ecentralized Metaverse tokens have made steady gains this week, despite a dump in the stock price of Meta Platforms.

Meta famously changed its name from Facebook in late 2021, to signal its plans to focus on the Metaverse, and its struggles have coincided with double-digit percentage gains for its decentralized competitors The Sandbox and Decentraland.

Meta reported $33.67 billion worth of total revenue for Q4 2021, compared to $28 billion the year prior. However, its net income decreased to $10.28 billion, down from $11.2 billion 12 months ago.

Speaking with Cointelegraph, Animoca Brands chairman and co-founder Yat Siu, suggested that the sharp drop of Meta’s share price may represent a broader trend in which users are beginning to question the centralized Web2 model:

“It’s a system that does not share any meaningful part of the ownership or value of the network, which will eventually lead to a decline as users look for better options.”

“As people are still likely to spend even more time online, the question is where and how? This is an early indicator that they are moving away from Web 2.0 and the logical conclusion on where to go for a growing number is Web 3,” he added.

Siu argued that Web2 companies like Meta and Apple are also “losing their best people” to Web3 companies and projects:

“Web 3 and the open Metaverse is more than just another product cycle, it’s a movement, and it’s hard to fight something like that as a single corporation.”

Crypto-backed metaverses

Decentraland, a Metaverse platform built on Ethereum, has seen the price of its token MANA increase by over 20% the past seven days, surging from a seven-day low of US$2.19 to recent support levels around the US$2.60 mark.

Likewise, SAND tokens for The Sandbox, one of Decentraland’s main Metaverse competitors, has seen a seven-day gain of 17.5%, entering the weekend at a low of US$3.31 before surging to a high of over US$4, now seeing support levels around US$3.60.

Apart from Meta, other factors are affecting prices for MANA and SAND this week. Decentraland released it’s 2022 Manifesto, announcing a prototype mobile app, improvements to its play experience, greater utility of NFTs, and protocol enhancements.