Monthly Report that Summarises all Major Trends, Developments and Funding across the Metaverse, NFT & Web3 Gaming Space
1. NFT Overview
October turned out to be a bustling month for NFT markets. From the surge in interest for Reddit’s digital collectibles to the introduction of newer marketplaces, the month had so much to offer in terms of NFT activity.
NFT trading volumes across popular blockchains for October stood at $446 million, down 16% from the previous month and marking a low since July last year. Ethereum regained some market dominance over Solana in NFT trading volumes and made up 72% of total volumes, up 7% from the previous month. One of the biggest winners across chains was ImmutableX, which has increased its trading volumes for the 4th month. NFT volumes on the Layer 2 scaling solution were up 64% MoM, and the chain nudged itself to become the 3rd biggest chain for NFT volumes after Ethereum and Solana.
Across all major chains, one unifying debate that engulfed the minds of NFT traders in October was royalties. Multiple smaller marketplaces have been circumventing the creator royalty, which started to pose a threat to larger marketplaces with mandatory royalties. Magic Eden and Looksrare were the latest marketplaces to implement optional royalties in October, causing an outcry among collectors and artists.
The most significant talking point and narrative across NFTs in October were the Reddit collectibles. Built on Polygon and cleverly termed as ‘digital collectibles’, the NFTs had brought in a significant number of non-crypto users into the space and exploded in interest in late October. Volumes on the collectibles grew 930% over the month and wallet holders reached a high of nearly 3 million. On the funding end, October had a brutal month with very few venture investments in the sector. The month only saw $74.3 million in funding inflow, down 39.5% from the previous month. The largest funding amounts went to ViciNFT and Mercury, drawing in $20.6 million and $7.5 million, respectively.
NFT Recent Developments
- Apple introduced new App Store guidelines for NFTs. Apps are allowed to have NFTs but they cannot unlock additional features or content. Additionally, apps can use in-app purchases to sell services related to NFTs such as minting, listing, and transferring.
- Ethereum NFT marketplace/aggregator Blur.io launched to the public and airdropped care packages containing Blur tokens for traders. Blur.io has attracted significant volumes and has quickly become popular among NFT traders.
- Magic Eden adopts optional creator royalties policy for NFT’s on the marketplace. The move comes after multiple Solana-based NFT marketplaces and collections like DeGods switched to 0 royalties.
- Azuki raised $2.5 million with its NFT-Backed Golden Skateboard sale (Announcement). The bluechip project auctioned off eight physically-backed NFT skateboards that can be burned to redeem real-life, gold-plated skateboards.
- Twitter to allow users to buy, sell and display NFTs through tweets (Article). This move comes after Billionaire Elon Musk successfully acquired Twitter for $44 billion.
- Bored Ape’s Yuga Labs faces an Investigatory SEC probe for the sales of high-value NFTs (Article). Yuga Labs has shown its willingness to cooperate with the SEC as it conducts its investigation.
- Reddit NFTs surge as Polygon-based avatars reach millions of users (Article). Initially airdropped in August, these collectibles exploded in market interest and activity in October.
- Opensea launches support for Avalanche NFTs, X2Y2 introduced its new NFT-loan feature, Rarible adds aggregation feature to its marketplace, Looksrare drops mandatory royalty fees to switch to optional royalties
- Warner Bros dropped the extended version of the Lord of the Rings movie as an NFT (Article).
Monthly NFT Stats
NFT Project Fundraises
2. Web3 Gaming Overview
October was a vibrant month for Web3 gaming. The sector again drew in the most wallet activity compared to all other crypto sectors, with an average of 810,681 unique daily wallets. October was also full of substantial gaming developments and infrastructural deliverables, despite the low volumes across current Web3 games.
The biggest news and development for the month was the mainnet launch of 2 EVM compatible gaming-focused L1 blockchains, Oasis and WeMix3.0. Oasis provides a multi-layered gaming infrastructure that combines Layer 1 and project-specific L2 solutions. WeMix3.0, on the other end, is a L1 chain created by Korean Gaming giant, WeMade, and has an ecosystem of multiple blockchain games. Both chains offer significant benefits when it comes to scalability and are extremely cheap when it comes to transaction costs. Beyond these positive gaming-specific infrastructural advancements, multiple highly anticipated games have also launched their alpha and beta versions to in-game asset holders. Overall, an extremely positive and progress-filled month for the Web3 gaming sector in general.
On the funding front, Web3 games continued to rail in massive amounts of funding. October saw an inflow of $272 million in funding across 13 rounds, with gaming being the sector with the highest monthly inflow of VC funding. The most considerable funding amounts went to Homa Games, Catheon Gaming and Horizon, drawing in $100 million, $55 million and $40 million, respectively.
Gaming Recent Developments
- Gaming Blockchain Oasys launches Mainnet with the support of Sega and Ubisoft (Announcement). The EVM-compatible blockchain offers fast transactions with low fees and has 21 large companies validating the chain.
- Korean gaming giant WeMade debuts mainnet launch for its EVM-compatible, WeMix 3.0 chain. The blockchain is based on Stake-based Proof of Authority with a throughput of 4,000 TPS and 1-second block intervals.
- Japanese Media Giant GREE to build games and run nodes on Avalanche (Announcement). The company has a multi-decade history of gaming leadership including releasing the first-ever mobile social game, Fishing Star, and boasts 30 million MAU across its games.
- Optimism foundation launched an on-chain crafting-based voxel game built on the OP Stack in partnership with Lattice called ‘OPCraft’. Every aspect of the autonomous open world exists on chain with every action in the world happening as an Ethereum transaction.
- Popular Japanese Football Manga Series ‘Captain Tsubasa’ is entering the web3 gaming space (Announcement). Launching later this year, the game will allow enthusiasts to train characters from the series and compete against other players.
- Blockchain gaming company Limit Break has announced its $6.5 million purchase of an advertisement slot for next years Super Bowl LVII. The commercial will expose its NFT collection, DigiDaigaku to over 50 million live viewers.
- Japanese video gaming company, Konami has announced its plans to launch a platform for trading in-game NFTs (Announcement).
Monthly Web3 Gaming Stats
Gaming Project Fundraises
3. Metaverse Overview
October turned out to be lacklustre for Metaverse markets, marked by falling trading volumes, sales numbers and a steep drop in funding for the sector.
Metaverse trading volumes for the month fell significantly as only $10.8 million were spent on Metaverse assets, down 30% from the previous month. Concurrently, the Metaverse Index (MVI), which tracks the price action of Metaverse tokens, was also down 6%. The month saw investors and participants in crypto placing a spotlight on user numbers for multiple Metaverse worlds, especially for Decentraland.
Regardless, Metaverses saw renewed activity over the month as most introduced Halloween-themed additions for users. Decentraland and Sandbox experienced higher-than-usual visitor activity and interactions on their respective smart contracts during this period. As for what investors were interested in October, Investors seem to still prefer the Otherside Metaverse parcels as they made up 5 in 10 purchases, followed closely by 1.5 in 10 parcels linked to the Sandbox Metaverse.
Last month, we also saw the entry of multiple large organizations across various verticals stepping foot into the Metaverse. In a surprising move, Interpol entered the Metaverse by announcing a virtual world for law enforcement agencies. Other large traditional organizations and brands to enter the Metaverse last month were Cheetos, Urban Decay and Flipkart. Over on the funding front, funding rounds and amounts have dropped steeply in October. The month only accounted for 6 funding rounds, with only $16.6 million raised, down a colossal 93% from the previous month. October also marks the lowest funding amounts seen since the beginning of the year. The largest funding amounts went to Zebra Labs and Metav.rs, raking in $5 million and $3 million, respectively.
Metaverse Recent Developments
- Norway steps into the Metaverse with Decentraland Tax Office (Article). The goal of the initiative is to deliver services to younger and tech-native individuals while establishing their Web3 footprint
- Microsoft and Meta partner to deliver immersive experiences (Announcement). Microsoft 365 apps and Microsoft Teams will be available on Meta Quest devices.
- Emirates airlines to train its cabin crew in the Metaverse. Close to 4,000 crew members will be using the Metaverse and VR goggles to learn everything from handling the gally and safety procedures.
- Interpol stepped into the Metaverse by launching the world’s first global police Metaverse (Announcement). The Interpol metaverse allows users to visit the virtual version of Interpol headquarters and interact with agents via avatars.
- FIFA announced its landmark partnership with Metaverse platform Roblox (Announcement). The collaboration sees the launch of FIFA world, an immersive virtual gaming environment on Roblox.
- Meta, L’Oréal launch Web3 Metaverse accelerator (Article). The program aims to support creativity and inclusivity in the Metaverse and Blockchain ecosystem
- Metaverse Trademark filings on the rise in October. PayPal, Western Union and Visa were some of the large-scale corporations to file for their Metaverse trademarks.
Monthly Metaverse Stats
Metaverse Project Fundraises
About Rising Capital
Rising Capital is a Singapore head-quartered ‘Digital Assets Management’ firm focussed on early-stage blockchain investments (Rising Funds) and venture building studio (Rising Studios) in South & Southeast Asia. Since 2013, the team has built, operated and sold several crypto ventures before setting up ‘Rising’ to capture significant return asymmetries by picking and investing in brilliant founders, while keeping a majority of investments in liquid assets.
Our experience & global network allows us to be at the forefront of changing narratives in crypto such as NFT, Gaming, Metaverse, L1s and L2s, along with advancements in blockchain protocol technologies by conducting thorough research on the “next big things” while managing risk with proper licenses, audits, compliance and security management. Have an interesting idea for partnership or working on a startup?
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