Decentral Block Post

Bitcoin (BTC) looked to target new August highs at the Aug. 8 Wall Street open as upcoming United States inflation data fueled sentiment.

$25,000 next major BTC resistance

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it hit $24,246 on Bitstamp, its best since July 30.

The pair was within striking distance of its highest since mid-June at the time of writing, while traders and analysts scanned the charts for signs of resistance.

For on-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators, this came in the form of sellers at $25,000 and Bitcoin’s 100-day moving average (MA).

“Bear Market Rally is pumping ahead of this week's CPI report,” it wrote as part of its latest Twitter update.

Bitcoin (BTC) looked to target new August highs at the Aug. 8 Wall Street open as upcoming United States inflation data fueled sentiment.

$25,000 next major BTC resistance

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed BTC/USD as it hit $24,246 on Bitstamp, its best since July 30.

The pair was within striking distance of its highest since mid-June at the time of writing, while traders and analysts scanned the charts for signs of resistance.

For on-chain monitoring resource Material Indicators, this came in the form of sellers at $25,000 and Bitcoin’s 100-day moving average (MA).

“Bear Market Rally is pumping ahead of this week's CPI report,” it wrote as part of its latest Twitter update.

The metaverse sector is witnessing its very-own housing crisis moment thanks to massive declines in the prices of its virtual lands in 2022, led by waning users' interest and a crypto bear market.

Land sales plunge 85% in 2022

In particular, metaverse projects built on the Ethereum blockchain, including the Sandbox and Decentraland, have witnessed substantial declines in their valuations and other key metrics, data from WeMeta shows.

For instance, the average price of lands sold across Decentraland peaked at $37,238 in February 2022. But as of Aug. 1, their costs had dropped to an average of $5,163. Similarly, the Sandbox's average sale price dropped from circa $35,500 in January to around $2,800 in August.

Overall, the average price per parcel of virtual lands across the six major Ethereum metaverse projects dropped from approximately $17,000 in January to around $2,500 in August, or a 85% decline. 

Declining metaverse volumes

Poor land sale volumes further indicate dampening user interest in metaverse projects.

The metaverse sector is witnessing its very-own housing crisis moment, thanks to massive declines in the prices of its virtual lands in 2022, led by waning users' interest and a crypto bear market.

Land sales plunge 85% in 2022

In particular, metaverse projects built on the Ethereum blockchain, including the Sandbox and Decentraland, have witnessed substantial declines in their valuations and other key metrics, data from WeMeta shows.

For instance, the average price of lands sold across Decentraland peaked at $37,238 in February 2022. But as of Aug. 1, their costs had dropped to an average of $5,163. Similarly, the Sandbox's average sale price dropped from circa $35,500 in January to around $2,800 in August.

Overall, the average price per parcel of virtual lands across the six major Ethereum metaverse projects dropped from approximately $17,000 in January to around $2,500 in August, or a 85% decline. 

Declining metaverse volumes

Poor land sale volumes further indicate dampening user interest in Metaverse projects.

Cointelegraph’s Brian Newar spoke with Alex Svanevik, the CEO of blockchain data firm Nansen at the Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) 2022  held in Seoul and discussed topics like the upcoming Ethereum (ETH) Merge and how it will affect other blockchains. 

According to Svanevik, the industry witnessed a spillover effect in the last bull run. He said that in trading nonfungible tokens (NFTs), newcomers in the blockchain space didn't want to pay hefty transaction fees of up to $100 to purchase NFTs in the Ethereum network. The Nansen CEO noted that this demand for NFTs spilled over to other blockchains where the fees to purchase NFTs weren’t as high as in Ethereum. He explained that:

“It'll be interesting to see to what extent these other ones can continue to have demand if a lot of it was driven by that spillover effect. You might have a lot less usage.”

When asked what he thinks will happen to some other blockchains after the merge, the executive said that many may die off. “Many chains will probably become a ghost town or ghost chains. But I do think that some chains will find their own niches,” said Svanevik.

Related: Web2 adoption key to Metaverse success, Klaytn Foundation — KBW 2022