Kaunas, Lithuania | October 20, 2022 03:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time

 DappRadar, the global app store for decentralized applications, has confirmed in its latest report that demand is still driving the growth of the metaverse, despite the crypto bear market.

Summary

Despite virtual worlds trading volume dropping 91.61% to $90 million in Q3, the number of land sales only decreased only by 37.54% quarter-over-quarter, indicating that the enthusiasm for these types of projects remains. The trading volume of the top metaverse projects decreased by 80% on average from Q2, but on the upside the sales count decreased only 11% on average.

Leading the way The Sandbox Alpha Season 3 hosted over 90 experiences, with four million people registered with a wallet, and over 200,000 monthly active users. This helped the platform increase its sales count by 190% from the previous quarter. Furthermore, in Q3 more than 1.12 million ENS domain names were registered, an increase of 72% from Q2. In addition close to a third of the total $1.2 billion raised in Q3 for investment in the sector was for metaverse infrastructure.

An overview of the metaverse

Interest in metaverse platforms keeps growing despite the economic headwinds. While in Q3, the sales count of the top 10 metaverse (excluding Axie and Upland) projects decreased on average by 11.55%, the report considers this “a bullish sign” because it shows that the hype for these types of projects hasn’t significantly decreased.

Overall metaverse trading volume decreased by 91.61% from the $893 million generated the previous quarter. On the other hand, the number of land sales declined by 37.54% from the previous quarter to 52,224, indicating that the excitement surrounding these types of projects has not totally subsided but is entering a period of consolidation.

Otherdeed for Otherside was the most prevalent metaverse project in May 2022, after one of the largest NFT mints. However, The Sandbox and Decentraland remained among the most active metaverse platforms throughout 2022. Since May, The Sandbox has maintained an average of 750 daily wallets interacting with the gaming platform’s contracts. In contrast, activity on The Sandbox Marketplace has been trending upward since May, with an increase in its daily UAW of 348%, reaching 395 in September. However, the report found that USD trading volume for ten of the top metaverse projects (excluding Axie and Upland) decreased 80% on average this quarter.

Decentraland welcomed 56,000 daily users in September

A series of September events attracted 56,000 daily active users (DAU) to Decentraland’s virtual parcels, an increase of 6% from August. The blockchain activity measured by UAW also paints a bullish outlook for the virtual world, as almost 800 unique wallets interact daily with Decentraland’s contracts, including meta-transactions. Another positive metric was the nearly-150 DAO proposals that received over 11,000 votes in September which show that the project’s community is highly engaged.

The Sandbox Alpha Season 3

The Sandbox Alpha Season 3 has reached 200,000 monthly participants, marking a significant milestone for the gaming platform. In addition, they reported that 39,000 users browse the virtual world daily, with 1.6 million visitors visiting The Sandbox website in the past month alone.

In addition, Season 3 has been played for a total of 1.6 million hours.

Metaverse-based tokens hit by bear market

Similar to other cryptocurrencies, metaverse tokens have struggled in the crypto winter. Yuga Labs’ token APE has lost 72.92% since May 1, hitting $5.44 on September 30, with a market capitalization of $1.42 billion. The Sandbox coin SAND is the second largest metaverse token by market capitalization and followed the same downward trend. ImmutableX coin (IMX) is one of the few metaverse tokens that has decreased by less than 50% since May 1.

Demand for ENS domains soars

In September, users of the ENS registered 437,365 new '.eth' domains, surpassing the previous record of 378,805 established in July. The 72% surge caused the overall number of registrations to increase to more than 2.6 million, while revenue from registration and renewal fees increased by $5.5 million. In the same month, ENS also documented 35,427 new accounts that registered or purchased at least one domain, increasing the total to 572,000.

Investing in building the metaverse

Despite the bear market, financing for metaverse and Web3 gaming overall remains substantial. Up to this point in 2022, blockchain games and metaverse projects have raised about $7 billion, and while the third quarter was the lowest, it still reached $1.2 billion. Blockchain games and metaverse projects received the most funding, totaling 38.5% of the total, infrastructure accounts for 33.5% raised, investment firms for 22.9%, and media and NFTs for the remaining 5%.

Mass brand adoption

This quarter has been extremely active in terms of metaverse adoption. In the 2022 Disney Accelerator Program, six growth-stage firms, including three Web3 companies were selected to take part. After successfully issuing 70,000 NFT tickets for Super Bowl LVI, Dapper Labs announced its collaboration with the world’s leading ticketing platform. Walmart is yet another big brand to enter the metaverse. The US retail giant debuted two virtual experiences on Roblox: Walmart Land and Walmart's Universe of Play.

Closing thoughts

With the potential to generate up to $5 trillion in value by 2030, the metaverse seems unavoidable, with a significant impact on our business and personal lives, the report argues. This is clear if you watched the Meta Connect event last week for example. “The metaverse should not replace the physical world or the interpersonal bonds that unite us. It should complement what people do and permit unrestricted mobility between the two worlds in a manner that broadens rather than restricts our range of experiences. For this to occur, however, collective leadership is required to ensure that the acts done responsibly shape the course of this revolution,” the report noted.

About DappRadar

Founded in 2018, DappRadar is the The World's Dapp Store: a global decentralized applications (dapps) store, which makes it easy for its base of more than one million users per month to track, analyze, and discover dapp activity via its online platform. The platform currently hosts more than 12,000 dapps from across 50 blockchains and offers a plethora of consumer-friendly tools, including comprehensive NFT valuation, portfolio management, and daily industry-leading, actionable insight.

As well as the starting point for dapp discovery DappRadar acts as a distribution channel for dapp developers that are looking to reach new consumers. With the DAO launched in late 2021 members of the community can vote on new proposals. The aim is to make DappRadar a decentralized organization where the community has as much say in decisions as the CEO.

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Contact Details

Dan Edelstein

pr@marketacross.com