Facebook’s owner, Meta Platforms, saw its stock market value slump by more than $230 billion on Thursday, February 3, in a record daily loss for the USA-based social media giant. Conversely, the top five metaverse cryptocurrency tokens ranked on the market cap have seen noticeable price surges in the last seven days. The upward trend appears as the price of BTC closed at $40,500 on Friday, February 4, indicating a more positive movement on the horizon.
The price drop came for META upon announcing that the number of daily active users to the Facebook platform fell to 1.92 billion in the three months to the end of December 2021, compared to 1.93 billion in the previous quarter. Despite such a slight decrease, It was the first time in the company’s 18 year lifespan that this measure of activity had gone into reverse. Investors and stakeholders reacted by sending the price of META from $323 on February 2 to $237 on February 3, effectively wiping around $230 billion in value of the social media behemoth.
At the same time, top metaverse platform tokens have been surging as BTC took an upward trajectory last week, closing above $40,500 on Friday, signaling positivity in the market. DeFi Kingdoms and Axie Infinity saw their tokens surge over 20%, while Decentraland showed the most impressive run shooting up over 30% in the last seven days. The Sandbox and Enjin also put up respectable numbers, growing 18% and 14%, respectively.
Users matter
The figure that caused the damage to META was a metric widely used in apps. The daily active users (DAU) metric is used to assess the growth or decline of a platform’s audience. Dapps use something called Unique Active Wallets (UAW). Instead of devices interacting with apps, its users sign into dapps with a blockchain wallet. To gauge the converse price action observed, we can investigate how user growth on several top metaverse platforms listed above has been going.
The number of active wallets connected to Decentraland has increased more than 10% in the last seven days, to 372. While over in DeFi Kingdoms users have increased more than 8% during the previous 24 hours, pushing trading volume more than 75% to over $29 million.
The number of active wallets connected to Decentraland has increased more than 10% in the last seven days, to 372. While over in DeFi Kingdoms users have increased more than 8% during the previous 24 hours, pushing trading volume more than 75% to over $29 million.
While these UAW figures are practically insignificant compared to Facebook’s billions of users, it shows that user growth is heavily tied to valuation in traditional share markets and cryptocurrency markets. Additionally, it further shows the tangible use of DappRadar to discover market opportunities.
Metaverse tokens get help
Arguably, while decentralized metaverse platforms see a rise in popularity and participation, the once global social media leader looks to seriously decline. Meta was intended to save the company, but now it seems like it may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back as waves of commentators pile into condemn and blast Mark Zuckerberg’s centralized metaverse vision. With some key voices stating the platform doesn’t hold relevance right now at all.
Moreover, as observed in November 2021, shortly after Facebook announced the initial Meta, blockchain-based metaverse platforms are once more benefiting from Meta’s massive marketing spend and a general increase in global awareness. While these blockchain-based platforms step into the light and are discovered for the first time, Meta is warning stakeholders about slowing revenue growth in the face of rising competition.
More bad news came for Meta last year when Apple launched its App Tracking Transparency policy, letting people choose whether or not they want to be tracked all over the internet by companies like Meta. That is a massive problem for Facebook because finding information about its users and selling it to advertisers is how it makes money. Its quarterly results showed advertising income falling, mainly for this reason.
Couple this negative outlook with new feelings about how data is managed and stored by centralized organizations like Meta in a post Brexit, Trump world. It’s not very hard to see why people have doubts about Meta’s true vision and are perhaps more in favor of giving the new boys a chance to impress them.
The above does not constitute investment advice. The information given here is purely for informational purposes only. Please exercise due diligence and do your research. The writer holds ETH, BTC, AGIX, HEX, LINK, GRT, CRO, OMI, IMMUTABLE X, GALA, AVASTR, GMEE, CUBE, RADAR, FLOW, FTM, BNB, SPS, WRLD, ATOM, and ADA.
