Metaverse Weekly Wrap-Up: Aug 8–14

August 16th, 2022

Highlights:

WorldwideWebb on the up with a slew of NFT integrations, partners with Layer 2 Immutable X to hyperscale its metaverse
Holders in TSB fall, but those in Decentraland are on the rise
Somnium Space records highest sales in a month, as it powers into the future with more Virtual Reality firsts
Polygon partners with dev studio Epic League to launch new RPG, invests cash

1. Market Data & Analysis

OneLand 7-day data shows aggregate land cap of the 7 metaverses down for an 11th consecutive week (-4.67%) with trading volumes up 15% and holders steady (-0.15%).

The drop in land cap represents (as it did last week) the biggest weekly fall by percentage since July, yet it largely results from the two largest projects, The Sandbox and Otherside. Besides, Otherside’s top sale price keeps dropping. Besides, with the price of ETH continuing its upward trajectory of late, this week by another 14%, it likely caused some flippers to cash in. Meanwhile,

Decentraland enjoyed a minimal turnaround across all metrics, its week-on-week land cap in the green for the first time in 6 weeks.

The Sandbox

The Sandbox enjoyed upticks in both week-on-week sales (48%) and trading volumes (+52%) of LANDs for the first time in over a month, however it did little to stop another decrease in overall market cap (-4.85%) as the average price (+2.9%) failed to recover from last week’s 18.6% drop.

Though marginal, numbers of unique holders continue to fall also, down 0.15% for the week and 1.75% for the month. While not entirely strange in a bear market, it still comes in stark contrast to other metaverse projects, namely Decentraland and Voxels, with their lower market caps and far worse property performances over recent weeks. Meanwhile, The Sandbox continues to keep up the hype with its onboarding of big names, this week in the form of celebrity Paris Hilton, and community incentives such as a VoxEdit contest with Swedish art-tech project Picture This with 30,000 SAND up for grabs.

Decentraland

Though trading activity in Decentraland, including the purchase of Estates and other top-price sales, have dwindled over the past few months, signs of an economic turnaround are beginning to emerge ever since its average sale price almost fell to match that of The Sandbox at the start of the month. Last week, the tide turned on this particular metric comparison, while this week it also narrowed the gap in land market cap.

Following a moderate leveling out of its performance across key indicators in the first week of August, the second week saw better results, both in sales numbers and trading volume, up 56% and 88% respectively. Buoyed by a 16.7% increase in its average sales price, Decentraland was able to enjoy its first week-on-week improvement in land market cap (+1.8%) for a full 6 weeks.

Voxels

This week Voxels saw just 30 land parcel sales compared to last week’s 41, leading to week-on-week dips across all key metrics and thus a return to the new norms of lower average prices and falling land caps of previous weeks. Furthermore, with no big sales to report, trading volume totalled a paltry 17 ETH with the average sales price receding to just 0.05 ETH above where it was at the end of July.

Taking a quick glance at a metaverse’s holder analytics is often a useful retort to gloomy data, and once again Voxels’ community appears to shine, with unique holders numbers in fine form, up week-on-week, month-on-month and, no doubt, year-on-year. So while some ‘holders’ may be parting with their lands, solid community strength resides in Voxels, indicating that Voxelians should not be too distraught, but inversely, see a potential opportunity to buy up more parcels for future rewards.

Somnium Space

Somnium Space this week enjoyed its largest number of sales (13) and highest trading volume (20 ETH) since the same time last month. This was another great result for the metaverse, but more so given the fact that both the price of ETH (+63%) and Somnium Space’s native token CUBE (+35%) are both massively up over the same time period.

Total land market cap fell marginally for the week (-1%) following its lowest price for a top sale (2.11 ETH) since the end of June. Notably, the last two days of the week registered 5 sales and more than half its weekly volume as Somnium announced its upcoming Virtual Reality fashion show to take place next month. The cross-reality phygital event featuring IRL fashion models with full body tracking and haptic suits will be held simultaneously in Pragu and the metaverse, and is yet another first-of-its-kind for the undisputed leader in VR virtual worlds.

Meanwhile Somnium Space’s CUBE token cooled somewhat from last week’s 41% surge, but maintained, down just 7.5% for the week.

Worldwide Webb

It was a bustling week packed with good news at Worldwide Webb. Trading volume was up 6.1% week-on-week, with 105 Apartments sales compared to last week’s 84. The metaverse has been releasing a slew of partnership announcements and NFT integrations into its platform on the back of last week’s landholder Alpha updates and overall positive signs (including a 25 ETH sale last week) that WorldwideWebb’s economy is on the mend.

This week, the big name was Immutable X and WorldwideWebb’s announcement of a partnership with the Layer 2 solution to hyperscale the metaverse. A partnership with GameStop NFT was also announced, and comes on the back of other announcements last week of link-ups with famous NFT project Moonbirds as well as fellow metaverse Treeverse.

This weekend, Worldwide Webb was back on the party wagon too, throwing another of its famous Teshimi parties to celebrate the 1st anniversary of the Deadfellaz project. With new friends jumping on board, and old ones returning to the fold, the project looks on the upward trajectory. Though numbers of unique holders were up for the project by just 0.15%, this is a turnaround, representing the first increase in several months.

NFT Worlds

NFT Worlds continues to suffer from the July hit when Minecraft banned NFTs on its servers. This week was no exception, OneLand data showing a second consecutive week of all key metrics in the red, following the initial green metrics of booming sales and volume in the immediate aftermath. People continue to sell their Worlds, putting more and more downward pressure on its average price, down a further 16% for the week to 0.89 ETH. A weekly top sale of 1.35 ETH also represents a very far cry indeed from anything in the project’s history to date.

Land cap for the P2E gaming project is down 6% for the week, following 3 consecutive week-on-week falls of 7%, and is now down 23% overall since Minecraft’s hammer fell on the project. NFT Worlds is yet to provide any deadline for rebuilding its metaverse, though it has made formal announcements to do so. Nevertheless, the team keeps up communications by running its weekly Twitter Spaces, with 2,200 listeners tuning in to the most recent one.

Otherside

Trading volume (+16%) and sales numbers (+27%) for Otherside were both up significantly compared to last week. Sales of Otherdeeds, this week reaching a total of 526, continue to vastly outnumber all other virtual world projects, this despite average prices falling for the fourth consecutive week, this time by 7.6% to 3.33 ETH. Otherside’s weekly top sale price keeps dropping too, clocking in over the past 7 days at just 19 ETH, possibly influenced by the rise in the price of ETH, but still in stark contrast to the last four weekly top sales of 30, 75, 135 and 154 ETH.

For comprehensive market and metaverse project data, check oneland.world.

2. Market News

Tornado Cash

Aug 8

The US Treasury imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash, accusing it of helping hackers to launder over $7 billion worth of virtual currency, provoking a backlash from many in the DeFi community.

Lamborghini

Aug 8

Lamborghini issued its third NFT collection, dubbed ‘The Epic Road Trip’. The car company partnered with brand experience agency INVNT.ATOM and NFT PRO for the release.

Somnium Space

Aug 12

Somnium Space announced a first-of-its-kind mixed-reality Virtual Reality fashion show to happen Sep 7 with audiences in Prague and in VR. The phygital fashion event will feature real models, full body tracking and haptic suits.

Voxels<>Yo Folk

Aug 9

Voxels airdropped $FOLK tokens to around 12,000 wallets. The drop was intended to encourage tipping on Yo Folk, Voxels’ social media platform for open conversation.

Decentraland

Aug 13

Buenos Aires kicked off the first edition of ETH Latam, a 3-day conference on the Ethereum cryptocurrency. The event will host discussions on infrastructure, DeFi, DAOs and NFTs with renowned Web3 exhibitors.

3. Sales & Mints

Voxels

Aug 9

Voxels listed 8 LANDs from Architect island and Chronos Island in the marketplace.

Somnium Space

Aug 9

Ultra Lord launched the Somnium Show Superstar Action Pack on OpenSea.

It includes a new track from WooferBlast, an UltraWear Flexing Technologies SuperStar Gold Chain and more.

The Sandbox

Aug 9

The PORK1984 NFT collection, based on George Orwell’s famous novel ‘1984’, was listed on The Sandbox Marketplace. The timely collection is centered on the themes of totalitarianism, mass surveillance and repression of individual self-expression in a postmodern society.

Aug 11

Multimedia design agency Smobler Studios in collaboration with Food Bank Singapore brought the first of its Expo Essentials Series to The Sandbox. The collection of essential assets intend to offer inclusive, diverse and accessible spaces in the metaverse.

Bintang Crystal

Aug 14

Bintang Crystal (of Multi Bintang Indonesia) and Indonesian NFT community Irukandji launched a mint of 33 limited-edition NFTs. The now sold-out Taste-Timonial collection marks both their debuts into Web3.

4. Events

The Sandbox

Aug 9

High-profile socialite Paris Hilton has teamed up with The Sandbox to build a virtual Malibu Mansion. The venue is planned to host a variety of glitzy events and roof-top parties.

Aug 10

OUTR Studios activated a marketplace build proposal on SandStorm to create 4 construction worker NPCs and 1 crane for moving freight containers in The Sandbox.

Decentraland

Aug 9

DCL co-founder Esteban Ordano participated in an interview hosted by Miss Wow‘s Tech Blogger Rachel Zhou in Decentraland.

Aug 10

Decentraland held a Q&A with Creative Departmint, the Web3 agency behind CBS’ interactive Ghosts experience.

Worldwide Webb

Aug 13

Worldwide Webb held a party to celebrate the 1-year anniversary of Deadfellaz.

Catch up on this week’s #Twitter Spaces, project streams and interviews:

The Sandbox: The Sandbox Saturday Stream

The Sandbox: What’s to come in Alpha Season 3 featuring co-founder Sebastien Borge

The Sandbox: The Future of Web 3.0 Metaverse featuring SCB 10X

Somnium Space: CNN interview with founder Artur Sychov

Somnium Space: Weekly VR Builder session

NFT Worlds: Weekly WRLD featuring Wolves DAO

5. Contests & Giveaways

Somnium Space

Aug 9

Somnium Space announced the winner of Somnium Times’ Sci-fi Character Contest — Team Turner of Athenaverse.

Decentraland <> Patron Tequila

Aug 13

Patrón Tequila launched a cocktail-inspired Pop-up Series in Decentraland. Attendees can enter quests to find cocktail ingredients, purchase wearables and compete to win a grand prize trip to the Mexican beach resort of Punta Mita.

The Sandbox <> Picture This

Aug 13

Swedish art-tech company Picture This teamed up with The Sandbox to launch the ‘Purality in Voxel’ VoxEdit contest, with 30,000 SAND in prizes.

Voxels

Aug 12

The Matrix Rave was held in Voxels. Players could claim their POAP on the rooftop for a chance to win a cool video NFT.

6. Project Updates & Partnerships

EPIC LEAGUE <>Polygon

Aug 8

Polygon and Seoul-based game dev studio EPIC LEAGUE announced a partnership, with Polygon also making a strategic investment in the company. To celebrate, EPIC LEAGUE is launching the RPG game Dark Throne.