This was supposed to be the year of the metaverse, right? Remember the “can’t miss” $1 trillion market opportunity that brands, celebrities, and tech companies seized on in 2021, hoping to reap a big payoff in 2022? Instead, the two highest-profile metaverse cryptos: the sandbox (SAND -0.01%) Y decentraland (MANNA 0.32%) – both are down over 90% for the year, and many investors have bristled at the metaverse concept.

If these two metaverse cryptos hope to bounce back next year, they need to do something different to persuade more people to spend time in virtual worlds. Until they do, the crypto tokens that power these virtual worlds are unlikely to recover anytime soon.

Metaverse or multiverse?

A good starting point is to simply figure out what the metaverse is supposed to be. The…