Empty Metaverses: Decentraland and The Sandbox Only Have Less Than 1,000 Daily Active Users

According to the DappRadar data, Decentraland and The Sandbox each valued over $1 billion have fewer than 1,000 "daily active" users, despite the fact that metaverses are seemingly on the rise. Let's look into how this data is collected and whether it reflects the accurate state of things.

As of this writing, the number of “unique active wallets” on The Sandbox is 670, on Decentraland – 622. To compare, the largest number of daily "active users” ever on Decentraland was 675, according to DappRadar. For The Sandbox, that number was larger at about 4,503. UAW is defined as a unique wallet address’ interaction with the platform’s smart contract. For instance, logging onto The Sandbox or Decentraland to make a purchase with SAND or MANA is counted as an “active use.”

So, this means that DappRadar doesn’t count people who log in and interact with other users on a metaverse platform or enter for an event, it only counts the transactions. This may signify that on these platforms people carry out less transactions than visits.

Sam Hamilton, Creative Director at Decentraland, commented on DappRadars tracking methods that they don't track users, they track people interacting with platform’s contracts. According to him, the real figures for Decentraland are 8,000 users on average per day. The metaverse has passed its peaks, and is now building the core community of people returning every day.

Decentraland tweeted later that it saw "1,074 users interacting with smart contracts" in September. It also logged 56,697 "monthly active users”.

Let's have a look at some of September's data:

56,697 MAU
1,074 Users interacting with smart contracts
1,732 minted Emotes
6,315 sold Wearables
300 Creators received royalties
161 created Community Events
148 DAO Proposals
— Decentraland (@decentraland) October 7, 2022

The Sandbox’s CEO and co-founder Arthur Madrid didn’t fail to comment on the data either. He said that The Sandbox measures active users by looking at a number of metrics, including their usage over time and retention. They see an active user as someone who connects over a period of time, and a daily user as someone who connects at least once a day.

Some comments about Web 3 metrics:
= Web 3 player worth more than Web 2 players engaged with a wallet, all payers VS low conversion in "Freemium" model;
= on chain transactions does not mean Users;
= NFT owners invest in an asset that will grow in value over time based Utilities; https://t.co/IIpsDjRUnm
— Arthur Madrid (@arthurmadrid) October 10, 2022

Although more and more companies and brands choose the metaverse vector, metaverses may not have developed enough to satisfy the users. Metaverses may be lacking smooth gameplay or having technical issues, or are just less engaging than they should be. Just look at StepN: according to DappRadar, they have more UAW than the Sandbox. Hope the metaverses will gradually develop into something bigger, we continue to observe.