Virtual Metaverse Plots Outpace Top NFT Collection Sales, Play-to-Earn Tokens Surged in Value This Year

During the last seven days, virtual lands sold in the metaverse have outpaced a great number of non-fungible token (NFT) sales. Moreover, metaverse native crypto tokens like axie infinity, sandbox and decentraland and play-to-earn digital assets in general have jumped significantly in value this year.

Metaverse Properties Outpace NFT Collections — Play-to-Earn Tokens Rise

Following the meme-crypto hype, the decentralized finance (defi) trend, and the non-fungible token (NFT) craze, the metaverse has become a big deal. Essentially, a metaverse is a different version of the internet that supports virtual environments, items, collectibles, weapons, and sometimes play-to-earn features. Virtual worlds like Second Life, Minecraft, and Roblox can be considered iterations of the metaverse but in recent times, blockchain technology has entered the realm.

For instance, out of the $2.3 trillion crypto economy, $25 billion of it belongs to play-to-earn (P2E) digital assets. Axie infinity (AXS) is the largest P2E token in terms of market capitalization with a valuation of around $6.5 billion.

While AXS has lost 25% during the last week, AXS is up 20,824% year-to-date (YTD). The second largest P2E token is sandbox (SAND) with a $4.6 billion market valuation. SAND lost 32% this past week but has gained 11,597% YTD.

The third-largest market valuation in terms of P2E assets is decentraland (MANA) with a market cap of around $4.4 billion. MANA has lost 32% this week as well but has gained 3,693% YTD in USD value. Other top P2E tokens in terms of market cap size include gala (GALA), wax (WAXP), illuvium (ILV), and mobox (MBOX).

Staking Land in the Metaverse Can be Expensive — The Sandbox Captures $70M in Weekly Sales

In addition to metaverse and P2E tokens gathering massive value during the last year, in recent times land in the metaverse has been a hot commodity. Metrics from nonfungible.com indicate that the NFT market history for the last seven days shows The Sandbox has been the top contender. Sales stemming from The Sandbox metaverse saw more than $70 million in sales during the last seven days.

That’s about $10 million more than the sales produced by the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection which saw $59 million. Moreover, The Sandbox sales are much larger than the Cryptopunks NFT collection sales which captured $17 million last week. The virtual reality platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain, Decentraland has seen the sixth largest number of weekly sales with $6.6 million last week.

The biggest sales on Decentraland were land plots and estates worth between $289K to $758K. While The Sandbox outpaced Decentraland sales, land plots sold for much lower values as land exchanged hands this past week for $44K to $68K per plot. However, virtual land adjacent to Snoop Dogg’s Sandbox estate recently sold for $450K in ethereum. The average USD price for The Sandbox metaverse products during the last week was $15K across more than 4,400 sales.