The Sandbox (SAND), a Play to Earn Type Metaverse where Everything is Tokenized

The Sandbox (SAND), a Play to Earn Type Metaverse where Everything is Tokenized

The Sandbox is a community metaverse where players can design, share and live virtual experiences. Based on the Ethereum blockchain, the virtual world of The Sandbox tries to change the dynamics of the video game market with the principle of “Play-to-Earn” and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Let’s explore this metaverse and its different tokens, including SAND.

What is The Sandbox (SAND)?

The Sandbox (SAND) is a game originally designed for smartphones in 2011 by the Pixowl company, founded by two Frenchmen: Arthur Madrid (general manager) and Sébastien Borget (operations director).

The game becomes a real success. Originally intended to rival Minecraft, The Sandbox mobile game has garnered over 40 million downloads worldwide. In the seven years since its creation, more than 70 million worlds have been created in The Sandbox, and its sequel,  The Sandbox Evolution, was released on June 23, 2016.

In 2018, The Sandbox was acquired by Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong-based video game development company. Animoca Brands developed The Sandbox platform with Voxel-style graphics similar to other popular games such as Roblox or Minecraft. Since The Sandbox protocol is based on the blockchain, its users can create an entire universe and its economy within it, taking the game to a level never before explored.

The Sandbox is a Play-to-Earn game, but it’s also so much more than that. It is, above all, a virtual world, one of the most developed metaverses to date, in which players can own, build and monetize virtual assets and gaming experiences through non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The project has partnered with many influencers, brands and artists, including Snoop Dogg, Atari, Ubisoft, Warner Music Group, Binance and Deadmau5.

The Sandbox was developed around a complete economy in order to satisfy both gamers, investors, artists and video game designers. To make this economy work, in addition to its own cryptocurrency, SAND. The Sandbox is built around three main pillars: a marketplace, modelling software, and game design software.

Logo of The Sandbox (SAND)

The Sandbox Metaverse Ecosystem

The ecosystem of The Sandbox metaverse revolves around three axes: a marketplace (Marketplace), creation software (VoxEdit) and development software (Game Maker).

The Sandbox Marketplace

The Sandbox Marketplace was built on the Ethereum blockchain. It supports ERC-721 and ERC-1155 tokens and allows creators and players to exchange NFTs called ASSETs or LANDs for remuneration in SAND tokens, which is the native cryptocurrency of The Sandbox. 5% of sales go to the Sandbox Creator And Game Maker Fund which will fund certain game creators and projects.

VoxEdit

The Sandbox’s modeling software, called VoxEdit, allows you to create ASSETs  (game elements) in voxel (the Voxel is to 3D what the pixel is to the 2D image, i.e. the base brick). VoxEdit, therefore, makes it possible to model and animate the creations according to defined scenarios. During the Alpha and Beta phases, only the 1,000 artists who are part of the Sandbox Creator Fund will have the privilege of being able to put their ASSET on sale.

GameMaker

The third pillar of The Sandbox is the Game Maker. The ASSETs developed by the artists are tested in various gaming experiences. The Game Maker allows users to position and interact with these ASSETs in a piece of LAND  (an ERC-721 token).

You must own a parcel of LAND or partner with an owner in order to publish a game you created there.

Game Maker allows you to define the behaviour of objects according to predefined parameters. No programming knowledge is, therefore, necessary.

Overview of the world of The Sandbox

What are The Sandbox tokens, and what are they used for?

The Sandbox ecosystem revolves around 5 tokens:

  • LAND;
  • SAND;
  • ASSET;
  • GEM;
  • CATALYST.

Focus on the SAND token

The main token of the virtual universe of The Sandbox is the SAND, used to buy the other digital assets linked to this metaverse.

It is an ERC-20 token, which will also be used in the governance of the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) to be set up by The Sandbox in the near future.

It is also possible to stake SAND  in order to earn passive income. This is the only way to get GEM and CATALYST tokens, both of which are used to improve the specifics of game objects, namely ASSETs, by adding attribute points to them at mint time.

The utility of the SAND token is, therefore, multiple:

  • Transactions: artists and players will exchange ASSETs for SAND. The SAND is also necessary to deposit the ASSETs on the market;
  • Governance: SAND will be the governance token for The Sandbox DAO. Holding this token will give you a right to vote for the next developments of the metaverse The Sandbox, but also concerning the use of the funds dedicated to the creators;
  • Staking: you can earn passive income by staking SAND on the platform. It is important to note that staking is the only way to farm GEMs and CATALYSTs, essential for the creation of ASSETs;
  • Fee capture model: 5% of The Sandbox marketplace fees will strengthen its cash flow and foundations;
  • Foundation: It collects funds which are used to develop the economy of the metaverse by offering grants to the most deserving artists and projects.

There will be a total supply of 3 billion SAND. As of this writing (March 2022), approximately 1.089 billion SAND tokens are in circulation. All will be released during the year 2024.

The other tokens of The Sandbox

The LAND is an ERC-721 token. These NFTs represent plots of land from The Sandbox metaverse, measuring 96 m² within the game.

There are a total of 166,464 parcels, and this number is not likely to change. Of these parcels, approximately 16% are for partnerships and rewards, and 10% remain the property of The Sandbox team. You then have two ways to monetize your LAND.

The first way is to create a game experience on your plot. You can then charge players in SAND tokens to participate. Of course, the better your game, the more successful you will become. Beyond quality, you can also offer an experience in which players can earn SAND.

The second way to monetize it will be to rent your LAND  to people who know how to deploy interesting games there. You can thus ensure a regular passive income, just like with a real estate investment.

Adjacent LAND plots can be combined into Estates. These domains can be owned by a single person or a group of owners. The advantage of the Estates is to have greater visibility on the world map of The Sandbox. For this reason, large corporations covet these spaces in order to establish their digital presence on the metaverse. There are four sizes of plots: 3×3, 6×6, 12×12 and 24×24.

Part of The Sandbox metaverse map

Estates owned by more than one person are called Districts. The owners come together in order to develop the district with a common impetus, with self-governance. Eventually, The Sandbox will allow districts to become full-fledged DAOs.

ASSETs are ERC-1155 tokens that allow interaction in The Sandbox. Creators can grant them a certain rarity depending on the number of copies available.

The ASSETs are then classified according to five categories:

  • Wearables: These are anything that will cosmetically personalize your avatar. Each avatar body part can be customized to create a unique avatar;
  • Equipment: these are the ASSETs that provide the functionality to your avatar. As in most games, gear provides upgrades and is stored in an inventory or worn by the player. Classically, we find helmets, swords, shields, gloves, etc. ;
  • Entities: These ASSETs make up the game’s environment and its interactivity. These include, for example, avatars, animals, monsters, landmarks, etc. Creators can program entities to interact with the player according to several predefined scenarios;
  • Art: Here, we enter the pure aesthetics of The Sandbox. ASSETs Art is used to make the game experience more engaging. We are talking here about stylized objects, statues, buildings, etc.;
  • Blocks: These are environmental ASSETs, also cosmetic, but which transform the appearance of the landscape. Water, sand, lava, and grass are some examples.

Some entities from The Sandbox in the form of NFTs

Fundraising for The Sandbox

The Sandbox saw significant growth in 2021: it has over 500,000 registered wallets and 12,000 unique virtual LAND owners and has generated over $144 million in goods sales since its inception.

The creator economy of The Sandbox is growing rapidly, creating new categories of digital jobs such as NFT creators, virtual architects, game creators, and more.

In order to stimulate this economy, The Sandbox announced in November 2021 that it had raised $93 million in its Series B fundraising round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

Other investors in the round include Animoca Brands, True Global Ventures, Galaxy Interactive Blue Pool Capital, LG Technology Ventures, executives from GoldenTree Asset Management, Sound Ventures, Polygon Studios and Samsung Next. Concurrently, Wedbush Securities acted as exclusive placement agent and financial advisor to The Sandbox, and Rubicon Law provided legal counsel to The Sandbox.

“This investment round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2 will help us develop our growth strategy, our operations and the acquisition of players in The Sandbox ecosystem while clearly demonstrating that the most innovative fund in the world believes in Web3 and decentralization as the next major trend,” said Sébastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox.

The Sandbox team and partnerships

The Sandbox team

As we saw at the beginning of this dossier, The Sandbox was founded by two Frenchmen, Arthur Madrid and Sébastien Borget.

You can see on The Sandbox’s website that the team is scattered around the world and brings together more than 200 people.

The main members of The Sandbox team

The Sandbox Partners

Over 165 brands and artists have entered into partnerships to create their virtual world in The Sandbox, including Snoop Dogg, The Walking Dead, Atari, The Smurfs, Deadmau5, and more.

Among the French partners, the Casino and Carrefour groups have already invested in plots on The Sandbox in anticipation of the development of their e-commerce platforms in Web 3. Havas Group also landed in the metaverse at the end of February. The company aims to offer brands an immersive experience. Using virtual and augmented reality technology, the company created “Havas Village” in the metaverse.

High-profile LAND owners in The Sandbox include Binance, Bored Ape Yacht Club, CyberKongz, CoinMarketCap, Pranksy, GrowYourBase, MetaKey, Zepeto, Socios, the Winklevoss twins and Bill Lee of Craft Ventures.

In addition, The Sandbox has added the following luminaries to its advisory team: Guy Oseary, founder of management company Maverick, which counts Madonna, U2 and Bored Ape Yacht Club among its clients; Nicholas Adler, director and brand curator of entertainment icon Snoop Dogg; Thomas Vu, former Executive Producer and Head of Franchise and Creative at Riot Games; and Mathieu Nouzareth, co-founder of FreshPlanet and creator of SongPop.

Part of The Sandbox partners and LANDs in their possession

How to buy SAND tokens?

The SAND token is available on many platforms like Binance, Kraken, Huobi Global, KuCoin, and many more.

Explanations for buying SAND on Binance

  • Register on Binance;
  • You will receive an email and need to click on a link to verify your account;
  • Deposit funds on the platform;
  • Click on the Market menu and look for the pair SAND/USDT;
  • All you have to do is buy SAND for the amount of your choice;
  • Congratulations, you are now in possession of SAND tokens.

Ratings and reviews on The Sandbox and its SAND token

The Sandbox participates in the transition from the historical model of “Free-to-Play” to trying to democratize the new, improved model of ”  Play-to-Earn  “. It is now possible for players to earn money while playing and participating in fun and interactive experiences in the metaverse of The Sandbox.

Moreover, The Sandbox allows the most talented creators to offer themselves a source of passive income by developing new gaming experiences without the need to ensure constant maintenance of the platform.

However, it should be noted that the LAND is not as liquid as the SAND token. Even if the demand is very strong, it is not possible to buy and sell LANDs on a  Binance or Coinbase platform.

Indeed, the interest of a LAND lies above all in its position on the world map. The OpenSea NFTs platform and The Sandbox official marketplace allow every attribute of a LAND to be verified, and most buyers look for buying opportunities on these platforms. It should also be remembered that the sale of a LAND is accompanied by the sale of all the assets attached to it.

If only 1% of  Minecraft and Roblox users tried The Sandbox, nearly 2 million players would enter the metaverse. Be that as it may, the popularity of this metaverse and the value of its SAND token has increased significantly over the course of 2021, and many more announcements and developments are on the way.

The Sandbox Alpha Season 1 rolled out in late 2021, and the experience was a real hit. While the event was open to everyone, exclusive Alpha Pass holders were the only ones able to access the “Play-to-Earn” aspect of the game. Community through Twitter and other contests.

The Sandbox organizes many contests; on its Discord, in particular, they invited everyone to connect to avoid missing anything. If you were one of the lucky few who won an Alpha 1 Pass through these contests, you could have made a nice profit, as these NFTs sold for up to 2.7 ETH in the secondary market, a whopping $11,300 when Season 1 launches on November 29, 2021.

The project’s founders also imagine that the metaverse of The Sandbox could eventually be entirely managed by its community in the form of a decentralized autonomous organization.

The Sandbox is undoubtedly one of the most promising metaverses and the one with all the odds on its side to do well. It remains to be seen if its team will be able to stand up to other tech giants who are looking for them too to create the metaverse of tomorrow.

Disclaimer: The information in this article should not be considered financial advice, and FXCryptoNews articles are intended only to provide educational and general information. Please consult with a financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

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