As a reminder, metaworlds are virtual spaces that require a computer, smartphone or other device to interact with. A key feature of this realm is the use of blockchains and assets based on the latter. This allows users of virtual worlds to engage in certain activities and receive tokens with real value. Consequently, we are talking practically about an analogue of a full-fledged parallel reality.

Metaworlds have been one of the most promising trends in 2021. And while the bearish trend has spoiled things, there are positives here too. In particular, the market is waiting for the release of Apple’s augmented reality device for the meta-universe. And if rumours are to be believed, the launch of such a device could take place as early as a few weeks.

What happens to meta-universes

And while virtual spaces haven’t gone anywhere, it has become far less lucrative to interact with them in the face of declining demand. According to Cointelegraph, holders of such assets have lost an average of 90 percent on their own investments, which is pretty typical for areas that have been riding the wave of hype.

Analysts at the CoinGecko platform have published a report on the dynamics of virtual site values in various meta-universes. The results showed that assets in projects like Otherdeeds, Sandbox, Decentraland, Somnium and Voxels fell significantly between January 2022 and May 2023.

For example, virtual assets in Otherdeeds were previously valued at 5 ETH, but by this month they have fallen to 1.09 ETH – a 78.2 percent drop in value over the aforementioned period. Virtual sites in Sandbox and Decentraland also fell in value by 89.76 per cent and 87.88 per cent respectively.

Investing in Voxels is worth the least – it will cost investors around ETH 0.16. Over the year, virtual assets in the project have dropped in value by more than 90 per cent. A similar picture is also seen in Somnium.

Such large-scale asset collapses in meta-universes do not yet indicate the “death” of the virtual worlds concept. Large investors are still investing in it, and Facebook changed its name to Meta to announce to the world its commitment to the trend. However, things have not been going well for the company since then.

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Falling capitalisation wasn’t the only problem for Sandbox co-founder and CEO Arthur Madrid. The day before, his Twitter account was hacked by unknown attackers who used Madrid’s audience of followers to promote a fake SAND coin giveaway.

The scammers’ post had a URL link that looked like the official Sandbox website. It led to a fake page that could be used to steal victims’ identities, cryptocurrencies and passwords. By today, the fake site has been shut down, with it being unknown if anyone has fallen victim to the phishing attack.

The Sandbox CEO managed to regain access to his account fairly quickly. Madrid published a tweet stating that he or any other member of the Sandbox team would never promote such token giveaways. The entrepreneur also urged his followers not to click on suspicious links on Twitter, even if they are posted from the original account.

Such an attack vector is called phishing, a scheme based on the gullibility and inattention of victims. Phishing is a “headache” for Twitter, as the problem of fraudulent activity on this social network has been a hot topic for years. This is largely due to the huge number of bots that are constantly spamming phishing links.

The former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was going to tackle the bot problem together with Ilon Musk, and the latter repeatedly criticized the social network because of the fraud. As a result, Musk bought Twitter last year, but phishing remains a problem for Twitter. What’s more, the ability to buy a blue verification tick for anyone who wants it has made the scale of cheating through the social platform even more serious.


It seems that it is too early to talk about the "death" of meta-villages - at least because of rumours of possible interest in this area from Apple. On top of that, many cryptocurrencies have also fallen tens of per cent in value due to a strong bearish trend in 2022, but that doesn't mean the end for this industry. So we can assume that investors will continue to get involved in this area, but it will become tangible during the bull run. In the meantime, digital asset lovers should be cautious, because not all projects will survive the lack of a hype.


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