RIP Metaverse? Mark Zuckerberg Slashes Budget as Crypto Projects Suffer - What’s Next for Digital Assets?
Zuckerberg's Meta just cut billions from its metaverse division. Crypto projects are feeling the pinch. But is this the end—or just another market cycle?
The Budget Axe Falls
Meta's Reality Labs, the division building Zuckerberg's virtual world vision, just saw its funding gutted. The move sent shockwaves through Web3 circles. It's not just a corporate restructuring—it's a signal.
Crypto's Contagion Effect
When tech giants pull back, smaller projects get crushed. NFT marketplaces are bleeding users. Metaverse token valuations have dropped double-digits. The speculative froth is evaporating faster than a meme coin's utility.
Survival of the Fittest
This isn't 2022's crypto winter—it's a pressure test. Projects with actual use cases are weathering the storm. Those built on hype? They're discovering that virtual real estate isn't quite as valuable when nobody's visiting.
The Finance Angle
Wall Street analysts are having a field day. "Turns out digital land doesn't generate cash flow," quipped one hedge fund manager between sips of his $20 coffee. The traditional finance crowd loves watching crypto stumble—even as they quietly accumulate positions.
What's Actually Changing?
The technology isn't disappearing. Blockchain infrastructure keeps improving. User adoption continues growing, just more quietly. The difference? Now we're building for users, not speculators.
The metaverse hype cycle may be over. But decentralized technology? It's just getting started—funding or no funding.
Indeed, there are also close ties between the metaverse and the crypto sector, with many projects setting out a vision of creating decentralized, user-owned economies.
There were dreams of worlds dominated by plots of land transformed into NFTs, with decentralized autonomous organizations established so users could vote on what happens in the future. Play-to-earn was another huge element — with some gamers managing to cover their rent through the income they received — but the tokenomics proved unsustainable.
One of the best-known, crypto-focused platforms was Decentraland. In the heady days of 2021, when metaverse mania was at its peak, one patch of virtual real estate in this online world sold for a staggering $2.4 million.
Fast forward to now, and prices have plummeted — as well as user numbers. Figures from DappRadar suggest there were just 46 unique active wallets over the past 24 hours, with trading volumes of just $10.21. Ouch. Things get worse when you look at Decentraland’s native MANA token. It’s currently trading at $0.15 — down 97.4% compared with where it was four years ago.
The same is also true for other projects such as The Sandbox. Back in November 2021, its native token was 36th in the rankings with a market cap above $6 billion. Now, I hear you ask? It’s 113rd… and down 98.2%.
Zuckerberg’s retreat from the market almost certainly means it’s the end of the road for the metaverse — in Silicon Valley and crypto more widely.
