Early metaverse pioneer Decentraland recently wrapped up its four-day Metaverse Virtual Fashion Week (MVFW). However, the event struggled to attract users, with only 26,000 attendees. This marks a 76% decrease from last year’s 108,000 unique attendees. This is also despite the participation of top brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Tommy Hilfiger and Adidas, the maximum number of registered users at one time was just over 1,000.
Why Decentraland’s MVFW Failed To Attract People
Decentraland, a brand with a billion dollar valuation, is not alone in its struggles. Blockchain-powered games and platforms like The Sandbox, Alien Worlds, and Axie Infinity also failed to attract and retain mainstream consumers. Meanwhile, NFT trading is only a fraction of what it was during the bull run. By comparison, popular web2 gaming platforms like Roblox and Fortnite have tens of millions of users daily. So what is going on?
“Although the number of attendees was reduced, we had tens of thousands of new visitors in the metaverse,” says Dr. Giovana Graziosi Casimiro, director of Metaverse Fashion Week. “For the second Metaverse Fashion Week, we think we’ve improved on last year’s experience.”
Decentraland’s gameplay, design, and reliability have been criticized, which may be why the platform fell short of expectations. Additionally, the overall number of Decentraland land owners is low, with only 8% of the existing 98,000 NFTs of land owned by sole proprietors. This suggests that a small group of people may be grabbing the land, including Decentraland itself, which still owns around 67,000 parcels. Of the 98,000 land NFTs in Decentraland, only 8% of unique holders exist. This would mean that there are technically about 7,800 NFT whales that own all the land on the platform.
The decline of Decentraland?
Furthermore, Decentraland’s native token Mana has also suffered in the bear market. With the price falling from a market cap of $6.8 billion to $1.1 billion. In the bull run, the Mana price rose to around $5, but now has a current trading price of around $0.60. This decline is not unique to Mana either, as the entire crypto industry has been experiencing a downturn.
In a more recent video from social media critic Dan Olson, he states: “In effect, it’s a bad video game made up of smaller and worse video games wrapped up in a real estate scheme masquerading as The Matrix.Olson’s channel, Folding Ideas, has more than 800,000 subscribers.
Despite the disappointing results of virtual fashion week, event organizers were still looking on the bright side. They emphasized that Decentraland’s struggles are not unique and that the entire industry faces challenges. However, Decentraland must work to improve its platform if it hopes to attract and retain more users in the future.
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