7 of the Best Metaverse Coins to Buy for 2023

The metaverse is the next big technology platform. But don’t just take our word for it: this is a direct quote from Bloomberg, which predicts that the metaverse will be an $800 billion market by 2024. With 2023 set to be a big year for the metaverse, now is the ideal time to start snapping up metaverse coins while the market offers discount prices. But where do you start?

Today, we’ll break down seven of the best metaverse coins to buy for 2023 and which one we think could offer the best returns for years to come. Let’s dive in.

Are you looking for fast-news, hot-tips and market analysis?

Sign-up for the Invezz newsletter, today.

1. Metacade (MCADE) – The Best Metaverse Coin

Metacade (MCADE) is a community hub that’s aiming to be Web3’s ultimate destination for metaverse and play-to-earn gaming. Metacade will be the place where users go to discover the latest metaverse games, connect with like-minded gamers, and learn the best techniques for maximising their play-to-earn income. 

At its core, Metacade is an all-in-one platform that links all play-to-earn games together. On the platform, you’ll find reviews, leaderboards, and alpha from industry experts to help you quickly find the best Play2Earn titles. To incentivise those with the knowledge to help out less experienced players, Metacade rewards users with the MCADE token each time they contribute reviews, tips, and other useful content. Even if you’re just getting started, you can still earn MCADE for simply sharing your thoughts about a game you’ve been playing. 

In fact, Metacade offers multiple ways to earn besides boosting your in-game income and sharing content. On the platform, you’ll find prize draws and exclusive tournaments to enter for your chance to more MCADE.

There are also one-off testing opportunities where users can earn just by giving their feedback on games currently in development while using Metacade’s native testing environment. In 2024, Metacade will be launching its own job board, which will host jobs ranging from part-time game tester roles to senior developer positions with some of the most innovative companies in the metaverse.

The feature with the most potential, however, is Metagrants. Metagrants are a funding tool that allows the community to decide which metaverse and Play2Earn games they want to see developed. To win a Metagrant, developers must first go head-to-head with dozens of other developers by adding their project idea to a pool of others. MCADE holders vote on which one they’re most excited about playing and the winner is allocated funding to get their vision off the ground. 

From here, the game’s most loyal fans will play a critical role in giving feedback during development and beta testing. Metacade’s goal is to produce some of the best metaverse and Play2Earn titles on the market, all hosted in their virtual arcade for anyone to play.

Once the platform becomes host to a bubbling, self-sufficient community, the Metacade team will step back and turn the community into a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO). At this point, MCADE holders will vote on key decisions to determine the platform’s future while becoming the world’s first community-owned virtual arcade in the process. With all of these fantastic ideas in mind, Metacade is easily the number one best metaverse coin to buy in 2023.

>>> You can participate in the Metacade pre-sale here <<<

2. The Sandbox (SAND)

The Sandbox (SAND) is a 3D virtual world developed on the Ethereum blockchain that anyone can build on and explore. Its foundation is its 166,464 plots of digital real estate, represented by the LAND token, which can be traded on The Sandbox’s Marketplace for as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of SAND tokens! 

While The Sandbox is often compared to Roblox for its user-generated experiences and blocky design, there’s one key difference: every item, wearable, and plot of land is the owner’s property and stored on the blockchain for provable ownership. ASSETs, for example, are used to store every object in the game, like trees, cars, sculptures, and even AI characters. Each of these assets is developed in VoxEdit, The Sandbox’s object editor can be used to create virtually anything you can imagine. They can also be bought and sold on The Sandbox’s Marketplace.

These ASSETs are used in the Game Maker, which is a plug-and-play solution to developing your very own games and experiences. There are around 100 games and experiences already created by The Sandbox’s players, with big names like Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, and The Walking Dead offering their own metaverse experiences for anyone to play. It’s an excellent second choice on the list of the best metaverse coins to buy in 2023. 

3. ApeCoin (APE)

ApeCoin (APE) is the governance and utility token of the Ape ecosystem, giving its holders exclusive access to games, merch, and voting rights to direct the future of the Ape DAO. It was created by Yuga Labs, the company behind the incredibly successful Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), and Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) NFT projects. Being an APE holder also allows you to enter Otherside, the Ape ecosystem’s metaverse.

Otherside, from what we know, is a sci-fi-based metaverse complete with an immersive storyline and plots of land known as Otherdeeds. 55,000 of the 200,000 Otherdeeds that exist have already been auctioned off to APE holders, selling for a mint price of $5,800. The auction was so popular that, within 24 hours, over $500 million worth of Otherdeeds had been sold, pushing gas prices up on the entire Ethereum network, according to Decrypt.

Otherside is being developed in collaboration with Animoca Brands, the company that’s responsible for producing The Sandbox and other metaverse titles. With Yuga Labs’ vision to herald “the new frontier of digital interaction,” it’s likely that APE could be one of the best metaverse coins to buy in 2023. For that reason, it comes third on the list.

4. Enjin (ENJ)

Enjin (ENJ) isn’t its own metaverse but will be a fundamental building block for developers looking for an effortless solution to in-game asset ownership and management. Enjin is designed to quickly integrate with various games to enable users to easily store, trade, and transfer their in-game NFT items. 

The way Enjin works is simple. An item is minted as an NFT by the game’s developers, who assign value to the item by locking ENJ up in a smart contract. The NFT can be traded between players for use in-game and destroyed to redeem the locked ENJ tokens if desired. While many projects implement their own item management systems, Enjin is one of the best for its ease of use and interoperability.

The Enjin Smart Wallet is a wallet that allows users to see, trade, and sell all of their in-game items outside of the gaming environment, vastly simplifying asset management. Enjin’s Software Development Kits (SDKs) make integrating Enjin with any game a breeze. Given Enjin’s usefulness in future metaverse development, it’s the fourth best metaverse coin to buy in 2023.

5. Axie Infinity (SLP and AXS)

Axie Infinity (AXS) is a Play2Earn game that saw massive popularity during 2021’s bull market. The game is set in Lunacia, a world filled with cute monsters called Axies. The goal is to build a team of Axies to use in battle against other players for the chance to win Smooth Love Potion (SLP) and Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) tokens. Axies are NFTs that can be traded on the Axie Infinity Marketplace, with prices ranging from a few dollars for a basic Axie to hundreds of thousands for the rarest. 

By completing quests, farming resources, and hunting for treasure, players can earn even more SLP and AXS tokens. This enabled some players in lower-income countries to start playing Axie Infinity full-time, as it meant they could earn more money than their regular job while working at home around their family. 

Even after some of the hype has died down, Axie Infinity still has hundreds of thousands of monthly players, according to DappRadar, proving its longevity as one of the most successful Play2Earn games. It’s the fifth choice for the best metaverse coins to buy in 2023.

6. Star Atlas (ATLAS and POLIS)

Star Atlas (ATLAS) is a metaverse game set in the vast reaches of space. Taking place in the year 2620, users navigate the universe around them in their spaceship, forming alliances, mining resources, and plotting intergalactic domination in the process. It’s built on the Solana blockchain, giving it the benefit of lightning speeds and limitless scalability, and uses Unreal Engine 5 to create stunning gameplay – one of the only metaverse projects on the market to do so.

Players transact in-game with the ATLAS token to buy spaceships, tools, and land, which are all stored on the Solana blockchain as NFTs. The primary goal is to dominate space by growing your empire, teaming up with others, and mining resources to fund your exploration and battles with rival factions. ATLAS can be used to buy POLIS, the game’s governance token that is used in each faction or region’s DAO to determine what its players should focus on next, like attacking a neighbouring region or fortifying your own’s defences. 

While not yet fully launched, Star Atlas is one of the most promising metaverse projects on the market. This places it at sixth on our list of the best metaverse coins to buy in 2023.

7. Highstreet (HIGH)

Highstreet (HIGH) is a crypto project that’s using metaverse technology to revolutionise the way we shop. The main feature of Highstreet is the ability for brands to create virtual stores that showcase their items in a 3D world. Ecommerce has transformed the retail market over the past decade, and now Highstreet is set to play a pivotal role in the next stage of commerce: metaverse shopping. 

In Highstreet’s stores, you can buy real-world items (stored as NFTs) with the HIGH token to use in-game and redeem in the physical world. Clothing items, for example, provide a dual purpose: they give your Highstreet avatar a boost while being able to be worn in the real world! 

Highstreet isn’t just limited to shopping. In the Highstreet metaverse, you can battle monsters, complete quests, and hang out with friends in your Highstreet Home. Soon, you’ll be able to explore many contrasting environments in the Highstreet World, such as the snowy AVAX Alps, the seaside Binance Beach, and the futuristic Land of Tomorrow, all with their own unique monsters and quests for endless entertainment. 

With brands like Balenciaga, Adidas, and Nike experimenting with metaverse commerce, it’s likely that Highstreet will be seen as a pioneer of this retail revolution. For that reason, it’s our seventh and final choice as one of the best metaverse coins to buy in 2023.

Metacade (MCADE) Is Our Number One Choice

There are many brilliant metaverse projects on this list. Games like The Sandbox and Axie Infinity have already proven themselves to be immensely popular with Web3 netizens, and others, like Star Atlas and Highstreet, likely have a bright future ahead of them. But there’s no better metaverse coin than Metacade.

While the others rely on their metaverses being able to attract a significant user base, Metacade relies on the metaverse and Play2Earn gaming taking off. And according to Global Market Estimates, metaverse gaming is set to grow from a $36.81 billion industry in 2022 to a $710.21 billion industry in 2027. Meanwhile, Crypto.com expects Play2Earn gaming to grow at 10x the rate of regular gaming by 2025. With these stats in mind, the chances of Metacade’s long-term success increase tenfold. 

If you want to get in early on the growth of metaverse and Play2Earn gaming, then there’s no time like the present. The Metacade presale is now on, and the earlier you buy, the more MCADE tokens you receive. When you buy in phase 1, you’ll get 125 MCADE tokens for $1. In phase 8, you’ll get just 50 MCADE tokens for $1. This is an opportunity to more than double your long-term returns by simply being one of the early investors in Metacade!

You can participate in the Metacade pre-sale here.