If we were to ask you how many active users a metaverse sandbox like Decentraland has daily, you would probably count in the thousands. But as it turns out, the company which has a valuation of $1.2 billion, just has 38 active users. One of the reasons why people could be wary of this metaverse platform would be due to the name itself. Decentraland doesn’t sound too appealing to the masses- in fact, it sounds more like a satire on the entire Web3 culture. Recently, news from DappRadar went viral when it asserted that there were just 38 active users on the platform, but the head honchos at the platform responded to this assertion.[1]
Sam Hamilton, the Creative Director of Decentraland, mentioned, “DappRadar doesn’t track our users, only people interacting with our contracts.” In reality, Decentraland- according to the creative director saw close to 8,000 active users entering the virtual sandbox. But for a company with a valuation over a billion, that doesn’t seem to be a lot, does it? Also, if there are just 38 active users that have been spending their money in Decentraland, it does question the appeal of such creations when it doesn’t relate to the vast majority of the population.
Hamilton further mentioned that the platform had a peak attendance in the month of March- with the number of spectators and tourists skyrocketing. Since then, the mania has cooled down considerably. The Director also stated, “We are finding the core community of people returning every day is growing.”
Is Decentraland- The Metaverse Platform- Worth Its Weight In Gold?
The Metaverse platform recently tweeted that it had close to 56,697 active users monthly. The company’s definition of an active user entails “people who log in and then move out of a parcel.” The company also noted that there “might be discrepancies between DCL metrics and Foundation data.” In order to get to the total number of monthly users, the company advises every analyst to do some calculations. “You might at first divide 56,697, the number of September’s MAU by 30 and come back with the number 1,866. A large number of Decentraland’s users are repeat visitors, they are the Decentraland community and spend time on the platform on a regular basis.”[2]
Even then, the number of users for the Metaverse community doesn’t bode well. This is a bad number, and the company should look into what was going wrong. Nevertheless, the company responded, “When discussing the number of DAU or MAU in Decentraland, it’s worth keeping in mind that Decentraland is not a company and that it doesn’t view users as a product by which to measure success. Decentraland is a DAO and the only open source, Web3 metaverse platform that is owned and governed by its community.” Despite all of this apparent rigmarolling, one still can’t get past the fact that this is a billion-dollar company.
When dealing with anything related to cryptocurrency and the metaverse, one needs to realize that scams are extremely common here. Interestingly, even Meta is not really capable of getting the metaverse to take off despite the massive war chests bursting at the seams. In their words, “Decentraland’s goal is to be a fun and entertaining platform with a thriving community that educates and onboards people to the philosophies and tech of Web3 while empowering Creators in the hope that, when the masses realize why decentralization is important, a viable option will be available and the next iteration of the internet won’t be monopolized by a handful of corporations.”[3]
Sources
- “$1.2 billion Metaverse has just 38 users.” Gaming Bible. Imogen Donovan. October 13, 2022.
- “$1.2 billion Metaverse project, Decentraland only has ’38 active users’, report claims.” Indy100. Becca Monaghan. October 14, 2022.
- “$1.2 Billion Metaverse Company Boasts It Has A Whopping 8,000 Daily Users.” Kotaku. Sisi Jiang. October 13, 2022.