The prices of metaverse-related cryptocurrencies including ApeCoin (APE) and Axie Infinity (AXS) have shot up by around 6% in the past 24 hours.
Per data from CoinGecko, APE is up 6.3% to $3.88, Axie Infinity's AXS rose 6.9% to $6.41, while The Sandbox's SAND rose 5.2% to around $0.40. Decentraland’s MANA posted more modest gains of 4.4% to reach around $0.31.
In contrast, the broader cryptocurrency market cap is only up around 1.6% in the last 24 hours.
The news came as APE recently finalized its Special Council elections, which saw five members elected to govern the future of the ApeCoin project. ApeCoin is the utility and governance token that underpins Otherside, the metaverse project from Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs.
gm: Meet the Bored Ape Yacht Club Founders
Bored Ape Yacht Club co-founders Wylie Aronow ("Gordon Goner") and Greg Solano ("Garga") joined Dan Roberts and Kate Irwin on the gm podcast to talk about BAYC parent company Yuga Labs and its size and influence in the space, Ape haters, NFT haters, the SEC investigating Yuga, Buzzfeed "doxxing" Aronow and Solano earlier this year, their vision for the Otherside metaverse realm, and much more. Watch and make sure to subscribe to the gm podcast on Apple or Spotify.
Elsewhere, video game publisher Square Enix reaffirmed its commitment to blockchain and Web3 gaming in its annual New Year's letter.
The recent good news for investors follows a brutal 2022 for Metaverse-related coins; AXS and SAND were among the worst performers in what was a bleak year for crypto as a whole, both losing around 93% of their value during the course of the year.
Square Enix reaffirms blockchain commitment
The price move comes as a big gaming player doubles down on metaverse investment, with Yosuke Matsuda, president of Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix, recently reaffirming his company’s commitment to the space.
2022 Was Supposed to Be the Year of the Metaverse. What Went Wrong?
Billy Huang runs a metaverse advertising agency. Well, he definitely runs an advertising agency. And not so long ago, that agency did attract a suite of established brands hungry to cash in on the untold potential of the internet’s newest, immersive, virtual frontier. But given the year’s events, Huang’s now thinking about dropping the “m” word. “Maybe now that the metaverse terminology has died down, we do need a little bit of rebranding,” Huang told Decrypt. Huang’s firm, Insomnia Labs, spe...
In the company’s New Year's letter, Matsuda said that blockchain technology was one of the “top three” areas of investment for the company in the mid-future, and one on which the company was “most focused.”
Matsuda noted that while 2022 was “a year of great volatility in the blockchain-related space,” he anticipated that blockchain games would “transition to a new stage of growth in 2023.”
