The European Commission announced the launch of the European Blockchain Regulatory Sandbox on Feb. 15. The sandbox will provide a space for regulatory dialog for 20 projects per year through 2026. The sandbox was first announced in 2020 and is being facilitated by a number of private firms that won tenders in 2022. Funding will come from the Digital Europe Programme. Projects will be chosen by an independent panel of academic experts on a competitive basis from public and private sector use cases of “Blockchain and other Distributed Ledger Technologies.” Public sector projects on the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) …

In January, ApeCoin (APE) had an underwhelming performance compared to metaverse-based tokens like Decentraland (MANA) and The Sandbox (SAND). APE token gained 61% compared to the 90% and 150% respective gains seen in SAND and MANA. The subdued gains can be attributed to the hefty APE staking rewards that is likely creating some selling pressure. An upcoming unlock of around 9% of APE’s circulating supply in March 2023, along with not-so-impressive fundamentals, will add further headwinds for the token. The gains in APE will depend on the success of the blockchain gaming projects in the ApeCoin ecosystem and new partnerships …

Swiping right in the metaverse Famous New York socialite, Paris Hilton thinks the Metaverse may be the perfect place to find one’s true love. In a Feb. 9 tweet, the celebrity and reality TV star said she will be working with The Sandbox (SAND) to bring “Parisland” to life. The idea is essentially a Virtual Reality (VR) dating experience crossed with a reality dating show and is slated for a Feb. 13 release in time for Valentine’s Day. Get ready to party on the beach, pick up cute collectibles and explore my newest tropical Parisland metaverse! I'm launching a new …

Initiatives toward metaverse development continue to be a significant focus and key interest in the Middle East region, as the LEAP conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, highlights key topics in the industry. On Feb. 7, a partnership ceremony was held at the conference, which acknowledged a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Sandbox and the government of Saudi Arabia. According to social media posts from Sebastien Borget, the co-founder and COO of the Sandbox, the MOU is with the Saudi Arabia Digital Government Authority (DGA) for the purpose of “exploring, advising and supporting” one another in metaverse development. It …

Web3 and the metaverse were handed a seat at the table of the World Economic Forum in 2023 as the ecosystem continues to drive innovation across industries. As Cointelegraph continues to explore, the presence of the cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem was mainly found outside the walls of the WEF. Blockchain Hub Davos and GBBC’s Blockchain Central were two central events in town that brought together the wider crypto community that has been somewhat left out of the WEF’s discourse on the sector. The metaverse is a notable exception to this trend. Although some metaverse applications do not operate on decentralized …

The metaverse hype that began in 2021 dissolved almost entirely by the end of 2022 as the top projects in the space, Decentraland, and The Sandbox, lost 95% of their market capitalization. The most prominent reason for the fall was lack of usage growth. Still, the metaverse narrative is far from dead and will grow in the future. Reportedly, Apple will launch its VR gear sometime in spring 2023. The announcement was a positive catalyst for MANA and SAND, causing a double-digit price surge. While there’s evidence of positive buying volume supporting the pump, the weak fundamentals of metaverse platforms …

The Metaverse and Virtual Reality (VR) go hand in hand in the public’s imagination and platforms including Somnium Space, Crypto Voxels, and Meta’s Horizon Worlds already support the technology. But despite describing itself as a “decentralized virtual reality platform” on its website, the browser-based 3D metaverse platform Decentraland still lacks VR. Sean Ong, founder of extended reality specialists XR Dev Studio, sits on a team that has developed an “alpha” version of the VR platform. He explained that while “VR has always been part of Decentraland’s vision,” the Decentraland Foundation has been prioritizing the implementation of core features ahead of …

Cointelegraph looks back on the best and worst-performing cryptocurrencies of 2022 among the top 100 assets by market capitalization. We used the highest and the lowest year-to-date (YTD) returns through the close of Dec. 25, 2022. Overall, Cryptoindex.com 100 (CIX100), an index that tracks the 100 best-performing cryptocurrencies, fell nearly 68% YTD, suggesting most top coins underperformed in 2022. Stablecoins are naturalomitted from the list below. Similarly, coins tracking the value of gold and similar mainstream assets have also been ignored. Instead, the coins mentioned below include decentralized currencies, smart contract tokens, exchange tokens, and others. Top five crypto of …

A group of pro-crypto Ukrainian lawmakers, Blockchain4Ukraine, and the citizen group Virtual Assets of Ukraine (VAU) revealed a joint roadmap for promoting and developing Web3 in the country. The document was signed by its co-authors on Nov. 14, according to regional media. The roadmap proposes a set of measures for promoting Web3, such as the launch of a regulatory sandbox for blockchain and Web3 projects, the creation of a national blockchain-backed land and realty register, the preparation of a “blockchain plan” to rebuild the country after the war and integration of Ukraine into the European blockchain community. VAU and Blockchain4Ukraine …

The building of the metaverse is an ongoing process. Sebastien Borget, the co-founder of The Sandbox metaverse, even called the future of the metaverse evolving. Speaking to Cointelegraph's Gareth Jenkinson at the Web Summit tech conference in Portugal on Nov. 3, Borget said that what we see today in the Sandbox is “the natural evolution of things” after almost a decade of work. The evolution of the metaverse, particularly the way brands engage with users, has accelerated at rapid speed. It’s this fast-paced development that has investors pouring billions of dollars into metaverse projects across the space. “We're now seeing …

As inflation continues to grow, coupled with a looming recession, many tech firms are having to cut portions of their staff. To put this in perspective, data from Layoffs.fyi found that over 700 tech startups have experienced layoffs this year, impacting at least 93,519 employees globally. It has also been reported that tech giants like Google, Netflix and Apple are undergoing massive job cuts. While many of these layoffs are likely due to an economic downturn, this has resulted in an overwhelming amount of talent flocking to early-stage Web3 companies. For example, Andrew Masanto, a serial entrepreneur who has founded …

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 …