Just 4 metaverse projects sold $106 million in virtual land last week, with The Sandbox taking a massive lead: DappRadar

• Sales of virtual land have boomed in the last week, bringing in $105.87 million for just four metaverse projects, DappRadar said.
• Gaming platform Sandbox dominated with $86.56 million in NFT sales, with Decentraland in second place.
• The surge in metaverse-related activity has followed Facebook's name change to Meta, the report said.

The metaverse is thriving right now, as individuals and companies pile in. A total of $106 million was spent on virtual property in the last week, with purchases of digital land, luxury yachts and other assets, according to data from DappRadar.

The Sandbox, an online gaming world that allows users to own plots of land, has dominated activity. Between November 22 to 28, the platform attracted $86.56 million in unique non-fungible token land sales that are tied to the blockchain, DappRadar said.

In second place was Decentraland, another virtual platform that brought in $15.53 million in sales of digital plots of land. Smaller competitor CryptoVoxels sold digital land for a total of $2.68 million, while Somnium Space, a metaverse platform, sold $1.10 million worth of real estate.

Last week, buyers spent record amounts of money on virtual plots of land in the metaverse, where users can play games, trade digital assets and buy and sell anything from digital sneakers to digital dresses using cryptocurrency tokens.

Metaverse Group, a subsidiary of Tokens.com, bought digital land for $2.43 million last Tuesday, a record for property sales on Decentraland. Another plot was purchased for $2.3 million on Axie Infinity, a play-to-earn gaming platform, in the same week.

"Undoubtedly, metaverse land is the next big hit in the NFT space. Outputting record sales numbers and constantly increasing NFT prices, virtual worlds are the new top commodity in the crypto space," DappRadar said.

Last week, the four leading virtual worlds had attracted over 6,000 traders. Over the previous week, Sandbox boasted the second most traded NFT collection, while Decentraland came in 8th place.

The report said the surge in metaverse-related activity started with Facebook's decision in late October to rebrand itself as "Meta", in a nod to its commitment to building out its own digital world for its users.

"Metaverse events are becoming an industry-standard in the crypto space. Allowing brands, artists, and creators to showcase their work and product to millions of people worldwide, virtual events in the metaverse will only become more popular," the report said.

Crypto asset manager Grayscale has said the metaverse is a $1 trillion opportunity. This week, Sandbox saw the sale of the most expensive piece of virtual land ever, after Republic Realm spent $4.3 million on a plot.

Decentraland is gearing up to host a 2022 edition of this October's virtual festival that drew in 50,000 attendees who claimed a total of 11,204 NFTs.

Sports clubs are diving in too. English soccer club Manchester City has teamed up with Sony to build its own virtual world, according to a statement Tuesday. And German sportswear maker Adidas said recently it had teamed up with crypto exchange Coinbase after announcing it would expand its activities in the metaverse.

Gemini exchange founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss said they had purchased a plot of virtual land and raised $400 million in a funding round recently which they will use to help build their own metaverse.