Metaverse tokens are up and they one of only two crypto categories to see price growth year over year, according to a recent study from Kraken Intelligence.
Metaverse tokens are vastly outperforming every other crypto category in the current bearish condition, up by nearly 400% year-on-year.
According to statistics from Kraken Intelligence and CoinGecko’s May 2022 market analysis, Decentraland (MANA) is up 41%, Sandbox (SAND) is up 470 percent, Axie Infinity (AXS) is up 511 percent, and STEPN (GMT) is up 746 percent. Tokens in the Metaverse can be used to pay fees, purchase land, and take part in governance.
The next highest category for year-on-year gains were exchange tokens that saw a 6% increase. All other categories saw negative price action in the same time period ranging from -13% for Bitcoin to -72% for DeFi.
So far in 2022, blockchain-based gaming employing nonfungible tokens (NFT) and Metaverse platforms has remained quite popular. According to statistics from decentralised app (Dapp) tracker DappRadar, despite falling pricing across the market, usership among those games has stayed stable at around 1 million users per day.
The Kraken report pointed out that although May saw flat daily usership, “NFT volume saw a large decrease with daily volume dropping -87.1%.”
Every category tracked by Kraken’s report, including Metaverse and exchange tokens, experienced negative returns over the past 30 days and 90 days. Metaverse tokens were among the worst losers over the past 30 days, dropping 42%, with by far the highest volatility at 173%.
Despite the short term price action, money is pouring in to fund the sector. DAppRadar’s Q1 games report noted that $2.5 billion was raised in support of blockchain games and Metaverse projects in the first quarter of 2022. Investors were eager to back games according to the report because 52% of all blockchain activity came from game DApps:
“At this pace, play-to-earn and Metaverse-related projects will add $10 billion this year to keep building the future of this industry.”
Source: Cointelegraph