DappRadar: Metaverse To Thrive More in Asia

A new report by DappRadar, a Web3 tracking site, revealed that interest in the metaverse and virtual worlds had dramatically dropped.

DappRadar’s report found that venture capital firms invested about $707 million in the metaverse since the start of 2023, marking a commanding 43.68% dominance over web3 investments. This $707 million are only invested in the first six months of 2023, compared to $7.6 billion invested in the metaverse in the whole of 2022.

The report also pointed out that in this second quarter, the virtual world market fell 81%, compared to Q1, hitting $56 million. It attributed this decline to a shift of interest in artificial intelligence (AI) and meme coins.

“Startups in the metaverse space – a term encompassing the companies involved in the augmented reality, virtual reality, and virtual world industries – have seen a significant decrease in funding, with a 66% drop from 2022. Interestingly, this coincides with the shifting attention of investors towards artificial intelligence (AI) startups in 2023,” the report read.

However, the report kept an optimistic perspective toward the metaverse, due to several companies’ bullish vision toward the metaverse, topped by Animoca Brands which is a prominent supporter of metaverse startups and made more than 20 investments in companies pushing the boundaries of the metaverse over the past six months.

Moreover, the report classified Asia, including regions such as Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Japan, will see the thriving trend of the metaverse industry in terms of the heavy investments pumped by governments and companies there in the sector.

Asia is expected to reap immense benefits from the metaverse, estimated to boost the region’s GDP by up to $1.4 trillion by 2035.

According to the report, Mainland China is one of the few countries which utilizes the use of metaverse as several provinces launched metaverse initiatives in the education and tourism sectors. Furthermore, Chinese companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, China Mobile, Bytedance, and Tencent have invested in developing metaverse hardware and software.