Bitcoin’s (BTC) recent foray back below $56,000 sparked a wide-ranging sell-off across the cryptocurrency ecosystem and talks of the price hitting $100,000 by the end of the year quickly morphed into concerns about an impending bear market that could thrust prices into the doldrums for a year or longer.
While there appeared to be absolute carnage in the markets judging by peoples’ reaction to the BTC pullback, not all tokens were negatively impacted and gaming tokens focused on the emerging Metaverse have managed to stay in the green.
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that while the price of Bitcoin dropped below $57,000, the price of Metaverse tokens climbed higher, including a 160% gain for Gala (GALA), a 78% rally for WAX (WAXP), a 62% breakout for The Sandbox (SAND) and 45% for Decentraland (MANA).
The past couple of months has seen a growing focus on “the dawn of the Metaverse” as all manner of gaming protocols, nonfungible token (NFT) collections and projects focused on designing the landscape to the growing virtual world have seen a spike in interest after Facebook announced that it was rebranding its parent company to “Meta.”
NFTs pave the road to mass adoption
The skyrocketing popularity of Metaverse-focused projects is, in large part, thanks to its adoption by popular culture and well-known celebrities who have discovered the potential that exists within decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFT technology.
From Post Malone purchasing Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs that were featured in the music video “One Right Now,” to globally recognized brands like Gucci and Coca-Cola launching their own lines of branded NFT merchandise to engage with customers, the road to mass adoption is paving a route through the Metaverse.
As a result, projects that deal with the growing field of virtual real estate such as The Sandbox and Decentraland have seen significant growth in both token price and the number of users interacting with their protocols over the past month.
VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for SAND on Nov. 17, prior to the recent price rise.
The VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historical and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.
As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for SAND climbed into the green zone on Nov. 17 and reached a high of 79 around three hours before the price increased 48.5% over the next two days.
Related: $400M funding round to help Gemini build in the decentralized metaverse
Digital collectibles are on the rise
The rise of the metaverse and digital collectibles has come at an interesting intersection in the development of our global society, especially considering that issues related to environmental sustainability and global supply chains have increasingly come into focus.
Crafting things in the digital world actually solves many of the problems currently facing humanity because there is no need for physical inputs to craft the final products, nor is there the need for a vast system of shipping when the items are digital and can be transferred via the internet.
Rather than vast production lines creating the latest collector’s cards or action figures from popular sports, games or movies, protocols like WAX (Worldwide Asset eXchange) offer digital versions of the same items that can easily be stored in personal digital wallets or transferred around for little to no cost.
VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro began to detect a bullish outlook for WAX on Nov. 2, prior to the recent price rise.
As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for WAX climbed into the green zone on Nov. 2 and reached a high of 74 around 24 hours before the price began to increase by 154% over the next two weeks.
While the short term outlook for Bitcoin and the wider cryptocurrency market remains uncertain and half the crowd is worried about the start of a crypto winter. The more experienced traders view the dip as just another opportunity to buy the dip and the trajectory of the Metaverse continues upward as projects focused on laying the foundation for the future of commerce and socialization are likely to be the most profitable investments over time.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.