This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.
They say the metaverse is dead, but it’s not so! It’s just that some are deader than others.
Social media platforms often operate in their own Bizarro Worlds. Boomer-brand conspiracies are hot on Facebook, street interviews are huge on Instagram and TikTok’s brain is hardwired for viral earworms spread via super-basic dance choreography.
X and Truth Social had much less in common when Trump launched the latter in February 2022, Trump initially formed Trump Media & Technology Group one month after he was banned from Facebook and Twitter over the Capitol attack on Jan. 6.
Trump was quickly unbanned from Twitter following Musk’s buyout and rebranding to X, but Truth Social enjoyed at least nine months of carving out its own reality.
Helping delineate the two were the cavalcade of culture warriors who’d been banned by the former Twitter administration. They now had a cozy place on Truth Social, where they could mosey on from Gab and Parler.
That was years ago and X is a “freer” place than it was before. Still, DJT isn’t doing too poorly these days. You might’ve already heard that Trump Media & Technology Group stock (DJT) could now be valued higher than X.
APE was launched after the stock, so it’s been moved ahead by three months to compensate
That was indeed the case earlier this week, when DJT hit a new record high market cap of over $10 billion, having quadrupled its share price since bottoming out at the end of September.
Fidelity recently valued X Holdings at $9.4 billion but DJT has since slipped to under $7.1 billion.
Here’s something you haven’t heard: Trump Media & Technology Group stock and apecoin (APE) have experienced almost exactly the same market reaction.
The chart above plots APE, in blue, against Trump Media stock, in orange, which initially traded under DWAC in a SPAC-fueled IPO.
Notice that the two closely track each other — up until the first live demo of Yuga Labs’ BAYC metaverse, Otherside, in July 2022 (October on the chart), after which APE began to sink.
Trump Media meanwhile stock stabilized, before rocketing after Florida governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the Republican nominee race in January. From there, it’s been a rocky ride.
Now, all we need is for apecoin to find its own DeSantis moment, and we’ve got a shot at getting the (actual) metaverses back on track.
Read the full article here
