While most attention in the NFT space goes to art and collectibles, virtual worlds have been gaining traction in the past 30 days. The Sandbox, Decentraland, and Cryptovoxels have all seen their transaction volume increase significantly.
Top NFT collections like NBA Top Shot, Sorare and Axie Infinity have all experienced a decrease in trading volume over the past 30 days. For example, NBA Top Shot is down 61% over the past 30 days to $70,17 million. Sure, this still puts them at the top of the charts. However, among all NFT collections it’s the virtual worlds that stand out.
In the past 30 days The Sandbox had $10,68 million in trading volume, up 162% compared with the same time period before. These numbers are driven by the launch of the official The Sandbox Marketplace, but even more by several land sales and auctions that attracted many investors. The Sandbox is now the number 1 virtual world in terms of volume, traders and number of sales.
Decentraland and Cryptovoxels have seen considerable growth in the past 30 days as well, 12,47% and 10,36% increase respectively. However, in both cases the number of sales and traders dropped. That means that lands are now selling at higher prices in terms of dollar value, which is obviously influenced by the increased price of ETH.
The only virtual world that didn’t enjoy growth in terms of trading volume, would be Somnium Space. The developers have made considerable improvements to their feature-rich virtual world, and the limited availability of land parcels would suggest that investors simply hold on to their land.
Looking at Google Trends, Decentraland is clearly the most recognized brand among the virtual worlds, followed by The Sandbox. Somnium Space and Cryptovoxels stay far behind.
What about Alien Worlds?
It’s important to note that we didn’t talk about R-Planet and Alien Worlds. These two projects on the Wax blockchain have seen tremendous growth in the past month. We’re talking about $2 million (+623%) for R-Planet and a stunning $9.49 million (+1799%) for Alien Worlds. However, even though users can buy virtual land in these games, these lands don’t allow players to build freely. They are part of a game that’s all about economics.
A virtual world in the metaverse allows users to acquire land and build whatever they want using the tools available. As a result Cryptovoxels and Decentraland are filled with virtual homes, art galleries, interactive installations, and venues for virtual gatherings. Some creations are wonderful, and others simply hideous. However, all of them are created by people. That’s what sets The Sandbox, Cryptovoxels, Decentraland and Somnium Space apart from other projects that sell virtual real-estate.
Read more about virtual worlds
- Take a look at the Top NFT Collections on DappRadar
- Decentraland Estate purchases have been on the rise in recent weeks
- Discover the Best NFT Marketplaces
- In April The Sandbox became the number 1 NFT collection
- Blockchain gaming grew 651% in terms of value (Gaming Report, April 2021)
