Here are the best projects for your consideration
The metaverse is up and running and there is so much to be learned and made during this time. The opportunity is there and the possibilities are vast. We at MetaFi have made it our mission to discuss which projects we believe should garner your attention and could possibly lead to a fully fleshed-out metaverse. Each of these projects or platforms has already shown a lot of growth and potential and we only see more growth for them in the future.
First, let us explain more about the metaverse as there is still some confusion as to what it is. McKinsey and Co. wrote a wonderful report on what they believed to be the future for the metaverse and it was very optimistic. The metaverse does not have an exact definition but the market disruption possibilities are definitely there. The metaverse will eventually do to the internet what companies like Facebook, Instagram, Shopify, Airbnb, TikTok, and others did to their respective counterparts- innovate and take over. There are of course many things to worry about such as regulation, security, and overall online decency, and those all need to be handled carefully and well before the metaverse can actually be what it is meant to be in an online world where people can safely escape the mundane one.
Currently, the biggest iteration of the metaverse still lies in the gaming sector with many of the most popular “metaverse” projects leaning heavily on the gaming and play-to-earn model. There are a few online marketplaces and pop-up stores but none that are really ready for the mass market. There is a lot of work that needs to be done before the metaverse can have marketplaces everywhere or online malls, though there are some projects that are building on this very idea, the technology is not complete.
There are four core building blocks Content and Experiences, Platforms, Infrastructure and Hardware, and Enablers. Content and Experiences basically speak on what is being offered to the user to consume, Platforms are basically which protocol, blockchain, or game engine is being used for the project, Infrastructure and Hardware are the devices used to get the users onto the metaverse, and Enablers are the tools used to handle payment and security. These are all very important tenements to building a full metaverse.
Investors are interested in the multiple factors that make up the growth of the metaverse. The new technologies and ideas coming from creators and developers open up completely new avenues for profitability and a good investment. Projects now span multiple areas such as socializing, fitness, commerce, virtual learning, and more. In 2021 Venture Capital and private funding reached a total of $13 billion with a 983% growth of that amount in 2022 to more than $120 Billion with many speculating that by 2030 the metaverse could very well be worth around $5 Trillion. The numbers don’t lie as more than half of companies that are aware of the metaverse state that they are ready to adopt and 59% of all consumers say they are excited about the transition.
Indeed consumers and businesses are excited with consumers being more excited about opportunities to be social, more ways to be entertained, Gaming opportunities, new ways to travel, and new ways to go shopping. Companies are excited about the new ways to market and campaign for their brands, new development and learning opportunities for employees, Meetings being held in the metaverse, the ability to have events or conferences, and opportunity for product design or digital twinning.
With all of this, the metaverse cannot simply be defined in broad strokes. The metaverse is not AR or VR worlds, it is not web3 , it is not meant for a small group of people, it is not just gaming, and it is not just an upgrade of web2.0. The metaverse is in itself a new living, breathing idea that has the potential to exponentially grow and keep growing for a long time to come. There truly is so much more to speak on about the metaverse but the best way to learn is to read the report by McKinsey and Co. From now we will speak on projects and platforms that we believe are driving the future of the metaverse and tools you can use on your journey.
First, we need to speak on the creators of web3 initiatives and projects that we believe are doing extremely well so far.
NFT Projects
World of Women or Wow has been doing amazing work within the web3 sphere. Brought to us by artist Yam Karkai, this 10,000-piece collection sold out with a floor price of .07 ETH and a current floor of 4.75 ETH with a total trade volume of 68.6K ETH. The team has a vision of building a community celebrating representation, inclusivity, and equal opportunities. The project has been endorsed by celebs such as Resse Witherspoon and Gary Vaynerchuk.
The original version 1 of VeeFriends was pretty laughable art but the new version is much cuter with art that entices you. The NFT is ranked as one of the best projects out of 10.3K pieces of art with a 7.98 Floor and 52.4K of volume traded.
Holders of this NFT are given access to VeeCon for 3 years which is filled with networking opportunities, business shows, entrepreneurship workshops and face-to-face meets with Gary Vee. The community of VeeFriends is incredibly strong with over 600K members.
Doodles have a sitting floor price of 14.79 ETH and a very successful trading volume of 129.3K ETH. The collection is 10K and holders obtain exclusive access to upcoming products, merchandise, and IRL events.
Recently at NFT.NYC the team announced plans for Doodles version 2 which included new clothing and new options for customization using the Doodle “Dooplicator” which was a free drop to the holders of Doodles. The new version of Doodles is a collection in the millions and users will be able to use “gasless” transactions to change the outlook of their NFT avatar and create their very own Doodle to match their own look. There is also a Doodles members-only marketplace to buy real-world merch.
Since its inception in late 2021, the team at Portals has done nothing less than continue on their grind. Every two months there is something new and amazing coming from the team on the project. A project that originally started as a small space to share your NFTs with friends has now become a full-fledge metaverse with multiple home types and even a fully fleshed-out city with a sprawling downtown sector.
Currently, with a floor of 30 SOL for a low-tier land and a total trading volume of 272K SOL, There are three tiers of spaces for the project with the highest tier named Onyx having a floor of 1399 SOL. The platform continues to grow and build as the team finds more ways to use the metaverse that they have built on the Solana blockchain. The recent downturn in the value of SOL has not stopped the team from constantly growing and creating more opportunities for those in the space.
Enviro is another metaverse-inspired project. After the success of Portals and other online web3 galleries, the team at Enviro decided to create a project that used the highest in visual fidelity. The team decided to create a metaverse with Unreal Engine 5. Since the inception of the project, the platform has gone on to continue to build upon what it started. Holders have been constantly upgraded to new tiers and have been given new ways to earn with their projects.
Future plans include the ability to rent out your space or use your space to create your own little metaverse getaway. The discord of the project offers holders opportunities to discuss events, exhibitions, product support, and a lot of other surprises such as cloud infrastructure, software companies, enterprise services, and more. Holders have been promised a new upgradeable area called AIrIA that is meant to give you more space to invite friends and hold events, enviro will be used to build that space up.
Marketplaces
Opensea remains the king of NFT marketplaces for now with a total market value of $13.3 Billion dollars. The platform continues to see multiple projects brought out on its page and the integration of Solana NFTs has opened even more users to its shores. The marketplace allows for the easy creation of NFTs on multiple blockchains. Even with reports of insider trading, the company has not lost a step and the total value has continued to climb with speculation of profits reaching $837 million this year.
Magic Eden has cornered the Solana marketplace. Now the go-to destination for Solana-based NFT projects the company has recently made another Series B funding success totaling the value of the company at 1.6 Billion. There is no stopping the team as they continue to build a community that is built on trust and new methods to defend the clients from shady manipulators or scam artists. The project has also recently teamed up with Solana-based wallet Phantom to create a new way to sell NFTs directly from your cellphone.
CR is a bit of a wildcard choice in this selection. The company focuses only on adult-themed NFT content with most of its creators being OnlyFans veterans. The platform is the only one of its kind to make a direct focus on this kind of material which has already seen massive growth and profit in web2 with companies such as PH and Xvid dominating the web2 adult sphere.
Currently, the platform does not make a lot of profit and there is only a $3.2 million market cap for the platform, this may be due to many people in web3 being averse to adult content, or it may be that many do not know of it yet, either way, this platform has the potential to see the same numbers as some of its web2 equivalents if given the opportunity. Adult themes in web3 are not very welcome at the moment but that does not mean things may not change.
Honorable mention
Also, Solana-based, Exchange.art is a niche platform that focuses mostly on the artist. The platform hopes to become one of the biggest markets for 1 of 1 art in the sphere and has a community that believes in the artist first. The platform is still growing but the possibility for 1/1 art to have a definitive home is high.
The leader of the platform is very vocal and supportive of artists and their work and doesn’t believe in using NFTs as just a grab for cash. The passion and belief in this project can be felt with every tweet he posts and those that follow him are seriously into the art that is being sold.
Play 2 Earn
Soul Dogs and Blockstars both focus on simple innovations that drive you to stay addicted.
Soul Dogs has created its own small metaverse with housing and jobs for those that are holders of their NFT. As a Soul Dog holder, you can gain $BONES which are exchangeable on Exchanges such as Raydium for other cryptos like SOL. Those that own the Dogs can send the pups to work via a staking system and those who own housing for their pups can also rent out the houses to earn more $BONES as well.
Blockstars continue to drive innovation with their simplistic way of earning with the NFT. Holders are able to take the NFT that they bought and train the artist in their respective profession. You have singers, guitarists, drummers, piano players, and more. The NFTs are staked in what is called “practice” and users earn $ROLL tokens as they train, the players are then able to build up their avatar to go out and earn more while busking. Another use is to use your NFT to create little videos in AR and share them with your friends.
The simplistic gameplay is infectious and allows users to earn while basically doing nothing at all. The best part is the team is not finished at all with more plans and ideas for the future. This is one project definitely worth looking into.
MetaOps is a brand new play to earn FPS that involves fast pace shooting action with amazing graphics. As players fight each other online they can win tokens, NFTs, and other online or real-world items. The NFTs come in the form of weapons, clothing, and skills that can then be traded or sold in the marketplace of the game. There are also plans for a metaverse and your own personal space. The team is constantly adding new members to their ecosystem and new NFTs as well.
Honorable Mentions
The sandbox has many special events that offer the players to earn their $SAND tokens. Each and every beta test offers players the ability to join in together and play in many of their online adventures to find new items, NFT, and $SAND.
The king of P2E still sits upon its throne. Through all of the turbulence of the project, from theft of million, wallet hacks, and poor returns on losses, to new iterations of gameplay the team at Mavis Sky has not disappointed those loyal to the platform. There are still millions of players playing this game and enjoying the play to earn opportunities. There is indeed a drop in membership and many are wondering if the team can weather the storm of all of the terrible things that have happened but for now this game still remains the play to earn champ or at least the prototype.
Our Top Web3 Platforms of 2022 part 2
We continue our choices of top projects building the web of tomorrow
Welcome back we are continuing our journey into what we believe to be some of the best projects growing the metaverse space. In the last article, we touched upon the creator economy, and this time we are going to go a bit back into the backend of things, this means blockchains and financial institutions that help make web3 what it is meant to be in the future.
Let us begin things with a dive into the blockchains that are making big moves into the web3 space.
Blockchains
Unless you live under a web3 rock then you should know this logo and the blockchain behind it. Ethereum has been a major player in the NFT creator economy and play-to-earn earn for some time now. Before other chains started to dabble into the space of web3 most projects were built upon the Ethereum chain. Axie infinity was built on Ethereum with their own wallet called Ronin being on the ERC-721 Chain and the tokens AXS and SLP being on ERC-20.
Play-to-earn gaming saw its start on Ethereum and currently, the only real challenger to the Ethereum throne is Solana which has a much smaller share of the pie even at second place. Currently, Ethereum NFTs sales are at $13.7 Billion while Solana NFT sales have reached over $2 billion. With a commanding lead in NFT sales and the play-to-earn space, Ethereum is poised to control the growth of web3 for some time to come.
Solana has been a firestarter blockchain since its introduction more than a year and a half ago. Starting at a very low entry price and then skyrocketing to an all-time high of $260, the blockchain has shown that it can produce some great projects and interest. Even with the 80% drop in the value of the native token SOL, there seems to be no stopping the production of high-quality projects and communities. The introduction of new features in the recent upgrades has made the fast blockchain even faster.
A lot of NFT projects have seen success on the Solana chain with some of the earlier mentioned metaverse worlds such as Portals, Solice, and Enviro making their home on the Solana blockchain. Currently, with NFTS earning over $2 Billion and the native NFT market Magic Eden being valued at $1.6 Billion, there is no doubt that the chain can make money and provide developers, users, and clientele with options for growth and profit. This is definitely a chain worth watching.
Honorable mentions
For those that don’t want to spend the massive amount in gas but still be on the ERC chain, there is Polygon. A lot of NFT projects have been built on polygon and have successfully sold out such as 1. The Martians: Metaverse 2. ZED Run 3. Chumbi Valley and 4. Gensokishi Online. There are many more play-to-earn games being built on Polygon due to its speed and low gas fees much like Solana. The blockchain has a total value of over $600 million and continues to grow in size, following, and project development. With so much going on for the blockchain, there is no wonder it has made our list as we believe many metaverses will be created with this blockchain behind them.
Honorable Mention
Wax has been said to the be King of NFT by some for some time now by developers. Wax was discovered in 2017 and is perhaps the most eco-friendly blockchain out. The blockchain is suitable for all things web3 including NFTs, games, and collectibles. The team at WAX has just celebrated 6 million users and the platform continues to find innovations towards web3 and the metaverse. Entry into the ecosystem is also still very affordable as opposed to the high price of entry for Ethereum.
Wallets
The phantom wallet has had amazing growth and success as of late. With a $1.2 Billion dollar valuation, the company has taken over as the defacto Solana wallet. Currently, the team has brought NFTs and crypto to the masses via their cellphones with their recent Android and iOS platforms. The current partnership with the NFT platform Magic Eden will allow for NFTs to be bought and sold directly from the phone as well.
The team has continued to develop new ways for those on the Solana platform to build and with the continuing growth of the metaverse you can rest assured that Phantom will be there every step of the way.
Metamask is still the leader when it comes to Ethereum wallets. The wallet makes it easier to swap through tokens and add your NFT. With Metamask you are also able to add other blockchains onto your wallet with the simple input of the address information. Most trades on Opensea and play-to-earn games are made with Metamask as the middle man.
Metamask also makes it very simple to create multiple addresses for holding your NFTs. For example, you can have your NFT at an address that’s separate from your cryptocurrency, or you can set up a single address for each NFT you purchase. Just like Phantom the platform has versions made for all platforms whether you are Microsoft,macOS, Android, or iOS. With a valuation of $7 Billion, you know that the team is focused on the future and what lies ahead which makes it the perfect wallet for web3 transactions based on the Ethereum chain and chains that run on ERC.
Metaverse
Ah, the moment we have been waiting for, which projects are the best metaverse projects right now? Well, let’s see!
The Sandbox constantly gets bigger and better with each new iteration of the platform. The online metaverse experience constantly has beta sessions where players are offered a chance to not only view the space and play the games but to also be social, earn tokens, earn NFTs, and gain $SAND. The constant rise of the native token shows the promise of a project that definitely needs to be taken seriously.
With each new iteration of the Sandbox, there is new gameplay, new themes, and new opportunities for players to grow. Bought out by Aminoca Brands in 2018 the platform is looking at a $5.4 Billion valuation and shows no signs of stopping. There is constant growth and change in the platform and the community is vast and very strong
Decentraland is right up there with The Sandbox Boasting higher fidelity graphics ( although still cartoony) Decentraland offers more land and more opportunities for owners of the virtual land to build and play. There are games to play in Decetraland as well as themed lands for businesses, entertainment, and education. Many companies and independent artists have claimed land on Decentraland to build and there are even individual shop owners selling their products in the virtual space. The community is building steadily and is very strong and the current valuation has been put at $800 Million to $1.4 Billion.
Honorable Mention
Formerly known as Facebook, Zuckerberg’s company has undergone a name change and a supposed ideation rebirth. Zuckerberg plans to capitalize on the amount of money that can be made as he stated he sees 1 Billion people on the metaverse each spending hundreds of dollars. For a shrewd business mind like his, this spells opportunity.
Zuckerberg and his company have been using most of 2022 to build upon the metaverse and come up with ways to traverse the metaverse as well as play and build on the metaverse for the common user. Time will tell if his gambit pays off but remember this is the man whose company changed the way we as a society connected with each other, there is no doubt that his project may very well be the next step in that.
Well, that’s that we have gone over the items we felt needed the most explanation. Below is our infographic that you can use to pass around and share with those that want to learn more about the web3 space. Please feel free to share this article as well. We hope we were able to help you in your research and will continue to make more of these when things change, as they always do in web3. Until then remember that the metaverse is whatever you can think of — so keep building!
