Hi guys, it's Mark.
So people are making millions from the Metaverse.
Or are they?
Over the last couple of months,
the internet has been going absolutely crazy over
the futuristic concept that is the Metaverse.
Like many others,
I'm intrigued to see if this is the next big thing,
or just a huge craze,
supporting a bubble on the edge of a crash!
Today, let's discuss some of the most important areas
you need to consider before investing,
if you should be thinking about investing,
or pulling your money out,
as well as my plans for the future.
Also, I'll be revealing the results
from my seven-and-a-half thousand dollar investment
into six of the most popular Crypto Metaverse gaming coins.
So strap in,
smash the like button,
mute your Tinder notifications,
and let's get into this.
(phone ringing)
Don't tell your mom about this, Curtis.
Firstly, we need to discuss the big daddy, Bitcoin.
Imagine the Bitcoin market like a house of cards.
It looks impressive, but it could be extremely vulnerable.
The smaller card houses around the outside
are the altcoins with different purposes,
including Metaverse crypto games.
When you're building a house of cards,
all you're thinking about
is how impressive the end result will be.
This is exactly what it's like
when Bitcoin is rising in price.
People are buying in a higher and higher prices,
sometimes with money they don't even have,
without necessarily taking into account
all the risk involved.
Imagine the cards at the bottom
are the people with the most Bitcoin.
They're commonly known as the whales.
As we move towards the top,
the investors hold less and less Bitcoin.
All it takes is for one whale to sell,
and it could lead to a whole chain reaction.
This doesn't just affect Bitcoin.
It has a ripple effect
that causes all the altcoins to suffer as well.
The market being over-leveraged is a big reason for this.
What this essentially means
is that people are able to buy Bitcoin
with money they don't actually have.
This is commonly known as buying on margin.
An example of this would be someone buying $80,000 worth
of Bitcoin using just $8,000 of their own money.
They do this by using margin to multiply their money by 10.
This increases their potential returns,
but also their potential losses.
This means if the value dropped too much,
they might be forced to sell
in order to minimize their risk.
This therefore causes the price to drop further
and causes other people to sell for similar reasons,
leading to a downward spiral.
JMP's Devin Ryan Ryan put it well when he said,
"Selling begets more selling
until you come to an equilibrium on leverage in the system."
Put simply, the crash wouldn't stop
until leverage has been mostly eliminated from the market.
Now, worryingly, this is a pretty tame example.
Bitcoin traders are actually using
up to a hundred-to-one leverage
and are driving the wild swings in all cryptocurrencies,
not just Bitcoin.
"But Mark, why does Bitcoin matter
when it comes to crypto Metaverse investing?
Stay on topic, you old fart."
Well, let me just pop my teeth back in
and we'll get onto it.
Simply put, Bitcoin was the first,
and it put crypto currency into the mainstream.
This has led to many investors seeing Bitcoin
as the reserve currency for cryptos.
Many investors first put their money into Bitcoin
and then invest into altcoins afterwards.
Just to prove this point,
most crypto investors don't even look
at the normal currencies like the dollar,
they only compare to Bitcoin.
Therefore it makes sense why the entire market drops
when Bitcoin plummets.
This could be one of the reasons we are seeing a decrease
in the prices of Metaverse crypto coins,
as Bitcoin has just been bouncing around in price
and not really pushing all-time highs for a while.
Over-leverage may be causing the big price fluctuations,
but the fear and uncertainty which is being created
by the new virus variant could make things
a whole lot worse.
Well, unless you invested in the coin called Omicron,
which saw a dramatic spike in value,
but then an equally rapid crash.
You might've heard the saying FUD being thrown about
a lot at the moment, especially at the height of the virus.
This actually stands for fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
The reason why this term is so hated in the investing world
is because market prices can be impacted by negative news.
Upon the news of the new variant,
Bitcoin's price actually dropped around eight percent.
Smaller coins, which usually follow Bitcoin's movement,
also fell.
Ethereum, for example, dropped 11.6% in just one day.
The crypto markets often recover quite well after FUD,
as a lot of hardcore investors see it as a great opportunity
to buy the dip.
Once we get to the stage when FUD has little to no effect
on the underlying price,
we all know that cryptocurrencies
have very strong foundations that aren't easily shaken.
This is because if fear uncertainty and doubt
aren't affecting the investors,
then they must all be diamond handers.
There has been a lot of hype around Metaverse crypto coins,
but equally there are a lot of people
that find the Metaverse to be a scary
and unfamiliar concept.
This is leading to a lot of bad press,
which in the short-term can have a significant effect
on the coin's performance.
Before Bitcoin, before crypto games,
before any of that stuff,
people invested in the stock market.
Let's be honest.
You'd probably expect a boomer like me
to be sitting down with the Financial Times,
looking at how the stock market is doing.
However, I'm not your typical boomer,
because I find Metaverse coins far more interesting
and entertaining to talk about.
But before we talk about
how my $7,500 crypto Metaverse investments are doing,
I can't just gloss over the stock market,
because whether we like it or not,
it has a huge effect on crypto.
The stock market's becoming more
and more closely linked with cryptocurrency.
An example of this is Tesla buying $1.5 billion worth
of Bitcoin, allowing Tesla stock
to benefit from Bitcoin's volatility.
When we see a stock market crash,
it's very common to also see a crypto dip.
This could be because investors are pulling their money out
of more risky investments and storing their money elsewhere.
Just think about it.
If Tesla dipped in price to $500 tomorrow,
and you had $10,000 tied up in a risky crypto coin,
you'd probably consider pulling some
of that money out of crypto
and scooping up that sweet Tesla discount,
as it's a much safer bet.
Speaking of stocks and crypto,
if you want to start investing,
Public are currently giving you
a free stock worth all the way up to a thousand dollars
if you're in the USA,
and Coinbase are given you $10 worth of free Bitcoin
when you sign up,
and that's worldwide.
No, but seriously,
of course this doesn't apply to every investor,
but lots of people do think this way.
And the more people who react like this,
the more effect it will have on the overall crypto market.
Over 2021, the stock market has seen abnormal growth,
as have the crypto markets.
This has caused a lot of new investors
to have very high expectations,
but as we mentioned,
these returns aren't normal,
and they could be in for a shock when a crash hits.
This growth is due to a variety of factors,
but the one thing we should definitely talk about
is the amount of stimulus being pumped into the economy
by governments all over the world.
Printing money may be a good short-term solution,
but could also lead to long-term devaluation
of everyday currencies,
meaning your dollar might buy you a lot less
than it did yesterday.
So the amount of excess cash in the system
could very well mean the stock and crypto prices
have been inflated past their true value,
and therefore we might be due for some sort of correction
in the future.
On the flip side, if we see everyday currencies,
otherwise known as fiat currencies,
decrease in value due to inflation,
this could make cryptocurrencies more popular,
as governments can't directly affect the value of the coins
by creating more,
like they can with printing more money.
Metaverse-related stocks and crypto
have certainly seen a slight decrease in value.
Maybe this is due to the government slowing down stimulus,
causing people to have a lot less free money
to invest willy-nilly.
Now the moment you've probably all been waiting for.
Let's dive into my crypto Metaverse investments
and find out how much money I've made, or lost, so far.
We're gonna be starting out with my smallest investments
and slowly work our way up to my biggest bets.
All this will help us come to a conclusion
as to whether or not now is a good time to get in,
or run and hide.
My first investment
was $250 in Axie Infinity,
a Pokemon style Metaverse game that involves battling,
breeding and looking after digital pets.
The popularity of Axie Infinity is growing,
even as you're watching this video.
It's even been said that some people have quit their job
to focus on playing the game.
To think I had to tell my son, Curtis, to stop playing games
because they would never pay him a good living.
- [Curtis] I didn't need your investing advice.
I should just played games.
I could have been a millionaire.
- Well, we'll see about that.
The AXS token has grown in 2021,
and it's not surprising that many cryptoheads
are now adding this to their portfolio.
I'm not sure if that's a term,
but I'm trying to make it a thing.
Cryptoheads!
But one thing that's definitely not growing
is my investment.
My coins are currently worth $191 and 48 cents,
which is a total loss of $58 and 52 cents.
But of course I'm holding these,
like all the other coins in this video.
Until I've sold, I haven't realized any of these losses.
My second investment
was $250 into the futuristic sci-fi game
that is Star Atlas.
Now this game hasn't actually been released yet,
but you guys know me,
I love a bit of "Star Wars",
so I just couldn't resist the storyline.
And the graphics that the game promised!`
I know this might surprise you,
but I'm not actually a gamer,
although I'm a pretty sick boomer.
But even as a non-gamer,
this interests me as it has a VR aspect
that would allow me to become a character
like Han Solo and fly a spaceship across
a galaxy far, far away.
With all that said,
my heart is a little bit broken
with the result of this one so far,
as the value was sitting at $150 and 24 cents,
which is a loss of $99 and 86 cents.
I'll tell you what,
I might need to use the Force
to make this one go up a little bit.
My next investment
was $500 into the Decentraland's token called Mana.
Imagine this like Sims, Minecraft, real estate,
all combined into a Metaverse game
where you can buy, sell, and potentially even rent land.
I'm really excited about
the long-term growth of Decentraland.
As you know, I'm very involved in real estate,
and I understand the concept very well.
A plot of digital land just sold in Decentraland
for $2.4 million,
which is more than some homes
in New York and San Francisco cost.
So as you can see, the potential is definitely there.
As for my investment,
it's currently sitting at a value of $417 and 51 cents,
which is a loss of $82 and 49 cents.
In the long-term,
I don't see this as a terrible outcome.
I'm really excited to see where this is
the next time I check in.
My fourth investment was $500 into Illuvium,
which is one of the best looking blockchain games
I've seen so far.
Well, that's judging by the trailers,
as it's not actually out yet.
What makes Illuvium different to other games
is it really does look like a triple-A game.
The graphics look absolutely amazing,
and they do claim it'll be polished in all areas,
which sounds awesome,
if they actually deliver.
My investment is currently worth $534 and 25 cents,
which is a gain,
and yes, you did hear me, right,
a gain of $34 and 25 cents.
There was a lot of hype around this coin when I bought in,
so I'm pleasantly surprised to see a little bit of profit.
Now let's talk about my $1,000 investment into Enjin Coin.
This project allows game developers
to create NFT gaming items.
With the other cryptos we've discussed,
there is always the potential that they will flop
and your investment may decrease in value.
However, with Enjin Coin,
the games that use the project to build their NFTs can flop,
but Enjin will still benefit.
Well, that was my theory, anyway.
It's kind of like when you see all
those internet gurus selling their courses for $997.
If their students don't succeed,
it doesn't really matter as they still make a profit,
even though they certainly lack some morals.
So a lot like these gurus, Enjin Coin provides the tools.
The current value of my Enjin Coin
is sitting at $775 and 44 cents,
which a loss of $224 and 56 cents.
This is surprising, as I did expect more from Enjin.
However, saying this,
I invested when the price was pretty high.
Now let's talk about my $5,000 investment into Sandbox.
Sandbox is a virtual world on the Ethereum blockchain,
very similar to Decentraland,
where players can build and monetize their experience
using NFTs and the native crypto coin, Sand.
Players can create in-game assets,
trade them on the marketplace,
and also create games.
I did have high hopes for this coin,
as I saw it was getting a lot of advertisements
on different YouTube channels,
which was causing a spike in demand.
This big investment seems to be paying off,
as it's sitting at a current value of $6,009,
which is a gain of $1,009.
What a lucky spin of the wheel that was.
So here's the big question.
Are the prices dropping a sign to get out now,
or is it instead a signal to get in?
Now, I'm no financial advisor,
so of course I can only speak to what I'm currently doing.
I invested in these coins as a little bit of an experiment,
with money I could afford to lose,
And, luckily, we've made an overall profit
of $577 and 82 cents so far.
But just imagine if the wheel had landed differently
and the odds weren't in my favor.
My investments would be absolutely destroyed.
However, I do believe in the Metaverse long-term,
but that doesn't mean that these particular crypto games
will go to the moon.
There are lots of different ways
to invest in Metaverse projects,
including buying the stock of companies
that may play a large role in building the Metaverse.
So I'd say
if any of these crypto Metaverse games piqued your interest,
it might be worth investing a little bit of money
you can afford to lose,
but please diversify into stocks and other long-term assets
before making gambles like this.
I'm gonna hold these investments until the end,
so stay tuned for more videos and updates from me
on this topic.
I'm going to leave the next video right up there,
but don't click on it just yet.
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