The native cryptocurrency of the metaverse platform The Sandbox had an 11% price increase on Sunday as digital assets tried to stage a weekend rally, propelled by growing user numbers in the run-up to Halloween.
According to data from DappRadar, the number of distinct active wallets engaging with The Sandbox smart contracts increased noticeably over a 7-day period, rising 28% to 4,600 for the week.
Over the course of 24 hours, that number reached 805, an increase of 20% from the previous day.
According to Zerocap analyst Nathan Lenga, who spoke with Blockworks over Telegram, the platform's Halloween-themed enhancements do indeed seem to have increased interest. As part of its Alpha Seasons promotions, The Sandbox is currently marketing "spooky" immersive NFTs, which has caused visitor numbers to increase to their highest point in more than a month.
Players can get a behind-the-scenes look during Alpha Seasons, where they can test out new features, take part in social gatherings, and generally explore The Sandbox metaverse.
According to CoinGecko data, SAND was trading for $0.88 as of 5:30 am ET, up more than 15% over the previous week to rank among the top 10 performing coins in the top 50 by market value.
Naturally, the majority of cryptocurrencies in the top 50 by market capitalization have increased over the past week thanks to higher stock prices and a volatile US dollar. Lenga noted that throughout the previous week, the price movements of several cryptocurrencies connected to the metaverse have been closely tied.
The MANA token of rival metaverse Decentraland increased 10% to $0.73 on Saturday before declining to $0.67 as of the time of publication. On a weekly basis, MANA is up about 8%.
Daily unique Decentraland visitors increased by 62% from roughly 5,700 on October 22 to a peak of 9,200 on October 27, according to data from DCL Metrics, before declining to about 7,600 late on Friday. That many distinct visitors hadn't visited Decentraland in more than a month.
Enjincoin, which enables users to control and store virtual goods for video games, also experienced rapid growth; as of Monday morning, its value had increased 9% over the previous seven days.
In recent weeks, The Sandbox and Decentraland worked to clear up misconceptions about user activity statistics, which continue to be far lower than those of more reputable, non-crypto metaverse platforms like Roblox and long-running Second Life.
Industry players are nonetheless hopeful about the direction of growth for blockchain-powered metaverse solutions. Lenga further remarked:
“Eyes have been shifting back onto metaverse projects subsequent to Yuga Labs’ announcement that the Otherside metaverse beta will go live in early 2023.”
