I try to stay optimistic about crypto, and for the most part, I genuinely am—I have no doubt Bitcoin is here to stay as a global currency, and it feels like stablecoins, NFTs, and DeFi are only going to grow in popularity. But when it comes to the metaverse, including crypto-based projects Decentraland and the Sandbox, I see only failure.
A Fortune colleague checked in on Decentraland this week and found fewer than 500 people there—you can see for yourself from the company’s own dashboard. It’s hard to say this is a surprise. There are thousands of other, more interesting things to do online, not to mention real-world activities like going to a restaurant or for a walk outside. Walking around a buggy digital world populated mostly by token flippers is at the very bottom of my list.
