After Bitcoin 'winter', investors hunt risk in virtual worlds

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Bitcoin drifts towards mainstream maturity in 2022, daring crypto investors are eyeing up new sources of explosive action: "altcoins" that power online games and worlds. But, be warned, the foothills of the unformed metaverse are no place for the faint-hearted. Bitcoin, which like the rest of the market had been largely sinking since late 2021, has risen about 16% over the past two weeks to push above $41,000, prompting many market players to declare an end to the "crypto winter".

Did you Know?

Sunny Leone took the lead among Indian actors to secure her digital assets when she broke the news about her association with NFT, two months back. This made her the first Indian actress to mint NFTs

Yet newer and smaller coins linked to virtual platforms have enjoyed stronger rallies amid the buzz around the metaverse. Those used on gaming platform Axie Infinity and 3D virtual environment Decentraland, for example — the Axie and Mana — have gained 35% and 57% respectively in the same period since Jan. 24. The token of the Gala gaming platform has jumped 125%, according to CoinMarketCap. «When people think of crypto they tend to think of bitcoin,» said Ed Hindi, chief investment officer of Swiss-based cryptocurrency hedge fund Tyr Capital. «But this ignores the fact that crypto is not a one-risk asset class.» To give an idea of scale, though, the combined market cap of Axie, Gala and Mana is about $12.7 billion, a fraction of the $800 billion-plus for bitcoin, which commands 40% of the market. Some investors are looking to altcoins to diversify their holdings as 13-year-old bitcoin and No. 2 player ether increasingly move in step with traditional stock markets and become more sensitive to macroeconomic