Metaverse tokens SAND and MANA have defied a broader crypto market pullback, rallying in the past 24 hours.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has trended lower in the past week after hitting an all-time high of $69,000 on Binance. It was last trading flat on the day at 60,557, roughly 13% lower from its all-time high. Wider crypto markets have tracked Bitcoin lower, although SAND and MANA have stood out.
SAND, the native token of the Sandbox metaverse, hit an all-time high of $3.6195 on Binance at around 1:45 am UTC, taking its market cap past the $3 billion mark, according to CoinMarketCap data. The token’s gains – nearly 40% in the past 24 hours – come on the back of an announcement from Sandbox that it will open a part of its metaverse to players in an upcoming play-to-earn (P2E) event.
Meanwhile, Decentraland’s MANA has broadly resisted the crypto market pullback over the past week, staying broadly level. It has gained over 10% in the past 24 hours.
Interest in the metaverse has boomed since Facebook’s announcement last month that it would rebrand itself to ‘Meta’ and focus on building its own virtual world. The company also hinted it would support NFTs as part of its metaverse. SAND and MANA have rallied over 300% since that announcement.
