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Metaverse platforms refute ‘misinformation’ about daily active users

October 11, 2022 Coin Telegraph

User data from DappRadar consists of metaverse users who have also made an in-game purchase with the project's native token, but the Decentraland and Sandbox projects disagree with that criteria.

Ethereum (ETH) blockchain-based Metaverse projects Decentraland (MANA) and Sandbox (SAND) have hit back at reports suggesting low daily user activity on platforms, arguing a “misinformed” metric was used to measure each of the platforms' Daily Active Users (DAU).

The controversy appears to have come from data originating from DappRadar, with observers suggesting the Decentraland metaverse sees 30 Daily Active Users despite having over $1.2 billion in market cap.

Decentraland ( $MANA ) has 30 Daily Active Users

and a $1.2 Billion Market Cap pic.twitter.com/u4MBNsWvwk
— SHAKE (@0x_shake) October 6, 2022

However, Decentraland said in an Oct. 8 tweet that “some websites are tracking only specific smart contract transactions but reporting them as daily active users […] which is inaccurate.”

Sandbox CEO Arthur Madrid tweeted on Oct. 10 that “on chain transactions does not mean Users” and that nonfungible token (NFT) owners “invest in an asset that will grow in value over time based Utilities.”

In its tweet, Decentraland said “better data” can be found at DCL Metrics, a data aggregator custom-built for Decentraland, which measures DAUs by the number of “people who login and then move out of a parcel.”

This distinction is significant, as Decentraland’s September data shows 56,700 Monthly Active Users but only 1,074, or 1.89% of those users actually interacted with Decentraland’s smart contracts.

Let's have a look at some of September's data:

56,697 MAU
1,074 Users interacting with smart contracts
1,732 minted Emotes
6,315 sold Wearables
300 Creators received royalties
161 created Community Events
148 DAO Proposals
— Decentraland (@decentraland) October 7, 2022

Similarly, Sandbox refuted data suggesting its platform has a low number of DAUs, stating on Twitter that it has 201,000 Monthly Active Users.

But while this shows blockchain data should never be interpreted without context, it appears as though user experience and engagement are the biggest cause for concern according to a recent Reddit thread.

The thread saw one poster refer to Decentraland as “Desertedland,” while another poster said the popular Metaverse game had become a “ghost town.”

The controversy comes as even the most legitimate Metaverse projects face unprecedented pressures in the current bear market — which has caused a steep drop in token prices.

Decentraland’s MANA is currently priced at $0.65, down 88.8% from its all-time high (ATH) of $5.85 with a market cap of $1.43 billion.

Meanwhile Sandbox’s SAND is priced at $0.78, down 90.6% from its ATH of $8.40, with a market cap of $2.36 billion. Both MANA and SAND are down more than 5% over the last 24 hours.

Decentraland’s MANA and Shiba uptake surges year-on-year — eToro

October 7, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

eToro stated that MANA and SHIB saw the biggest surge in hodlers in Q3 2022, posting increases of 437% and 269% apiece compared to Q3 2021.

Increasing interest in the Metaverse has been seen as a reason for Decentraland native token MANA and memecoin Shiba Inu's (SHIB's) outpaced growth on retail trading platform eToro over the past 12 months.

In an Oct. 7 report shared with Cointelegraph, eToro stated that MANA and SHIB saw the biggest year-on-year surge in hodlers in the most recent quarter, rising 437% and 269% apiece compared to Q3 2021.

Other notable hodler increases on eToro platform included Enjin (ENJ), Polygon (MATIC), and Basic Attention Token (BAT) with increases 229%, 107% and 107%, respectively.

eToro crypto market analyst Simon Peters said that rise of MANA in particular suggests the Metaverse has become a key theme of the crypto market this year despite the bear market:

“The Metaverse has been a major new frontier and that is reflected in the exponential growth in open positions of MANA. Although crypto markets have been difficult in recent months, the fastest risers indicate real interest in some of the most innovative projects in the past year.”

It is also worth noting that while the beloved SHIB is primarily a memecoin, the dog-inspired cryptocurrency gained a new use-case in May 2022, allowing hodlers to use the crypto to purchase land in the Shiba metaverse.

The crypto is also involved in an upcoming mobile NFT game called Shiba Eternity, which will be available on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, and will be compatible with its Shiboshi NFTs.

However, while the two Metaverse-linked tokens saw gains, eToro’s report noted that the top 10 most-held assets on the platform remain unchanged over the last 12 months.

Bitcoin (BTC), Cardano (ADA) and Ether (ETH) take the top three spots, while SHIB is ranked sixth and MANA is ranked tenth.

The uptick in Decentraland’s MANA token comes despite Decentraland catalyst nodes monitor on Github showing only 467 people online using the platform at the time of writing, while people in the crypto community on Twitter noted there were around 500 yesterday also.

The figures seem low considering MANA has a market cap of $1.2 billion.

Just fyi dappradar tracks the interactions with DCL contracts not the users online (around ~500 atm)https://t.co/9lbpALw0oC https://t.co/6AJPJiex3y
— jin (@dankvr) October 6, 2022

Data from DCL Metrics lists the number of unique visitors to Decentraland at 7,871 as of Oct. 6, which is the highest number so far this month. However this figure pales in comparison to the 18,000 daily users Decentraland co-founder Ari Meilich reported back in December 2021.

MANA is currently the forty-sixth largest crypto asset in terms of market cap according to CoinGecko, and Its price is down 88.1% to $0.69 since its all time high of $5.85 on Nov. 25 2021. Over the past 24 hours, $115.3 million worth of MANA has changed hands.

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Metaverse housing bubble bursting? Virtual land prices crash 85% amid waning interest

August 8, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The virtual real estate market is crashing despite a McKinsey report predicting a $5 trillion market by 2030.

The metaverse sector is witnessing its very-own housing crisis moment, thanks to massive declines in the prices of its virtual lands in 2022, led by waning users' interest and a crypto bear market.

Land sales plunge 85% in 2022

In particular, metaverse projects built on the Ethereum blockchain, including the Sandbox and Decentraland, have witnessed substantial declines in their valuations and other key metrics, data from WeMeta shows.

For instance, the average price of lands sold across Decentraland peaked at $37,238 in February 2022. But as of Aug. 1, their costs had dropped to an average of $5,163. Similarly, the Sandbox's average sale price dropped from circa $35,500 in January to around $2,800 in August.

*Average sale price of virtual lands on Ethereum metaverse projects. Source: WeMeta*

Overall, the average price per parcel of virtual lands across the six major Ethereum metaverse projects dropped from approximately $17,000 in January to around $2,500 in August, or a 85% decline.

Declining metaverse volumes

Poor land sale volumes further indicate dampening user interest in Metaverse projects.

On a weekly average, the volume, which represents the amount of lands (derived in currency) traded, has dropped from its peak of $1 billion in November 2021 to approximately $157 million in August 2022.

*Metaverse land sale volumes. Source: WeMeta*

Simultaneously, the market valuations of the Metaverse tokens in circulation have dipped by more than 80%, led further by a broader retreat across the cryptocurrency sector due to unfavorable macroeconomic conditions.

For instance, the market valuation of Decentraland's MANA tokens in circulation dropped from $10 billion in November 2021 to $2 billion in August 2022. Similarly, Sandbox's SAND's net capitalization reached $8.4 billion to around $1.78 billion in the same period.

fricking metaverse housing bubble just popped who would’ve thought https://t.co/4OZKoi5fH4
— lil t the based god (@fauxzus) August 7, 2022

Metaverse ETF also takes ahit

Meanwhile, the Roundhill Ball Metaverse exchange-traded fund (METV) is tanking alongside blockchain-focused metaverse projects. The ETF gives investors exposure to companies that have been employing the Metaverse in their growth strategy,

On the daily chart, METV has dipped by nearly 45% from its record high of $17.11 in November 2021, with the companies iits stock portfolio, including Meta (formerly known as Facebook) and Snap, reporting substantial second-quarter losses.

*METV daily price chart. Source: TradingView*

Nonetheless, corporations, venture capital funds and private equity investors pour over $120 billion into the Metaverse sector between January and May 2022, more than double the $57 billion invested in all of 2021, according to a recent McKinsey report.

Despite the decline in the metaverse market, however, McKinsey believes the space can become a $5 trillion sector by 2030, noting that e-commerce will likely realize a market impact of between $2 trillion and $2.6 trillion alone, followed by the academic virtual learning sector, which could have an impact of $180 billion to $270 billion.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

MANA