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7 Best Coins in the Metaverse – Forbes Consultant
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The metaverse is one of the Internet’s favorite new buzzwords.
If you’re new to the party, the metaverse is the latest iteration of virtual reality, or worlds accessed by people using virtual reality headsets. From shopping and entertainment to learning and gaming, some tech companies see the metaverse as a new frontier that could be as transformative as the World Wide Web was a generation ago.
This largely futuristic concept later became a household word Facebook it rebranded itself as Meta Platforms last year.
Cryptocurrency is starting to play a key role in some districts of this brave new world. However, its role in shaping the metaverse has been complicated by large crypto winter declines throughout 2022.
Here’s a look at the major metaverse coins, cryptocurrencies that play a role in facilitating trade and exchange within the metaverse, that have market capitalizations above $500 million.
1. Internet Computers (ICP)
Internet Computer was developed by the Swiss non-profit organization Dfinity Foundation. The ICP’s goal is ambitious: to replace the centralized Internet we all know today with a decentralized alternative.
The idea is that today’s Internet is built primarily by centralized companies like Alphabet—which owns the Google family of products—or Amazon.com.
Launched in May 2021, Internet Computer seeks to change this order, seeking to give users the ability to transition to a more inclusive and open source Internet. It aims to realize this vision with smart contracts, offering improved speeds with reduced computational costs.
Backed by big names like venture capitalists (VC) Andreesen Horowitz, his performance was short but turbulent. Initially, ICP reached a massive market capitalization of over $45 billion when the token was trading for around $700.
While it is still one of the largest cryptocurrencies around, the excitement has waned. The price of ICP has fallen significantly from its initial highs.
2. Stack (STX)
Bitcoin (Bitcoin) may be the granddaddy of all blockchains, but its role in the metaverse was somewhat unclear until Stacks launched on it.
Stacks is a layer one blockchain that connects to the Bitcoin blockchain through STX’s proof of transfer (PoX) mechanism. With this technology, Bitcoin miners can pay to mint new STX tokens. Additionally, Stacks owners can stack (as opposed to episode) your STX coins to earn BTC rewards.
Stacks’ main goal is to bring decentralized Web3 applications (dApps) and smart contracts to the world’s oldest and most secure blockchain, Bitcoin. It was founded by a number of venture capital funds, including those of Winklevoss Capital, Y Combinator and Digital Currency Group.
The first cryptocurrency to receive approval for sale by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Stacks 2.0 launched its mainnet in January 2021.
3. Axie Infinity (AXS)
Axie Infinity has taken the cryptocurrency world by storm during the Covid-19 pandemic, emerging as the biggest “play to earn” game, paving the way for titles like Sandbox and Decentraland.
Axie Infinity is inspired by popular games like Pokémon and Tamagotchi, and in many ways, it’s similar. Players pit cute-looking monsters against each other to win game tokens.
Unlike its centralized cousins, Axie Infinity is domiciled on the blockchain, monsters are purchased in the form of NFTs, and the earned tokens – AXS – are an actively traded cryptocurrency on the market.
AXS has been very popular during the pandemic as a way to earn money while cooped up at home. As the “play to earn” model has grown, however, criticism has been directed at its hierarchical nature.
Wealthier investors, known as scholars, could buy the expensive monster NFTs before renting them to players, known as workers, in low-income countries. Axie Infinity is extremely popular in the Philippines, Venezuela, the United States, Thailand, and Brazil, in respective order.
Players receive only a portion of the revenue earned by playing, lacking the financial means to purchase NFTs without an intermediary.
4. The sandbox (SAND)
Sandbox is a virtual world with native tokens for transacting digital assets in the game. SAND can be earned and spent within the Sandbox, much like MANA in Decentraland, another metaverse currency that appears on this list.
Virtual World Tokens highlight what makes investing in the metaverse so challenging. With the metaverse still in a nascent stage, featuring an ever-increasing range of platforms and a rapidly evolving environment that changes every day, it’s very difficult to pick a winner.
It is no surprise that the price of the SAND token has struggled so far this year, as both these variables and the broader market have moved against it.
Whether or not the metaverse achieves its goals remains the question of which games, platforms and applications will surpass the others. At the moment, SAND is one of the largest players in this space.
5. Theta Network (THETA)
YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Twitch are the titans of video streaming, run by centralized companies that wield great power.
Enter Theta, a blockchain created specifically for video streaming. It aims to decentralize video streaming, operating a peer-to-peer video distribution network.
The company’s promises are like many business plans in the metaverse: reduce costs, transfer power from corporations to the masses, and eliminate middlemen. According to Theta, this vision would give a bigger slice of the pie to content creators and make video cheaper for consumers.
The Theta network is designed so that when users consume video content, some of their computer power and free bandwidth is used to transmit that video to other users on the network. In exchange you earn THETA tokens. The more people on the network, the higher the quality and speed of the streaming.
Those who work in the traditional video streaming sector have noticed this. Theta’s advisory board includes Twitch co-founder Justin Kan and YouTube co-founder Steve Chen.
6. Decentralization (MANA)
Decentralized runs an entire metaverse of its own. It is a VR platform powered by Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, with native token MANA used to transact trade within its worlds.
Users can create avatars and navigate this online universe as they wish. They can purchase land, outfits for their avatars, accessories and much more on the Decentraland marketplace. Content and applications around the world can also be monetized.
The hope for this project is that Decentraland will become a place where more and more users choose to hang out, conduct business and make daily transactions.
Concern over declining user numbers has led some to wonder whether the Metaverse project will gain traction or whether conventional games will remain a better alternative.
7. ApeCoin (APE)
ApeCoin is not only one of the largest metaverse coins on the market, but also one of the newest. It was designed to fuel the growing ecosystem around the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Bored Ape Yacht Club is one of the most successful non-fungible tokens (NFTs) art collections. The lowest price for one of these blockchain art monkeys is estimated to be as much as $100,000. Its sister NFT collection, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), has a minimum price of $18,500, CoinGecko data shows.
To capitalize on the popularity of these expensive apes, APE was air-launched to all Bored Ape or Mutant Ape NFT holders in March 2022. The goal behind APE is for voting and governance issues and to transact within the “ape metaverse”.
Metaverse FAQ
How can you buy Metaverse Coins?
Metaverse coins can be traded like any other cryptocurrency. Larger tokens can be purchased on cryptocurrency exchanges by simply exchanging fiat money into the desired token, using the exchange’s liquidity pair.
That said, darker metaverse tokens may lack liquidity for fiat trading pairs. Therefore, traders may be required to first purchase a larger cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum, before later trading it for the more niche metaverse token they want.
As evident from the historical price references in the article above, however, purchasing these coins represents a huge risk and should be classified as a gamble rather than an investment.
You should be vigilant and do all the necessary research, obviously making sure you only invest what you can afford to lose, given the extreme volatility and vulnerability to huge withdrawals that these coins possess.
Where can you buy Metaverse Coins?
Bigger cryptocurrency exchanges for example Binanceand KuCoin have trading pairs for most of the larger cryptocurrencies, including the largest metaverse coins: ICP, APE, SAND, THETA, MANA, and AXS.
If you’re going against the conventional route, you can also use a decentralized exchange (DEX) to buy metaverse coins. This means that Know Your Customer (KYC), rules that help verify users and prevent criminal and money laundering activity, is not required. With a DEX, you can access more obscure cryptocurrencies.
But the user experience with DEXs is not intuitive and is unique to cryptocurrency. Additionally, there is no customer support or recourse in case a mistake is made and your cryptocurrency is sent to the wrong place. Therefore, this route should be avoided unless you are a very experienced trader.