Gaming and NFT-related cryptocurrencies, including Flow (FLOW), STEPN (GMT), Axie Infinity (AXS), Decentraland (MANA), and Gala (GALA), have posted severe losses over the past week. This is similar to NFTs, with the overall NFT volume dropping by 15.71% during the same period.

Weekly metaverse sales on Decentraland and Sandbox also hit a new all-time low last week. There was an increase in aggregate trading volume, which can be attributed to Otherside’s top sale of 183 ETH. While the Sandbox’s volume was in the green, most metaverse projects including Decentraland, Voxels, and NFT Worlds were down.

The primary reason behind the bearish price action across the market seems to be further calls for further rate hikes in September. Also, investors are nervous about $55 million worth of blue chip NFTs that are at risk of liquidation on BendDAO, a prominent NFT lending platform.

Investment management giant Invesco has reportedly launched a metaverse fund. This fund is set to invest in small, medium, and large-cap companies worldwide that are dedicated to metaverse technologies like virtual worlds, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), augmented reality, play-to-earn (P2E) gaming, and artificial intelligence (AI).

The metaverse fund will be managed by Invesco’s fund manager Tony Roberts and the deputy fund manager James McDermottroe. “It has been estimated that, by 2030, virtual and augmented reality could deliver a £1.4 trillion boost to the global economy,” Roberts said on Monday. As of July 31, Invesco disclosed it had $1.44 trillion in assets under management (AUM).

“While the metaverse’s applications to entertainment are increasingly well-understood, the interconnectivity that it enables will likely have a transformative impact across industries as diverse as healthcare, logistics, education, and sport,” Roberts remarked while discussing the Invesco metaverse fund.

In other headlines,

• eBay acquires TCGplayer for up to $295 million. Read More
• Telegram co-founder plans to launch an NFT marketplace, and wishes to add ‘little bit of web3’. Read More
• Ivan Atkinson Adopts Decentralized, NFT-Based Structure For Future Movie Productions. Read More
• BendDAO Proposes Emergency Changes During Liquidity Crisis. Read More

Get your hands on a plot of land or condo on Cardano Island, the Cardano community’s true home in the metaverse!

Cardano Island is the first crypto island located on Virtua Prime, the very first planet in the Virtua Metaverse.

Landowners will be able to:

• Collect special resources that you can use to craft new NFTs (or sell to other users).
• Enhance your plot using highly detailed prefab buildings (including your very own customisable Fancave), and even specialised Land Bots!
• Claim FREE NFT rewards (if you mint your land plot through the Virtua website).

Cardano Island condo owners will be able to:

• Claim a FREE NFT yacht (if you mint your condo through the Virtua website).
• Buy resources from landowners, and use Land Bots to craft new NFTs.

Make sure you join their Discord for the latest updates and info about Cardano Island!

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook), announced that a series of changes are coming to Horizon Worlds, Meta’s metaverse-focused app, to make it more immersive and visually impressive for users.

Zuckerberg delivered the news via an Instagram post, where he also showed the new graphical style that the platform would use in the future. He explained, “Major updates to Horizon and avatar graphics coming soon … The graphics in Horizon are capable of much more — even on headsets — and Horizon is improving very quickly.”

The announced overhaul comes in answer to the backlash that originated from a selfie of his avatar used to announce the launch of Horizon Worlds in Spain and France. Some users qualified as outdated due to its simple graphics.

In other news,

• Meta officially rolls out its new metaverse ID system. Read More
• Metaverse Avatar Creator Ready Player Me Raises $56M in Series B. Read More

Of all the huge brands that issued NFT collections on Ethereum, Nike ranked the highest with total revenue of $185.27 million. Nike pocketed $93.10 million from the primary sale of its NFTs and another $92.17 million from royalties.

With $25.65 million in total revenue, high fashion giant Dolce & Gabbana ranked second. Tiffany saw the third-largest revenue from its NFT collection, pocketing $12.62 million largely from its 250 “NFTiffs” collection. Gucci was behind, raking in $11.56 million in revenue from NFTs.

While Adidas saw only $10.94 million in revenue, its NFT collection did significantly better on the secondary market. The “Adidas Originals Into the Metaverse” collection saw over 51,000 transactions on the secondary market, generating $175.65 million in volume.

In other news,

• Sotheby's to Sell Gold Ring Plus its NFT Twin. Read More
• New York Fashion Week NFTs to unlock show invites and products. Read More
• Afterpay releases designer NFTs with exclusive merchandise and experiences for New York Fashion Week. Read More

SudoRare, an NFTplatform that forked from SudoSwap and LooksRare, is just the latest crypto project to run off with users' funds. The project also deleted all of its social media accounts Tuesday morning.

SudoRare was an automated market maker platform and NFT marketplace, advertising staking opportunities for assets like Wrapped Ethereum (wETH), LOOKS, and XMON. LOOKS is the native token behind LooksRare, itself a fork of the leading NFT marketplace OpenSea.

Almost 1 million LOOKS tokens were swapped six hours after going live into 154.5 Ethereum and another 230.6 LOOKS tokens into USD Coin (USDC), confirmed on Etherscan. All 519 ETH was then moved off the platform, valued at $815,000 at the time of writing.

In other news,

• GameStop NFT daily fee revenue plunges under $4K as gloom infects markets. Read More

• Chingari launches first-ever video NFT marketplace named 'Creator Cuts'. Read More