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 …

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk showed no support for the Metaverse and Web 3 ecosystem as he dismissed the terms for being used as buzzwords and marketing tactics. "I don't see someone strapping a friggin' screen to their face all day," said Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX CEO, in an interview with The Babylon Bee when asked about his thoughts on the Metaverse ecosystem. "I don't know if I necessarily buy into this metaverse stuff, although people talk to me a lot about it." Speaking around Metaverse and virtual reality (VR), Musk said that he does not see 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 …

The metaverse continues to gain a foothold in our lives, particularly ownership of digital land. Now, there's hardly a section of our existence that it hasn't touched. The current rave is gaming that incorporates nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and play-to-earn (P2E) models. And from the looks of it, it isn't going away any time soon. Early adopters of the technology have found it a viable income-generating opportunity. That's the reason why projects in this space are jostling for market share. The adult gaming sector has caught on too. The growing number of R-rated blockchain games entering the market confirms this reality. …

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 …

Niantic, the popular augmented reality (AR) mobile game Pokemon Go developer, is planning to build a “real-world” metaverse with newly raised funding. The company officially announced Monday the completion of a $300 million raise from the technology-focused investment manager Coatue, bringing the company’s valuation to $9 billion. Coatue is known as a major investor in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry, backing companies like blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis, cryptocurrency startup Fireblocks, blockchain security firm CertiK and others. The firm has also recently participated in a $555 million funding round for cryptocurrency fintech startup MoonPay. “Niantic is building a platform for AR …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) recent foray back below $56,000 sparked a wide-ranging sell-off across the cryptocurrency ecosystem and talks of the price hitting $100,000 by the end of the year quickly morphed into concerns about an impending bear market that could thrust prices into the doldrums for a year or longer. While there appeared to be absolute carnage in the markets judging by peoples' reaction to the BTC pullback, not all tokens were negatively impacted and gaming tokens focused on the emerging Metaverse have managed to stay in the green. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that while the price …

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 …

There have been many new applications of blockchain technology in recent years. However, many believe the best real-world use cases for this technology are yet to come. Some believe this will take shape in the metaverse, the next believable iteration of the internet. With the metaverse, any participant can enter a virtual world that will connect different environments. This differs greatly from most people’s assumption that the metaverse is restricted to virtual reality (VR), a fact that is not by any means true. In addition to VR, the metaverse is set to include interactive and realistic assets, the ability to …

The South Korean people and an increasing number of major companies in the country have begun to embrace and integrate the Metaverse into their everyday lives in new and unexpected ways. Two major retailers in the country have recently introduced Metaverse and AI elements to shoppers to enhance their shopping experience. GS Shop introduced home shopping via the Metaverse on Nov. 16 by showing the inner workings of a food production facility. It aimed to reassure customers of the quality of the facility and the food that was for sale. GS Shop turned scans of the physical facility into 3D …

Meta — the company formerly known as Facebook — is diving straight into virtual reality with a preview of its latest research and development on haptic gloves which give sensory feedback while in digital realms. Facebook rebranded to Meta in late October to shift its focus from social media to Metaverse and VR tech development. In a Nov. 16 blog post, Meta shared the latest breakthroughs in haptic glove research from its VR tech firm Reality Labs, noting that the product has been seven years in the making. The firm shared a video that shows two people testing the haptic …