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Metaverse land has been one of the top-grossing sectors in the NFT space in the past couple of months. However, in March the upward trend was reversed. Analytics company Meta Metrics reported an 18% drop in the average price of land NFTs across the space.
Summary:
- Land NFTs lost 18% in value in March
- February saw an all-time high for average valuation
- The Sandbox and Decentraland lead the downwards trend
- NFT Worlds and WorldWideWebb on the rise
- Metaverse land perseveres
As the global crypto market saw a growing bearish trend following the turmoil caused by the war in Ukraine, virtual worlds also experienced a negative effect. Meta Metrics reports that the average price for a land NFT across the metaverse dropped to around $8,600.
Aside from growing pressure outside the industry, the drop was somewhat expected following an all-time high in the average valuation of over $10,400 in February. Importantly, it’s not all bad news, as the year-to-date comparison reveals a 400% increase in average pricing for virtual world land.
The Sandbox and Decentraland are the most affected
Looking at individual virtual worlds, we see that the negative trend is predominantly due to a significant drop in the valuation of The Sandbox land NFTs. According to DappRadar data, over the past 30 days, land in The Sandbox saw a 35% drop in its average price. Importantly, the floor price for these NFTs also decreased by more than 41%. Still, interest in the platform seems to be on the rise, as the number of sales recorded in March jumped by 2.5%.
Decentraland is another contributor to the significant value decrease in the average pricing of metaverse land. In the past thirty days, the platform saw the average price of NFTs sold through its marketplace decrease by more than 5%. Unfortunately, the negative trend spreads beyond just pricing, as the platform recorded 44% fewer sales, and 37% fewer traders compared to the month before.
Metaverse land in NFT Worlds and WorldWideWebb gains value
The overall negative trend in the space did not affect all platforms. NFT Worlds and WorldWideWebb both saw significant increases in the floor price and average price for land NFTs.
In the past thirty days, NFT Worlds recorded a 112% spike in the average sale price for land NFTs. Additionally, the game’s NFT floor price increased more than twofold to just over $33,300. Activity for NFT Worlds in March was also high, with 9.4% more sales in the past thirty days. One of the main driving factors behind this spike was the announcement that NFT Worlds will introduce numerous staking mechanisms for its native token WRLD. Importantly, players can stake their land NFTs to earn WRLD tokens.
WorldWideWebb is another top performer in the space this March. According to DappRadar data, the platform attracted over $18.7 million in NFT trading volume in the past thirty days. What’s more, WebbLand NFTs saw an average price spike of more than 60%, while the floor price for the collection increased by almost a quarter compared to February.
Not everything is dark and gloomy
The metaverse is here to stay, despite the overall negative trend in March. Projects are still launching virtual worlds with land NFTs, Otherside by Yuga Labs being the most prominent project announced in March, even though details are lacking.
Virtual land and the metaverse are still in the very early stages of development. Interest in this sector of the blockchain space has been growing constantly since Facebook’s rebranding to Meta. There has been a clear trend of mainstream adoption (Adidas, Snoop Dogg, and Warner Music to name just a few), which only means that virtual land will become a foundational element of the web3 expansion of big brands.
The negative trend observed in March can be interpreted as a cooling-off period leading to stability in pricing. While there was undeniably hype surrounding the metaverse towards the end of 2021 and the first couple of months of 2022, virtual worlds are now finding their solid user base, which has an effect on pricing. Still, not everything is lost.
DappRadar will continue monitoring the metaverse, as more projects introduce virtual worlds to bring utility to their users. If you want to read up on more metaverse coverage, check out the DappRadar blog. Additionally, you can follow DappRadar on Twitter to get the latest news first.
