Is the Metaverse Dead? Insights from Financial Bubble Analysis

Abstract

This paper explores the economic trends and identifies speculative bubbles within the emerging metaverse, based on the specific example of Decentraland, which is represented by its underlying native token MANA.For comparability, we consider three further tokens: SAND, ETH, and BTC.The study shows price prediction and provides further insight into bubble behavior to provide a deeper insight into the real trend and situation of the metaverse. When comparing all considered tokens, evidence of comovement and positive as well as negative bubbles is identified. This paper makes use of proven modeling techniques, such as SARIMA, for price prediction and LPPLS for financial bubble identification, visualization, and time stamping.