JPMorgan, McDonald’s and Manchester City FC are three unrelated companies that have one thing in common: they belong to the metaverse universe.
Bloomberg says the three-dimensional virtual world metaverse, which is at the center of many new campaigns and projects globally, has the potential to reach a market opportunity of approximately $800 billion in 2024.
Many new metaverse platforms have started to emerge, some metaverse platforms have already made their name in this field and have become popular. Metaverse platforms provide new channels for gaming, socializing, art exhibits and much more. What are the major platforms in the Metaverse universe? Let’s examine it together.
Decentraland
Decentraland is currently one of the largest metaverse platforms. Launched in February 2020, Decentraland hosted around 300,000 monthly active users at the end of last year. Decentraland metaverse is built on the Ethereum blockchain and is free to play while requiring users to link their accounts to their digital wallets to get the full experience.
Decentraland’s native token MANA has a market cap of $3.45 billion according to CoinGecko. Currently the 34th most traded cryptocurrency, MANA is used on the metaverse to buy and sell virtual real estate properties and other collectibles that make up a large part of the user experience in Decentraland.
The Sandbox
The Sandbox is another metaverse platform that enjoyed early success with Decentraland. Owned by Hong Kong-based game developer Animoca Brands, The Sandbox has over 40 million downloads and 1 million monthly active users.
Sandbox is also a community-driven metaverse project built on the Ethereum blockchain. The platform has two native tokens, the LAND and the SAND token. Owners of LAND and SAND are given a voice in the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) within The Sandbox that determines and manages the future of the platform.
Zepeto
Zepeto is one of the most popular Asia-based metaverse projects currently on the market. Zepeto, which was launched in 2018 by the South Korean internet giant Naver, has a monthly active user base of 20 million as of this year. The Metaverse platform reported last year that 90% of its users came from outside of South Korea, and 80% of the total users were young.
Somnium Space
Somnium Space is an open source metaverse platform founded in 2018 with a focus on virtual reality (VR) experience. It also has its own cryptocurrency called CUBE. With CUBE, Somnium Space users can pay for land trading, games and events on the metaverse.
Cryptovoxels and Spatial
Art, while crucial to many metaverse platforms, is at the heart of Cryptovoxels and Spatial. Cryptovoxels offers another metaverse service powered by the Ethereum blockchain, where users can purchase parcels of land and build shops and art galleries on them.
New York-based metaverse project Spatial aims to create a metaverse universe by artists by promising to build the world’s largest metaverse gallery.
Meta and more
Facebook’s first metaverse work, Horizon Worlds, opened to adults in North America in December. Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues’ monthly user base reached 300,000 monthly users.
Although Meta calls Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues “social VR platforms” rather than a metaverse platform, Mark Zuckerberg says Horizon software is the core of Meta’s vision for the metaverse.
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