Is Roblox the Invisible Metaverse Unicorn?

Those in Crypto may not have heard of Roblox, but those in the US who have kids most certainly have.  Roblox has grown in the youth culture over the past decade with a few other first-person kids’ games that also encourage community.  But is this a metaverse if there is no crypto involved?  Or do the in-game currencies qualify as the first cryptocurrencies since Roblox pre-dates bitcoin by at least five years.

Roblox Isn’t Only For Your Kids.

Roblox, created by the Roblox Corporation in 2004 and represented on the stock exchange as RBLX, is far more than just a game my kids and their friends play.  Currently, it acts as a metaverse complete with two in-game currencies. The more developed currency is called Robux, and the other my kids just call “coins.”  I like this platform as a contender because more than half of all American children play this game, and the lindy effect is evident since this platform has been around forever (in technical terms.)

The pandemic seems to have built this game into the kids’ social circles, just like it ingrained Tik Tok and other online platforms.  That’s what being stuck indoors for months does to kids, I guess.  But the popularity of Roblox has outlived the COVID-era and continues to infiltrate bedrooms as my kids and their friends meet on facetime and play.  Parents like me have bought many Robux so our kids can play, and it’s not likely to stop soon because, as my daughter says, “only the good stuff is buyable with Robux.”

There is another in-game currency with no outside impact that you “earn” in the game— my daughter calls it “coins.”  In the game, coins give staying power as players earn them for playing and use them on entry-level items and consumables. Yes, you can buy and eat as many donuts as you want.

The Lua Programming Language

Roblox is built with the Lua programming language. Many developers use this language to create mini-games, build add-ons to the core Roblox game, and build and sell in-game items like clothing, props, and food.  Many developers make their living advancing Roblox because the money generated at this level could be substantial.  In this way, the outcome is just like the metaverses of the crypto world.  If you watch someone playing Roblox, it looks like a true metaverse without the crypto spin or hype.

I don’t remember where I heard it, but I believe Roblox is attempting to integrate into the Matic ecosystem.  If this is true, this move could be significant because the amount of users playing on this platform is crazy.  If they attempt to introduce a proper crypto asset, it will be a BUY from the beginning in my book.  This seems like a largely unknown entity in the crypto metaverse that may take the space by storm.

Roblox has its origins in the STEM curriculum and became a metaverse before the Bitcoin white paper was even a gleam in the eye of Satoshi—even before metaverse was a popular descriptive term.

Other Players?

Hold aside the company formerly known as Facebook for a moment.  I maintain Roblox as a sleeping giant because it has a FAR larger user base than MANA or SAND, which appear to be the current leaders in crypto-based metaverses.  Sandbox (SAND) was recently celebrating its 2 millionth registered user, and Decentraland (MANA) has about 800,000 users. Comparatively, half of all kids in the USA—a conservative 35 million—use Roblox.

The thing about Roblox is I don’t yet know if there is a push within Roblox to develop into the Crypto space, but I’d bet they are at least talking about it.  At this time, the only way to gain access to Roblox is a good old stock market play— just buy RBLX. However, I don’t know much about the stock market.  But if I were a betting man, I’d bank on the Roblox stock growing many multiples over these next few years because it has already shown upward momentum.  There is a real risk that Roblox will ignore the crypto metaverse and suffer long-term.

Take a look at this—a year ago, Roblox’s market cap peaked at 77 billion dollars, whereas at that time SAND was valued at 2 billion dollars and MANA just over 1.3 Billion for its market cap.

Today, SAND’s market cap expanded to just over 3 billion dollars, and MANA is only a tiny bit larger at 1.5 Billion. Roblox has fallen drastically from $134 per share to only $43 per share, dropping RBLX’s market cap to 25 billion.

Again, I Don’t Know Stocks… but…

This might be a prime time to buy RBLX at a discount, but this isn’t financial advice, and I don’t know much about the traditional stock market.  My main questions regarding the stock market are the manipulations in large dark trading pools.  I can’t guarantee that RBLX wasn’t made to rise and fall by market makers hiding behind anonymity or if it was a natural growth and descent, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

I do know that the investment folks with a lot of wealth pulled their liquidity from “growth assets” and put them into “value assets” near the end of 2021. In my mind, RBLX most likely fell because Roblox is genuinely a “growth asset.”

I have no idea what will happen in the short term, but I have a good feeling this is a solid long-term stock. Once the metaverses get to the point of integration, it seems that Roblox has the users that will funnel into the other platforms, thus making Roblox an excellent entry for those kids who don’t yet understand crypto.  This situation may position Roblox as the user provider to a future, much more developed, crypto multiverse ecosystem.  Roblox’s easy-to-use interface may ease unlikely folks into a multiverse.

Who knows, maybe parents will join eventually 😉

The evidence supports that the real player in this industry has survived in a non-crypto world first, have the users locked and loaded, and provides enough value on its own.  Roblox is already listed in the US stock market and is hopefully looking to expand into crypto.  This platform has enticed massive amounts of young folks to be lifelong Roblox lovers and potential crypto enthusiasts of the future.