Metaverse Tokens Drive Weekly Crypto Losses Amid SEC Security Claims

[ad_1]

Its dark days in crypto, but especially in the metaverse.

Tokens linked to digital worlds and NFTs suffered the most last week after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) labeled many of them securities in its lawsuit against Coinbase and Binance.

A week after the US regulator filed the filings, the specific tokens cited now dominate the top ten losers among the top 100 crypto tokens by market capitalization on CoinGecko.

These include Chilliz (CHZ), Flow (FLOW), Axie Infinity (AXS) and The Sandbox (SAND). They posted around 25% losses on a weekly scale.

The top 10 losers of the week in the crypto market. Source: CoinGecko.

In the complaints against Binance and Coinbase, the SEC alleged that CHZ, FLOW, SAND and Decentraland (MANA) were all securities.

Although ApeCoin (APE) was not mentioned in the lawsuits last week, the SEC had previously issued an investigation into its creators Yuga Labs.

Apple headset can’t save metaverse

The lawsuits came at a particularly bad time for metaverse tokens, coinciding with the launch of Apple’s virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets.

In January earlier this year, metaverse-based tokens surged, with tokens like Decentraland’s MANA rising more than 80% per week after Apple first hinted at its headset news.

However, the SEC lawsuit weighs heavily on metaverse tokens.

The development teams behind the companies have come out to refute the US regulator’s claims.

Sandbox’s COO told reporters last week that the company doesn’t “necessarily agree” with the SEC’s categorization and “qualification of SAND as a security.”

Flow Blockchain tweeted this morning that they “welcome a regulatory environment” with more clarity and remain confident in the decentralization of FLOW tokens, adding that “Flow is not only secure and accessible but also compliant.”

At the same time, a member of the Chilliz team said in his Discord that “we do not discuss other parties’ legal matters, regarding Binance US / Coinbase”.

The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment or other advice.

[ad_2]