Gm Rocketeers!

It’s Monday, and you know what that means - time for a metaverse moment. As the blood-ridden bear market unleashes itself on the metaverse, we’re seeing a lot of gloom and doom.

From Meta giving out free Quest Pros, to The Sandbox token’s sharp decline, we’re witnessing a huge downturn. But not all is doom and gloom in cyberspace, read on and find out what the metaverse giants are building for the future of digital life!

Let’s get into today’s Metaverse movements!

📈📉Weekly Metaverse Moves

Metaverse Markets:

NFT Worlds, inspired by Minecraft, lets you own and develop unique digital real estate within its vast open worlds, using a blockchain-based WRLD token for in-world experiences and earnings, with only 10,000 worlds available, making them both valuable and appealing to crypto gamers and investors in the increasingly digital metaverse landscape. Cross Chain Metaverse Gaming for the win?

🌑Full Moons - Free Meta Quest Pro’s & The End Of The Sandbox!

Free $1,500 Meta Quest Pro? Where Do I Sign?

Meta's premium Meta Quest Pro headset, which debuted at a steep $1,500, is grappling with sluggish sales, prompting the company to give them away at Roblox's developer conference, indicating a struggle to gain market traction.

Meta had previously halted component orders and even slashed the price to $999 in a bid to bolster demand.

• The upcoming announcement of Quest 3 might also be diverting attention from the higher-end offering.

• These challenges raise questions about Meta's metaverse ambitions.

In particular, these “marketing moves” come to light in the wake of competition from Apple's newly unveiled $3,499 Vision Pro headset.

As Meta faces hurdles, the tech world eagerly awaits Apple's entrance into the VR market and the potential impact of its premium offering.

Is This The End Of The Sandbox?

The Sandbox (SAND) cryptocurrency hit an all-time low at $0.29 on September 13, as bearish sentiments envelop the metaverse, partly due to Binance discontinuing Sandbox NFT Staking, sparking concern that bearish whale investors might push SAND closer to zero.

• These whales have already sold $2.2 million worth of tokens since the announcement.

• With declining network growth and limited new demand, SAND's prospects remain uncertain.

• Especially as Binance's NFT Marketplace prepares to close the staking window on September 26.

This potentially makes the SAND Network less appealing to new investors and signals rough waters ahead for the digital sandbox.

Hey Kid, Want A Bitcoin Metaverse?

Animoca Brands is gearing up to launch a metaverse ecosystem token on the Bitcoin network, using the Ordinals protocol by Darewise Entertainment, aiming to create a metaverse hub centered around Bitcoin.

• This protocol allows NFT-like assets on the blockchain and BRC-20 tokens on Bitcoin.

• Their vision includes immersive gaming, real-world connections, and brand integrations, all tied into their game, Life Beyond.

• Life Beyond is one of the first to feature Bitcoin-based metaverse tokens for in-game assets.

Collaborating with Horizen Labs, they aim to test Bitcoin's potential in a rapidly evolving digital landscape, aligning with the trend of luxury brands using NFTs for product legitimacy.

🔭The Scope

As VR and Metaverse face challenges in the brutal bear market of 2023, the question that comes to mind is this - Are we too early for the metaverse? If the trends look to go even lower, will there be a halt on metaverses entirely? Animoca Brands certainly does not think so and is expanding its metaverse plans to other major blockchains. Maybe in the next 2 years, we see the resurgence of the Metaverse and AR compatibility shoot through the roof!

🌓Half Moons

Meta is partnering with 15 U.S. universities to promote its metaverse vision through virtual reality classes, exploring the potential of immersive technologies like VR and AR in education, with participating universities such as Stanford and Morehouse offering soft skills and medical applications while aiming to expand VR's role in mainstream education, backed by studies showing improved engagement and learning outcomes with VR.

PlanetPlay and Lockwood Publishing have teamed up to promote eco-friendly behavior in the mobile metaverse platform Avakin Life, offering over 30 sustainable in-game items, marked with a green leaf, with proceeds generating "green coins" for donation to the Hongera Clean Cookstove Project in Kenya, aiming to combat climate change and reduce CO2 emissions through gaming.

Blockchain-based virtual worlds are facing declining land sales, with a 23% drop in August 2023, attributed to regulatory pressure and the broader crypto bear market, leading experts to emphasize the importance of focusing on metaverse utility and user experiences rather than land sale volumes.

🔭The Scope

Land sales going down alongside metaverse tokens, the bear market seems to take every other aspect of the metaverse down with it. The Sandbox is only the latest victim of the downturn, but the trend seems to spiral downwards anyway. Will Meta, Apple, Samsung and other tech giants revive the industry? Only 2024 will tell!

⚪Total Eclipse

If you’ve ever been caught in conversation with someone who doubts the power of the metaverse, spit out these fun facts:

- A digital Gucci bag sold for $4115 in Roblox
- 27.7 million people attended a virtual Travis Scott concert
- There are over 43,000 metaverse wallets

That should put a stop to the nay-sayers!

💫Shooting Star

This week’s shooting star is Cassie McQuater

Cassie McQuater is a metaverse and video game artist living and working in Los Angeles. Her practice involves hours of surfing the net, mining for digital artifacts, and repurposing them as a way to reflect on and reinvent our relationship with interactive storytelling.

🌚Dark Side of the Meme