Metaverse-related tokens skyrocketed after Facebook revealed on Thursday that it will rename Meta in order to better align itself with the augmented and virtual reality-driven future.
According to cryptocurrency data aggregator CoinGecko, the category’s market worth has increased by 262.9 percent in the last 18 hours, to $13.4 billion.
Half a dozen currencies, including some of the largest like MANA, Ethereum token powering the Decentraland virtual reality platform, and STARL, a native asset of the eponymous decentralized virtual space project, are up by more than 50 percent on the day. With a 112.8 percent increase, ETHV (Ethverse), the token of a virtual universe constructed utilizing the Minecraft game engine and Ethereum blockchain, is the day’s biggest gainer.
Axie Infinity, a popular NFT-based online video game with over $7.5 billion in revenues, has seen its token grow 11 percent.
After the social networking company said it will change its name to Meta, reflecting its bet on the next version of the internet centred around virtual experiences, Facebook‘s shares ended the day with a slight 1.5 percent gain. The rebranding comes after a slew of allegations about the company’s inability to prevent the spread of false information and offensive content on its platform.
Facebook said the day before the announcement that it will invest at least $10 billion this year to create its metaverse business and that it would recruit 10,000 workers in the European Union over the following five years to assist grow the project. On December 1, the business will begin trading under the ticker MVRS.
