Metaverse Tokens Hold Firm as Meta Stock Tumbles

There has been a 3.7% decrease to crypto’s global market capitalization in the last 24 hours, which means price crashes all around have erased many of the gains made this week, but one group of tokens has weathered the red: Metaverse tokens. 

Most of the top metaverse tokens appear to be up by double digits. Decentraland’s in-game utility token MANA crashed 2.5% overnight, but it’s still 18.7% up from last Thursday. It sells for $2.64 at the time of writing. 

SAND, the in-game token for Animoca’s blockchain project The Sandbox, had a little over 8.5% of its market value wiped out overnight, but it’s 17.4% higher than it was last week and currently sells for $3.64.

Similarly, Flow, the underlying blockchain for NFT trading card series NBA Top Shots, is up 20% in the last seven days despite a 9.1% price crash. FLOW trades at $5.89 at the time of writing. 

Finally, the token powering newcomer NFT marketplace LooksRare, LOOKS is up 25.1% in the last seven days despite a 9.1% plunge in value overnight.

LooksRare is one of the runaway success stories of 2022 so far. The marketplace netted $110 million in trades on launch day, but concerns remain over the fact that many of the trades are from wash traders manipulating the platform’s rewards model. 

Metaverse up, Meta down

Shares in Meta, formerly Facebook, plummeted 21% in pre-market trading today after the company warned investors that its first-quarter earnings will likely fall short of forecasts because of “increasing competition.”

Mark Zuckerberg blames Tik Tok, but a large part of the shortfall could also be attributable to the fact that Meta spent $10 billion on developing its recent  Web3 Metaverse pivot, leaving it a less-than-usual margin for profit. 

The situation hasn’t been helped by allegations of verbal and sexual harassment taking place during a tech demo of Meta’s virtual social media world. 

There is also the fact that Meta’s proposed “borderless global currency” Diem is now dead in the water; the company announced it was selling off all of the project’s assets and Intellectual Property to Californian crypto-friendly bank Silvergate.

It looks like Meta has plenty of non-virtual housekeeping to do before it can restore investors’ confidence.