Highlights:

• The Sandbox kicks off Alpha Season 3, its most jam-packed, most accessible and longest season yet
• NFT Worlds releases dev update on a Minecraft-less project — could the project see brighter days?
• Decentraland holds the 3rd edition of its Metaverse Art Week
• MTV VMA hand out award for Best Metaverse Performance, as Eminem and Snoop Dogg light up the stage with an Otherside-inspired virtual performance &
• OneLand teams up with Web3 advertising marketplace Metaviu to bring advertisers into the Metaverse

1. Market Data & Analysis

OneLand 7-day data shows aggregate land caps in ETH for the 7 metaverse projects down (-1.53%) for a 13th consecutive week, with trading volumes down 22.5% and holders steady. All projects’ land caps were down for the week, except for Decentraland and Worldwide Webb.

Interestingly, The Sandbox’s launch of the new Alpha Season 3 on Wednesday is yet to elicit a rally, the project’s land cap in fact in free-fall across all 7 days of the week. Meanwhile, in a week in which NFT Worlds released its first formal dev update on the now Minecraft-less product, some renewed trading activity did surface, albeit no turnaround in a cascading land market cap and average price.

This all happened in spite of a second consecutive weekly downturn in the price of ETH (-11.66%).

The Sandbox

The Sandbox kicked off its new Alpha Season 3 Wednesday which, though deep in a bear market, is its most extensive, longest and most accessible yet. Nevertheless, the Season launch failed to elicit any rally in the LANDs trade, the week witnessing significant decreases in volume (-32%) and sales (-22%), putting downward pressure on prices (-12.6%). The Sandbox’s land cap continued to slide through the week, even after Wednesday’s launch, to end it down 4.1%, this despite a 3x3 Estate selling nearby Snoop Dogg and Steve Aoki for 19.9 ETH, and as the price of $ETH (and $SAND, -13.1%) began falling Friday. However, numbers of unique holders at least remained steady for a second consecutive week.

The 10-week season, a full 7 weeks longer than the previous two seasons, appears part of a strategy to attract more players and, therefore, potential landowners. In line with this, taking into consideration the context and performance of the previous two seasons provides a useful reference. The Sandbox’s Alpha Season 1 (Nov 29 — Dec 20, 2021) kicked off on the heels of a massive bull run, its land cap booming 47% over the 3 weeks. On the contrary, Season 2, launched just following the peak of that rally and at the start of a 2-month crash; 3 weeks later, The Sandbox’s land cap had fallen 14%. It is going to be very interesting to see what happens this time round.

Decentraland

A top sale of 11,500 MANA (approx. 6 ETH) did little to rescue Decentraland’s recent market decline, but at least it helped see its market cap enjoy a marginal recovery from the previous week’s 7% dive, up 2.77% for the week.

Two more sales than the week before is by no stretch of the imagination a recovery; in fact, and no matter the lower prices of $ETH or $MANA, Decentraland’s sales numbers have been dwindling around the 30-mark for over 2 months now. The average price of a parcel ended the week sunk to a shockingly low 1.87 ETH. Furthermore, with trading volume (-17.3%) also reversing its very temporary swingaround, some may have hoped for a better performance from Decentraland’s third edition of Art Week.

Mirroring $ETH and $SAND, Decentraland’s native token $MANA also ended a second week in the red, down 11.76%.

Voxels

Although Voxels this week announced plans to restructure and rejuvenate its marketplace, neither listing 6 new parcels (on Chronos Island) for 0.41 ETH each, nor a Burn Party on Andromeda Island in which 6 other parcels were extinguished, had much of a discernible effect.

Weekly land sales in Voxels were up by 8 to 26, reversing much of the previous week’s 40% drop. But the average price of a parcel continues to collapse, regardless of last week’s short-lived increase, this week descending to a dismal 0.497 ETH, just enough to evoke a doleful increase of 1 sale. With a top sale of just 1.36 ETH on Wednesday, prior to ETH’s downturn, 7-day increases in trading volume and sales count were enough to see Voxels end the week with its land cap down only marginally, -0.23%.

Somnium Space

It was a relatively quiet week for Somnium Space on the news front, albeit with a good selection of live events to keep the community active. There was no recovery in sales from the previous week’s poor showing, with only one additional sale lifting the tally to 4, and a 30% drop in average price to 1.51 ETH leading to a 2.9% fall in land market cap.

The price of its native token $CUBE started to fall in line with $ETH, $SAND and $MANA on Friday, but quickly rallied to end the week down just over 1%.

NFT Worlds

Just one day after mentioning that the Minecraft-inspired virtual worlds project appeared nowhere to be seen save for a few lonely Twitter Spaces, NFT Worlds surprised the community this week with a new #dev-updates channel in its Discord, listing various updates on the now Minecraft-less project. It seems to have led to some revival in trading activity, with volumes and sales numbers up 20.4% and 27.7% respectively for the week.

Nevertheless, a lot more positive results than these will need to be seen at NFT Worlds before the market is inspired to jump on board the project’s next installment. Holder numbers continue to fall (down for both the week and the month), suggesting that few, if any, new investors are coming on board just yet. The average price of one World continues to drop, down 5.4% more for the week to a miniscule 0.716 ETH (just over $1,000), while land cap slid for a 9th consecutive week, down 2.45% to 34,374 ETH.

Reversing the weekly trend of ETH and other metaverse tokens, the price of the $WRLD token witnessed an ever-so-slight though discernible rally over the weekend.

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

2. Market News

Invesco

• Aug 23

US asset management firm Invesco launched an investment fund focused on the Metaverse. The Invesco Metaverse Fund will invest $30 million in small and large companies across the US, Asia and Europe.

Polygon

• Aug 24

GameSwift and Polygon teamed up to release a Web3 gaming platform. The partnership also includes a financial grant to GameSwift, the first gaming ecosystem on the Polygon chain.

Ready Player Me

• Aug 24

Metaverse avatar platform Ready Player Me raised $56m in a Series B round led by investment giant Andreessen Horowitz.

MTV VMA

• Aug 28

Legendary rappers Eminem and Snoop Dogg took fans into the Metaverse in a live performance at Sunday’s 2022 MTV Video Music Awards billed as a first-of-its-kind “inspired by the world of the Otherside metaverse”. Meanwhile, Korean pop group Blackpink took out the award for Best Metaverse Performance.

3. Sales & Mints

Stageverse

• Aug 24

Social metaverse Stageverse announced they postponed their Land Reveal a week to ensure the best map experience for the community. The Land Reveal takes place on Aug 30.

Voxels

• Aug 24

Voxels listed 6 parcels for sale on Chronos Island for sale on OpenSea, each priced at 0.41 ETH.

Upland

• Aug 22

Upland launched its first European city, Porto. Approximately 35.000 properties are available across the city that is classified by Upland as a small, mid-priced city, with about one-third of properties marked FSA (Fair Start Act), reserved for new players.

Bloktopia

• Aug 26

Bloktopia listed 11 new land plots in the 400–500k $BLOK range (approx $130–170) in its marketplace. Bloktopia is a 21-floor skyscraper in the metaverse; which already includes household names including CoinMarketCap, CoinTelegraph, Polygon, Solana and Binance NFT.

Blockchain Brawlers

• Aug 26

Play&Own metaverse game Blockchain Brawlers listed 12 more Brawl-o-Seums in its marketplace. Brawl-o-seum NFTs give owners the unique ability to craft all of the assets needed for every single player in the upcoming Player vs battle mode.

4. Events, Contests & Giveaways

Worldwide Webb

• Aug 23

Worldwide Webb held a party to celebrate the partnership with Meebits DAO.

The Sandbox

• Aug 24

The Sandbox kicked off its Alpha Season 3 which will run for 10 weeks and includes 98 experiences. AlphaS3 has a music angel with Snoop Dogg, Steve Aoki & Warner Music among its partners. Players can visit the Alpha Lobby to discover experiences, with LAND, avatar and NFT holders eligibile to win $SAND.

Decentraland

• Aug 24–28

Decentraland held the 3rd edition of its Metaverse Art Week. The 4-day event featured performances, art productions & installations, NFT exhibitions, panel discussions, and Art Week Movie Festival, reliving visionary films from the 19th and 20th centuries.

• Aug 25

Decentraland DAO hosted a TownHall Meeting in its Discord to discuss updates from its Working Group & Strategic Comms as well as Community Pulse, Grants Support, Governance Squad and Open Forum.

• Aug 25

The Digital Entertainment Leadership Forum (DELF) 2022 was held in Decentraland, featuring live esports tournaments, show matches by esports celebrities, ArtTech experiences, innovator showcases and investment pitches.

• Aug 27

Artnet teamed up with VERSEverse to hold a Pop-Up Poetry Readings session in Decentraland, featuring legendary conceptual poet and performer Christian Bök.

Voxels

• Aug 25

Voxels formulated a plan to reorganize its parcel strategy to rejuvenate its VRE marketplace. To kick it off, Voxels held a Burn Party, during which they burned 6 parcels.

• Aug 27

Land Development DAO held ‘Battle for Oasis’, a Ready Player One-themed Scavenger Hunt in Voxels.

Contests

Comearth

• Aug 24

E-commerce metaverse Comearth together with NFT marketplace NFTICALLY kicked off a Treasure Hunt in celebration of NFTICALLY’s 1st birthday, with $2,000 worth of Comearth Land NFTs up for grabs. The contest runs Aug 24–31.

The Sandbox

• Aug 24

Club XYZ held a giveaway in The Sandbox AlphaS3. Players had to show their best screenshot of DJ Steve Aoki on stage in CLUB XYZ for the chance to win an Alpha Pass.

• Aug 24

Warner Music Group gave away an Alpha S3 Pass in its Discord. People only had to react to the “Welcome to The Sandbox’’ post in the #about-sandbox channel.

• Aug 25

NFT wallet Bitski held a giveaway, with those who downloaded the IOS Wallet earning the chance to win Sandbox LANDS!

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

Decentraland: Art in the Metaverse feat. Artnet

Decentraland: Un-framing art in the spatial web

Decentraland: Day-1 exploration of the DCL Metaverse Art Week feat. GossApe Girl

Decentraland: Preserving Heritage in Web3 feat Frida Kahlo Family

NFT Worlds: Weekly WRLD

SandStorm: Interview with Planet Rift Game

5. Project Updates

NFT Worlds

• 23 Aug

NFT Worlds launched a #dev-updates channel in its Discord, listing several updates including completion of the new game’s backend player login, account management and custodial wallet systems. They also mentioned they are maintaining Minecraft content to ensure a seamless transition to the new game.

X.LA Metaverse

• Aug 23

X.LA Foundation member Aleksey Savchenko revealed particulars of the eagerly anticipated X.LA Metaverse, promising an immersive experience he called “not a product” but “a paradigm shift.”

Outlanders

• Aug 24

Outlanders announced they are ready to launch the game’s final version, but are monitoring the market closely to select the optimal time to issue its native $LAND token. Outlanders is an open-world MMORPG combining GameFi & Move2Earn.

Worldwide Webb

• Aug 28

Worldwide Webb announced the release of a new integration tool, which could lead to a heavy increase from the 1million+ NFTs already integrated into the game. More details can be found in this guide.

6. Partnerships

The Sandbox<>INDEX GAME

• Aug 22

The Sandbox has invested in metaverse agency INDEX GAME with total funding of $6mto be injected into the project by 2023.

The Sandbox <>BAYC

• Aug 22

The Sandbox announced a partnership with BAYC that enables Bored Apes to now play around with their Sandbox Avatars.

Worldwide Webb<> The Picaroons

• Aug 26

Worldwide Webb announced the integration of the seafaring, treasure-inspired Picaroons NFT into its metaverse.

Decentraland<>Ezel.Life

• Aug 24

Decentraland teamed up with Ezel.Life to launch a permanent installation, the Frida Kahlo Family Red House to celebrate Metaverse Art Week. The structure offers an immersive experience showcasing the first half of Frida’s amazing life.

OneLand<>Metaviu

• Aug 25

Metaverse advertising marketplace Metaviu and OneLand have made their friendship official. Soon, both advertisers and landowners will benefit from OneLand’s Metaverse data directly from Metaviu’s advertising marketplace dashboard!

Somnium Space<>ORBIS Academy

• Aug 24

ORBIS Academy has entered Somnium Space, building a DeFtChain Campus which players can enter to explore and learn more about DeFiChain.

Beam Studio <> THE OWNER

• Aug 27

Beam Studio partnered with eyewear brand THE OWNER to launch a pop-up event in Decentraland. THE OWNER is a contemporary youth glasses brand incorporating art, music & technology, and a regular participant in New York and London Fashion Weeks.

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