Grayscale CEO Bets Big on Metaverse Tokens
Grayscale CEO Talks About Metaverse
Speaking at the Crypto Goes Mainstream event earlier this week at Yahoo Finance Crypto Goes Mainstream, Michael Sonnenshein, the CEO of digital asset investment firm Grayscale stated that his company has received a “strong receptivity” from investors to its Grayscale Decentraland Trust to access exposure to the Metaverse world.
Launched in late February, the Grayscale Decentraland currently has $49.2 million under management and has gained 943.8% since inception and 235.9% in just the last month. MANA, the native the sole asset behind the Grayscale Decentraland Trust, was up as much as 15% over the last 24 hours.
“So that is one way investors can think about putting money to work in an asset that is going to potentially appreciate with the rise of a metaverse like Decentraland itself. That’s just one of several applications. We’re always scouring the landscape looking for other assets we can also bring to our investors,” Sonnenshein said.
The metaverse refers to a second version of the Internet that will exist alongside the first. In the former version, immersive social sharing takes place in a 3D virtual space along with the use of NFTs, virtual landscapes and realities (VR), games, 3D avatars, metaverse decentralized applications along metaverse tokens.
The Metaverse-Trend Sets In
With the crypto market experiencing a slight downturn on Nov. 12, two metaverse tokens have managed to climb into double-digit gains. Within a week of Facebook changing its name to ‘Meta’, the tokens The Sandbox (SAND) and Decentraland (MANA), both of which are tied to the metaverse, had gains of 210% and 200%, respectively.
Decentraland is a virtual reality game or a virtual living platform built on the Ethereum blockchain. The platform’s native MANA token is now trading at $3.62, up 15.9% from the previous day and 38.5% over the last seven days.
SAND is another virtual metaverse where users may “create, control, and monetize their game experiences,” owned by the people who use it, with NFTs ownership of assets in the game. Currently, SAND is changing hands at $3.07, up 14.64% in the last 24 hours and 19.5% over the past seven days.