The Sandbox has maintained an average of 750 daily wallets interacting with the gaming platform since May. Its NFT marketplace has been on an upward trend for the past five months, with an increase of 348% in UAW since May.

There has been a similar trend with Decentraland, which has maintained a steady UAW of around 800 on a daily average since May. The report summarized:  

“Despite the economic uncertainty that the markets currently face, the interest in metaverse platforms keeps consolidating at growing rates.”

The report noted that the sales count of the top ten Metaverse projects only decreased by 11.5% in the third quarter. “We consider this a bullish sign,” it stated, showing that the hype for these types of projects hasn’t decreased.

There were some outstanding examples, such as The Sandbox Alpha Season 3, which has reached 200,000 active monthly participants. As a result, the platform has managed to increase its sales count by 190% since the previous quarter.

Metaverse tokens battered  

The same bullishness cannot be applied to Metaverse tokens. The majority of them have tanked hard during the crypto bear market of 2022. DappRadar said that weakening play-to-earn models were partially to blame.

“The weak market exposed vulnerabilities in early play-to-earn models, where most players’ profits were derived from speculation and inflation of the reward tokens.”

CoinGecko tells a bleak story in terms of depreciation from peak prices for Metaverse tokens.

Decentraland’s MANA is currently trading down on the day at $0.601. MANA has lost a whopping 90% from its all-time high. The Sandbox’s SAND is down to $0.722 and is now down 91% from its ATH. Axie Infinity’s AXS was in the red at $9.12, down a painful 94% from its peak price.