Report: Blockchain-Based Metaverse Platforms Like Decentraland & The Sandbox Severely Limited By Crypto Wallet's Age Restrictions

Of all the current metaverse platforms on the market, the smallest in terms of active users continue to be based around blockchain, cryptocurrency, and NFTs. As I wrote last month, platforms like The Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxel, and Somnium Space have extremity low user rates, with peak concurrencies in the four figures at most (but usually much lower).

One core reason -- in a theme I keep repeating-- is that these platforms put speculation before community, a stark reversal of how virtual worlds typically succeed.  

Another core reason, as analyst Nick Mitham writes: Blockchain Metaverse platforms are effectively limited to adults.

This is because most (all?) crypto exchanges restrict wallet ownership to people 18 and over... but most metaverse users are under 18:

83.5% of the current 400m unique monthly users [on metaverse platforms] are under 18 years old. This represents 334m users. The balance, 13.2% accounts for 66m users.

This is the major hurdle facing blockchain metaverse companies. The vast majority of the active market user base are not legally allowed to use the tools required (crypto wallets) to actively engage and participate in the platforms being built.

"The worlds don't check the ages," Nic expands to me. "They use third-party apps like Metamask or provide an Ethereum wallet address for users to deposit funds, so, they're shifting the responsibility. Users will get Know Your Customer and age checked at the point when they're swapping fiat for crypto."

One solution to this is for blockchain metaverse platforms to put as much more emphasis on content and entertainment that doesn't require crypto. But sadly, Nic observes, that's not happening:

A lot of companies developing new blockchain virtual worlds appear to be more focused on the revenue generated by initial land sales rather than developing compelling and unique user experiences. This is worrying because the end product is an empty virtual world that no one wants to visit and then as a result of this the value of land plummets. Everyone loses.

This is, I have to say, yet another example of new metaverse platforms repeating some of the mistakes that caused Second Life to become a niche. Launched as an 18-and-over platform, Second Life’s active users are now mostly technophiles in their 30s, 40s, and beyond. In later years, Linden Lab subsequently lowered Second Life's age limit to 16, but by then, the damage had already been done. And Second Life’s inability to attract younger players confined it to a niche user base of some 600,000 adults, as kids instead embraced less intimidating virtual worlds by the hundreds of millions.

Then again, Second Life is still a profitable if niche metaverse platform. But is that the low bar of what these blockchain-based worlds want to become?

Read Nic's full report here.

Comments

[Ryan Schultz]

"One core reason -- in a theme I keep repeating-- is that these platforms put speculation before community, a stark reversal of how virtual worlds typically succeed."

PREACH!!!

[seph]

This ignores the Teen Grid.

[Adeon]

There is no teen grid. It hasn’t been a teen grid for well over a decade.

[seph]

"Launched as an 18-and-over platform, Second Life’s active users are now mostly technophiles in their 30s, 40s, and beyond. In later years, Linden Lab subsequently lowered Second Life's age limit to 16, but by then, the damage had already been done."

This is about well over a decade ago. Between its launch and main grid's age limit lowering was half a decade of Teen Grid and its failure. Sorta a big omission if talking about the importance of younger demographics, no?