Nov 24, 2021 4 min read

SAND People

Cryptic ball: playing in the sandbox.

Since Facebook's mutation into Meta, several metaverse projects have been riding the hype. I've talked here about MANA, Decentraland's token, but I've missed covering SAND, from The Sandbox - another blockchain-based virtual world, a little bit like if Second Life was combined with Minecraft. SAND, now a top 40 token according to CoinMarketCap, has appreciated 8x in the past month and is the talk of the past days, after almost doubling since Monday.

All this is fine and normal in crypto, but there's something most people are missing. The hype levels reached in recent times are sucking liquidity out of the rest of the market. As you can see below, in a chart fetched by the popular trader Hsaka, SAND and MANA now account for almost as much volume as BTC and ETH together. This wasn't the case in previous bull markets, where BTC and ETH represented more than half of the volume, even during alt seasons.

This shifts the focus of attention of many traders towards the latest shiny thing, paralysing the rest of the market until a new trend emerges. This new trend can be another crypto sector, say meme coins, or a market structure change led by bitcoin or ether, which remain very influential in what sentiment is concerned. That's why I regularly cover these two leading coins, but remember there's a whole market out there - much more risky, but also with potentially higher rewards. Just make sure you are early into a trend instead of buying its top, and no FOMO!

Meanwhile, there's much confusion regarding India's latest crypto ban. What is being reported in the media is a ban on the use of "private cryptocurrencies" as legal tender, to be proposed to the parliament next week. This was already being discussed since February and, although a lot needs to be defined and clarified, it seems that provisions regarding investment and trading will be softer. But let's wait for more developments before assuming India is out of the cryptoshere.

Chart art: watch the quicksands.

The market volume allocated to trading shitcoins has never been higher. Keep following SAND and MANA and look out for the top signals I've talked about here regarding the leading coins. A top in metaverse projects will look like a top in BTC or ETH.

Three things: sand gets everywhere.

All you need to know about the Terra stablecoin.
A great, visual analysis of past bitcoin tops.
A good guide to the multi-chain future.

Tweet tip: but sand will be boring again.

*Because everyone is FOMOing into SAND.*

Meme moment: even if crypto bans are never boring.

*Credit goes to Mike Dudas for matching the images into a meme.*

B21 Card: three more countries.

*Learn how you can get yours for free at b21.io/card*

Get started: download the B21 Crypto app!

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Our newsletter offers opinions and insights from analysts in the cryptoasset space. It is not intended to be investment advice, and should not be treated as such. You must not rely on its information as an alternative to financial advice from a qualified professional. Without prejudice, we do not undertake or guarantee that its information is correct, complete or non-misleading; or that the use of guidance in the report will lead to any particular outcome or result.