Highlights:

• $ETH capitulates in The Merge’s aftermath, causing a crash in USD-priced metaverse caps

• Decentraland outshines the pack, with land cap (priced in ETH) up 15%

• Somnium Space sinks to record just 1 sale for the week, but with plans to revamp the economy

• South Korean city to create a virtual copy of itself, and issue NFT citizenship to its residents… &

• OneLand integrates BYOPills, the unique metaverse of consumable and interoperable BYOPill NFTs, Apostle avatars, BYOCrafts and BYOLands

1. Market Data & Analysis

7-day data shows aggregate land caps for the 8 metaverse projects on OneLand up 1.98% to 961,219 ETH or $1.282 billion, while aggregate trading volume corrected 47.6%, as last week’s flurry of premium sales of Otherdeeds quickly faded from view.

The near-2% rise in aggregate land cap, in ETH, however, concealed an enormous $385 million (or 23%) downturn in USD, coming as it did on the back of a 22.7% fall in the price of ETH that, if not triggered by Ethereum’s ‘Merge’ from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake on Sep 15, certainly seems to have been accelerated by it. The ETH-USD differential thus should be taken into consideration in all ETH data that follows below.

Weekly increases in sales and trading volume for The Sandbox could not rescue it from suffering another slide in land cap, while the purchase of just one Estate was enough to revive Decentraland in comparison to its peers. Meanwhile, it was a relatively positive week for OneLand’s newest integration, metaverse project BYOPills, with all major metrics in the green. All other projects’ land caps were down for the week.

The Sandbox

The Sandbox enjoyed a slight 7-day uptick in trading activity as Alpha Season 3 entered its fourth week, with trading volume up 8.4%, along with minor increases in sales count (+5.5%) and average price (2.6%). However it still has a long way, albeit with another 6 weeks to go, to prove that this Season can elicit any improvement in land sales performance over the last one.

The past week witnessed no high-price land sales for The Sandbox, a top sale of just 3 ETH not even reaching the average price of a parcel of land in the middle of its original bull run in December last year. There is a silver lining though, with unique holders now on the rise for a third consecutive week following the Season’s commencement. The Sandbox team is surely wishing that their usual barrage of video promos, including a trailer for week 4, and perhaps a dip in the price of ETH and SAND (-13.54% for the week) will elicit a better response from the community in coming weeks.

Decentraland

The purchase of one Estate for 34.26 ETH was enough to lift Decentraland’s market cap by a full 15% this week, though another two Estates sold for 5.27 and 6.85 ETH respectively. It marks a fourth consecutive week of rising land cap for Decentraland, now up 27.7% from its mid-August low, which followed a colossal descent from June to August.

While it is not too much to cheer about, it is always interesting to compare the performances of the open and democratic Decentraland with the massive branding and marketing power of The Sandbox which continued to fall, down 20.5%, through the same 4-week period.

Though the average land price was down marginally by 4.41%, both sales and volume were up for the week.

Somnium Space

Some might say the virtual reality metaverse has been overly obsessed with presidential candidates of late, with Somnium Space able to sell just one sole parcel of land this past week. In light of this, it was to be expected that this week’s data would not look good.

Somnium’s VRE economy has definitely been lagging of late, but a lot else seems to have been on the founder’s mind. In last week’s Wrap-Up, we wrote of an upcoming land sales event in October, and then on Sunday the metaverse launched Somnium WEB WORLDs. The new offer enables landowners and renters to enhance their land parcels with “boundless detail, scale and interactivity” by way of custom game engine scenes. It could be an exciting move for the metaverse, though time will tell what vitality it brings back to the long-silent land market, its land cap having hardly budged sinced April.

The focus of late has been on a lot of product firsts, which is why OneLand is watching with eager eyes to see its effects as the small but potentially very powerful metaverse moves its way through the bear market to the other side.

Otherside

Speaking of which, premium sales of Otherdeeds dropped off the chart this week, a top sale of just 20.1 ETH representing a weekly comedown for the Yuga Labs’ behemoth metaverse project. There is always a lot of excitement brewing for Otherside, none more so than when it releases another trailer as it did early this month. Conjecture continues, but fluctuates, with sales slightly up for the week, land cap dipping, while trade volume and average price halved.

Worldwide Webb

Worldwide Webb also had a week to forget. All metrics were down for the week, with 46 Apartments sold at an average price of just 0.43 ETH. Worldwide Webb decorated the city for The Public Merge Event and held a Merge Party to celebrate. Though many came to the party, a marked separation still exists between the liveness of the metaverse and that of the market.

BYOPills

Last week, OneLand integrated BYOPills!

The exciting metaverse ecosystem originated with Blue Yellow Orange Pills (BYOPills), a collection of 10,000 unique consumable NFTs that provide enhancements and access to experiences in a variety of virtual gaming worlds, including BYOVERSE. And it was a good week for the BYOLands market, with major metrics in positive territory, notably sales count and volume, which both doubled.

Stay tuned in coming weeks as we will provide more detailed analysis of the BYOLands economy.

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

2. Market News

Doodles

• Sep 12

NFT project Doodles raised $54 million at a $704 million valuation. The fundraising was led by Seven Seven Six, the venture capital firm founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

Hypersonic Laboratories

• Sep 14

Hypersonic Labs, the startup behind open-world metaverse Helix, raised $3.5 million in a pre-seed round led by Play Ventures. Set in a virtual New York City, players in Helix are able to own properties, vehicles, clothing and businesses, while earning tokens by competing and trading with other players.

MetaFi

• Sep 14

Dubai-based metaverse firm MetaFi raised $3 million in a funding round supported by DoublePeak, Maven Capital, OKEx Blockdream, Athena Ventures and others. Now valued at $25 million, MetaFi will bring social trading to the Metaverse by integrating social media apps including Twitter and Telegram.

European Commission

• Sep 14

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen included “virtual worlds and the metaverse” in a speech to the European Parliament outlining new initiatives for 2023.

Coinbase

• Sep 15

Coinbase Global is adding a scorecard for politicians in its app. US customers will be able to check crypto sentiment scores for members of Congress, register to vote and find out about town hall events.

South Korea

• Sep 16

South Korean city Seongnam revealed plans to recreate a virtual copy of its city and issue NFT citizenship to residents. Metaverse Special City Seongnam is the newest installment in a growing list of blockchain-based projects in the country, which is fast becoming a global hub for the Metaverse and Web3.

3. Sales & Mints

The Sandbox

• Sep 13

MIKE’S MAZE NFTs, the Statue of Zeus NFTs and Fight for the Future NFTs collections were all listed on The Sandbox Marketplace.

• Sep 17

You’re A Big Boy Now NFT collection went live on The Sandbox Marketplace. The NFT collection is an original IP developed internally by The Sandbox team.

Decentraland

• Sep 12

Metaverse poker project Decentral Games launched its ICE Poker Flex and Tournament Mode with wearables for 1,000 $ICE each and loyalty rewards. Custom ICE emotes will also be released on the DCL Marketplace, priced at 15 or 30 $MANA.

GreenLand

• Sep 15

Green Land Metaverse kicked off its Avatar Mint. GreenLand is a metaverse fighting against global warming and a virtual space where people can build greener houses, energy, commerce and a greener world.

Lord of the Lands

• Sep 17

Lord of the Lands metaverse announced a postponement of its presale mint date from Sep 23 to Oct 4 due to an upcoming “surprise” partnership. Register for the pre-mint here.

4. Events, Contests & Giveaways

Events

Decentraland

• Sep 13

SandStorm held the DCK Builders Contest #1 Awards Ceremony in Decentraland. The prize pool was $5,000 USDC.

• Sep 18

WonderZone held a Sit-n-Go Wearable Drop Party in Decentraland. As part of the ICE Poker Flex launch, Decentral Games designed custom-themed wearables and airdropped them to subscribers in the WonderZone community.

• Sep 17

DAZN Stadium live streamed the epic Canelo vs GGG III boxing match in Decentraland exclusively to Canelo NFT holders. Each NFT purchase came with 2 free months of DAZN streaming services ($40 value).

Worldwide Webb

• Sep 15

Worldwide Webb decorated the city for The Public Merge Event and held a Merge Party to celebrate.

Somnium Space

• Sep 15

Somnium Space held a live VR party in Genesis VR Tron Club to celebrate The Merge. Founder Artur Sychov minted the livestream as an NFT in his new Web3 social media platform Authencity where it will live forever!

Tropyverse

• Weekdays

At 10am UTC every weekday, Tropyverse hits you with a fun and open Twitter Space for the community, on a range of different topics related to the Metaverse. Tropyverse is a tropical metaverse where Web3 communities can host events and network, while landowners and renters can trade NFTs and physical goods.

Contests

BYOPills

• Sep 12

BYOPills teamed up with video game company Legends of Venari to hold Round 2 of BYOverse Bounty Board. Check all the details here.

The Sandbox

• Sep 14

Web3 crypto waller ZenGo held an activity to give away $100 in $SAND.

• Sep 13

Web3 investment ecosystem vEmpire DDAO held a competition to celebrate the release of their Sandbox Game Experience. 5 winners will each receive $1,000 in $VEMP.

Worldwide Webb

• Sep 12–16

Worldwide Webb held a giveaway in their Merge Party. Participants in the Merge Countdown all had a chance to win 2 ETH.

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

The Sandbox: Let’s talk Web3 gaming feat. Bitski

Worldwide Webb: Webb Dev Log#001

NFT Worlds: Weekly WRLD

Tropyverse：Crypto Talk feat Tropyverse.

5. Project Updates

OneLand <> BYOPills

• Sep 12

OneLand has integrated BYOPills! Blue Yellow Orange Pills (BYOPills) are 10,000 unique NFT pills on Ethereum providing enhancements and experiences in the BYOVERSE and other metaverse games. The BYOPills game ecosystem also includes 3D avatars known as Apostles, BYOVapes, BYOCrafts and, of course, BYOLands.

Check oneland.world for comprehensive data and analytics on BYOLands.

The Sandbox

• Sep 14

The Sandbox disabled several features on its website to cope with The Merge.

• Sep 14

The Sandbox published a trailer of Week 4 of Sandbox Alpha S3.

Worldwide Webb

Worldwide Webb integrated both Bitlectro Labs Dreamer NFTs and Rekt Wolf NFTs.

Bitlectro Labs is a unique collection of audio-visual NFTs. As for Rekt Wolf, they began on the Terra chain in March 2022 and by May was its 3rd biggest project. Then Terra collapsed and the team was ‘’Rekt’’, but has re-emerged!

Decentraland

• Sep 15

Decentraland launched a new and improved docs site. The new site has split the content into three main sections - for players, content creators and contributors.

Voxels

• Sep 16

Voxels initiated a vote on Twitter to decide if they should transfer the remaining Chronos parcels to a non-transferrable artists collective wallet.

Epic Games

• Sep 15

Fortnite developer Epic Games listed its first blockchain-based game, Mythical Games’ Blankos Block Party, on its Epic Games Store.

Somnium Space

• Sep 18

Somnium Space introduced Somnium WEB WORLDs to the metaverse, allowing people to enhance any Somnium Space land parcel with boundless detail, scale & interactivity for web guests by assigning a custom game engine scene to it.

6. Partnerships

Somnium Space<>Prusa 3D & Vrgineers

• Sep 12

Somnium Space partnered with leading VR & mixed-reality pilot training systems provider Vrgineers and 3D printer manufacturer Prusa Research. The partnership will enhance development of a new cutting-edge open-source (standalone & PC wired) headset.

Decentraland<>LaLiga

• Sep 13

LaLiga, StadioPlus, together with Vegas City Limited, signed a licensing agreement to develop LaLiga-themed land parcels in Decentraland’s Vegas City district, which owns Decentraland’s largest sports, gaming and entertainment areas.

The Sandbox<>CyberKongz

• Sep 14

The Sandbox integrated CyberKongz VX Avatars into its metaverse for Alpha Season 3. Check out Kongboy’s video for more info:

Don’t forget — to access the most comprehensive, in-depth and up-to-date aggregated VRE market and project data, check out OneLand.

Twitter: @OneLand_World

Discord:OneLand