• Zilliqa announced the Metapolis metaverse-as-a-service offering, the first of its kind in the industry, which will officially launch at an event in Miami on April 2nd.
• The price of ZIL shot up by over 150 percent immediately following the news as the market continues to fully back metaverse projects including The Sandbox and Decentraland.

By now, you have heard just about every other innovative project on the metaverse (including a petaverse, which as it sounds, is a metaverse you access with your pet). But Zilliqa has managed to crack a new dimension – metaverse-as-a-service (MaaS). Known as the Metapolis, it’s expected to launch soon and brings together some of the industry’s best application and gaming studios. The price of ZIL shot up 150 percent following the announcement of Metapolis.

The Zilliqa core development team announced Metapolis on Reddit. “Leading the charge is the groundbreaking, game-changing Metapolis, which will allow Zilliqa to spread its meta-wings across a range of verticals and blockchains,” the announcement read.

To officially launch Metapolis, Zilliqa is holding a VIP event in Miami in a week’s time on April 2nd, complete with live music by world-class DJs and sneak peeks into the MaaS platform. Those who want to attend can win an in-person ticket by writing to the core developers about what excites them the most about Zilliqa and Metapolis. The top five entrants will win a VIP ticket to the event, with the top 10 winning a limited edition NFT.

What’s more, the head of metaverse and NFTs at Zilliqa Sandra Helou will hold a live Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Wednesday, March 30, answering all questions on Metapolis.

Zilliqa also announced that it had partnered with the global talent awards app Agora to promote content creation in Metapolis. Creators can upload content to Agora and those that receive the most votes will have their content featured in Metapolis. There’s also $150,000 in grants and rewards up for grabs.

Commenting on the competition, Helou stated:

We are excited for this partnership as we are able to bring not only creativity to life within the metaverse but also open borderless access for creatives worldwide to connect in the digital world. The partnership between Agora, Zilliqa and Metapolis means we are at the forefront of web 3 innovation.

Around the same time, Zilliqa announced that it emerged as the blockchain of choice for the largest esports brands – RRQ, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and MAD Lions. The blockchain network will partner with these brands to implement Web3 solutions such as NFTs, metaverse activations, and tokenization.

ZIL, the native token for the Zilliqa blockchain was the big gainer from the announcements. The token shot up from $0.047 just before Metapolis was announced to hit $0.1225, surging by over 150 percent in hours. At press time, it has dipped slightly to change hands at $0.1091, giving it a $1.37 billion market cap.