Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, saw the largest single-day slide in market value for a U.S. company ever with a 26% fall in share prices on Thursday after the tech giant revealed disappointing earnings and a decline in daily active users. Meta famously changed its name from Facebook in late 2021, to signal its plans to focus on the Metaverse, and its struggles have coincided with double-digit percentage gains for its decentralized competitors The Sandbox and Decentraland. Meta reported $33.67 billion worth of total revenue for Q4 2021, compared to $28 billion the year prior. However, its net …

Solana-based augmented reality and NFT platform Dropp GG is developing geographical-based NFT minting and “mixed reality events” tied to the Metaverse. The firm was founded in early 2021 and is progressively rolling out several initiatives over this year including partnered NFT drops, geo-minting events, virtual land plots with AR support, and a metaverse platform that maps to the physical world. Dropp recently closed an $8 million funding round that was backed by top crypto and NFT firms such as Animoca Brands, Alameda Research DeFiance Capital and Three Arrows Capital. The funding will go towards IP accumulation, partnerships and metaverse/AR tech …

Following the announcement that Facebook’s parent company would be rebranding in a shift towards the Metaverse, many projects have started similar initiatives entering the virtual space, from buying property to testing the limits of what this universe has to offer. Virtual ball drop on NYE The Ethereum-based virtual reality world Decentraland announced on Wednesday that a New Year’s Eve celebration would be taking place in the Metaverse. Grayscale owner Digital Currency Group has partnered with real estate firm Jamestown to create a virtual One Times Square — the iconic New York City location where a giant ball descends on a …

Following the announcement that Facebook’s parent company would be rebranding in a shift towards the metaverse, many projects have started similar initiatives entering the virtual space, from buying property to testing the limits of what this universe has to offer. Digital cities: Santa Monica and Seoul The Downtown Santa Monica District west of Los Angeles was one of the first real-world areas to allow users to have access to the metaverse through the FlickPlay app. Branded as a metaverse tool, walking around the district seems to be more of a limited augmented reality experience rather than a virtual one, with …

Digital land is in high demand in what is already a highly lucrative market as the past week’s NFT and Metaverse sales figures revealed. Data from the industry metrics platform, NonFungible, indicates that over the past week there have been more than $300 million in NFT sales. Of that total, almost a quarter have been for digital land in the Sandbox Metaverse. Over the past week, each one of the top ten NFT Metaverse sales across the top five collections were for in-game digital land. The Sandbox traded a total volume of $70.5 million for 4,433 assets over the past …

Four blockchain-based Metaverse projects generated more than $100 million worth of virtual land NFT sales last week according to data from DappRadar. A Nov. 30 post from the decentralized application (DApp) analytics firm reported that between Nov. 22 and Nov. 28 activity was “booming” on The Sandbox, Decentraland, CryptoVoxels and Somnium Space with a combined $105.8 million worth of trading volume between them from more than 6,000 traders: “Undoubtedly, Metaverse land is the next big hit in the NFT space. Outputting record sales numbers and constantly increasing NFT prices, virtual worlds are the new top commodity in the crypto space.” …

Crypto investment giant Grayscale has published a bullish report on the Metaverse, estimating that the “market opportunity” for bringing the Metaverse to the mainstream may be worth over $1 trillion in the next few years. The November report titled “The Metaverse, Web 3.0 Virtual Cloud Economies” was authored by Grayscale Head of research David Grider and research analyst Matt Maximo. The duo explores the burgeoning sector primarily from the perspective of open Metaverse worlds backed by an “interconnected crypto-economy” such as Decentraland. The report highlights that Metaverse platforms integrated with crypto tokens, decentralized finance (DeFi) services such as staking and …

Bloktopia is a virtual skyscraper in the Metaverse comprised of 21 levels to pay homage to the 21 million total maximum supply of Bitcoin (BTC). Owners of its BLOK tokens will be known as Bloktopians. Users will be able to buy and sell nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, purchase digital ad venues, own real estate, and more in the Bloktopia virtual reality. Meanwhile, Bloktopians can also earn revenue by selling or leasing virtual property in the skyrscraper to interested buyers. Bloktopia in-game footage | Source: Bloktopia The project, set to launch sometime next year, is built on the Polygon network, a …

KuCoin Labs, the company behind the world's sixth-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume with more than 500 crypto assets listed, announced on Wednesday that it would be launching a $100 million metaverse fund for early-stage projects. The money is also available for entities that develop blockchain-based games, nonfungible tokens, and decentralized applications. In addition, Kucoin will also provide business incubation services, branding, incentives, and business partnerships for developers selected into the fund. Johnny Lyu, CEO of Kucoin, said the following in a prepared statement obtained by Cointelegraph: "KuCoin Metaverse Fund will be launched to accelerate the evolution of the Internet …

Crypto leaders are divided over whether Mark Zuckerberg should lead Facebook into the Metaverse, with Hodl Asset’s Jenny Ta saying he needs to resign if Meta is to succeed while Animoca’s Yat Siu says Zuck is the only one who can drive the company forward. Ta is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of nonfungible token (NFT) platform developer Hodl Assets, and said that Zuckerberg needs to head off lawsuits and protect the company’s image by relinquishing his role as CEO. But the co-founder and Chairman of blockchain game and virtual property developer Animoca Brands, Yat Su said that Zuck is …

The blockchain gaming ecosystem has seen explosive growth over the course of 2021 as nonfungible tokens (NFT) and the play-to-earn gaming model helped create new income opportunities for people around the world while also ushering in a new cohort of users to the cryptocurrency sector. One project involved in gaming and the building of the Metaverse is The Sandbox (SAND), a blockchain-based virtual world where users to create, build, buy and sell digital assets in the form of a game. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after hitting a low of $0.70 on Oct. 27, the price …

Halloween is traditionally known for costumes, candy and trick or treating, but this year, the holiday is transitioning to the virtual world as the metaverse unfolds. As such, nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, are being created to showcase Halloween themes in hopes of attracting collectors looking for themed drops. Although Halloween-inspired NFTs appear to be a new concept, NFT artist Etsploit told Cointelegraph that Halloween holds a certain cultural importance that can't be dismissed: “I think people will collect NFTs for Halloween similar to that of NFT limited editions or releases of anything else.” Given this sentiment, Etsploit launched the “Mango …