Top 5 Most Interesting Metaverse Projects To Get Excited About In 2022

With talk of the Metaverse now regularly hitting headlines, the world is getting excited about the prospect of inhabiting digital worlds. Through a combination of existing tech, crypto, and virtual reality, Metaverse projects are set to revolutionize the way in which we interact with each other, both socially and professionally. For many, Metaverse projects represent the next stage of the internet, with crypto technology essential to establish true ownership within digital spaces.

With Facebook rebranding to “Meta” and promising to plow billions into the development of their own Metaverse platform, the space as a whole is expected to explode.

What is a Metaverse?

First though, what is a Metaverse anyway?

The concept of a Metaverse represents a shared, virtual reality that digitally represents a 3D space where people can interact. This can be a recreation of a real-life location such as an office or home with realistic human-like avatars. It could also be outlandish, with people able to enter a cartoonish world with unrealistic physics and an avatar drastically different from their real-life appearance.

Metaverse development is becoming increasingly dependent on blockchain technology, using cryptocurrencies and immutability to establish ownership and enable more decentralized access and interoperability between these digital spaces.

While still in their infancy, Metaverse spaces are typically used for recreation and social reasons. However, the expectation is for the Metaverse as a whole to eventually be used for business and for other commercial reasons.

Despite being nascent technology, the following are the most exciting Metaverse projects currently in development.

     1.Decentraland

Consisting of over 90,000 parcels of land, Decentraland single-handedly kickstarted the digital real-estate boom.

Decentraland runs on the Ethereum blockchain and allows users to explore, create, and trade using NFT technology. In the Decentraland metaverse, you can play games, run a casino with cryptocurrencies, host events, showcase your NFT art, and explore other people’s creations thanks to the implementation of smart contracts.

Launched publicly in February 2020, the virtual world is overseen by the Decentraland Foundation, a non-profit organization tasked with helping the metaverse to flourish.

With the London-based auction house Sotheby’s using Decentraland to house their virtual headquarters, and real estate company, Republic Realm paying nearly a million dollars for some land, it’s clear that Decentraland is one of the most exciting metaverse projects to get involved in.

You can access Decentraland by visiting the official website.

     2. The Sandbox

Getting the attention of big names such as Adidas (who’ve already purchased some land), The Sandbox metaverse is a user-generated decentralized blockchain-based virtual world.

The Sandbox is one of the most exciting Metaverse projects that might interest a lot of creative gamers out there. Sure, it’s a game that is just not limited to gamers, anyone can be a part of the Sandbox Metaverse.

Based on the incredibly popular mobile games of the same name, The Sandbox metaverse is a fully-fledged 3D world that looks like an exceptionally polished version of Minecraft. Within the world, users can freely explore, buy land, develop on it, trade, and create interactive assets using the suite of tools available.

The Sandbox began as a 2D Mobile Pixel game, which you can still download on Google play. After the hype of NFT’s and the Metaverse, the developers Sebastien Borget and Arthur Madrid realized that they wanted to explore the idea of asset ownership, NFT’s and the idea of rewarding players for playing the game.

The Sandbox Metaverse was thus created, the gamers can create their own NFT’s, buy land or even create their own game within the Sandbox Metaverse by using the Gamemaker.

The project’s co-founder, Sebastien Borget, insists The Sandbox represents a truly decentralized metaverse. Borget and others are concerned that the metaverse and web 3.0 as a whole is likely to try and be taken over by Big Tech, just as web 2.0 was. Instead of pleasing shareholders, Borget insists that decentralized projects like Sandbox will put the user first.

The Sandbox has recently raised $93 Million dollars in Funding and it’s coin SAND has topped the charts in the Official Coinmarketcap coin rankings ranking in the top 100 coins.

     3. Axie Infinity

While we’ve already got used to thinking of the metaverse in terms of shared 3D spaces, Axie Infinity represents the 2D contingent.

Developed by Sky Mavis, Axie Infinity sees players battle cute monsters called Axies earning cryptocurrency as they do so. This crypto can then be used to trade, breed, boost, and also buy land.

Inspired by the Pokemon universe, Axie Infinity is a game that shares a lot of similarities with Pokemon. In the game, you are able to breed monsters called Axies, which is used in turn to battle against other players.

In return , players earn SLP(Smooth Love potions) Tokens through those battle which can be traded or even sold for real world money.

Axie Infinity is built with the play-to-earn concept, which means, the more you play the game, the more rewards you will get in the form of real world money. Of-course, you will need convert the tokens or ETH into fiat currency.

It’s one of the hottest blockchain games out there and in fact, gamers in the Philippines are actually making a full time income playing the game.

Outside of the core gameplay loop, Axie Infinity is a truly permissionless metaverse where users interact with each other directly through blockchain technology. With the game exploding in popularity in 2021, the expectation is that Axie Infinity will dominate in the future as well.

     4. Sin City

Sin City is a metaverse project that allows people to build an empire and earn crypto at the same time.

Dubbed the “Grand Theft Auto” of the metaverse, Sin City will allow players to cruise the streets, battle rival gangs, form factions, acquire assets, and also purchase real estate.

Central to the Sin City metaverse is the idea of factions. Joining a faction will see players band together to pool resources and real estate to build an empire. Thanks to crypto technology, factions can establish their own tax rules and sort out who’s the real kingpin.

The world will feature both high and low-security zones, with the latter owned by factions and gangs. High-security zones can be safely explored but offer less reward for exploring, unlike the riskier low-security zones owned by other players.

According to the project’s whitepaper, the Sin City metaverse is set to launch a beta test in q1 2022.

     5. My Meta MMO

My Meta MMO is a full 3D MMO RPG in which players can create communities of AI-driven META characters which farm, battle, breed, and mine.

Still in early development, the game is being developed by My Meta Studio, an arm of the popular crypto company Enjin. The company specializes in building user-generated metaverses integrating play-to-earn mechanics to make metaverses self-sustaining and governing.

The game will feature an assortment of META-beings that come in human, alien, and fantasy species. As a community-based metaverse, the world will allow cooking, crafting, and farming together.

So far, the My Meta MMO world is comprised of 4 worlds, including a theme park, a Japanese-inspired land, a medieval fantasy land called Eldenvale, and an undetermined “New World.”

Source: