Since Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Facebook would rebrand to Meta, the world has turned its attention towards the metaverse. In particular, one metaverse platform has been gaining a lot of traction – The Sandbox.
Launched in 2011 by Pixowl Inc, The Sandbox is a virtual metaverse where players can build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences in the Ethereum blockchain using NFTs and $SAND, the platform’s utility token. To date, The Sandbox has generated over $144 million in transaction volume.
On Nov 1, The Sandbox announced that they had raised $93 million in Series B funding to develop their metaverse. Among the investors in the round were Animoca Brands, Galaxy Interactive, Liberty City Ventures, Kingsway Capital, LG Technology Ventures, Polygon Studios, and Samsung Next.
On Nov 5, The Sandbox announced a partnership with Meta, in which they will be integrated into Meta’s newly announced social metaverse.
“We are inspired with the potential of the technologies of blockchain games and are ready to promote their further integration into our metaverse for our users. This will let all the users get access to the virtual world of The Sandbox without additional registration and enjoy the gameplay,” said Fabia Seidl, Director of Global Creative Development at Meta.
In light of these announcements, it’s clear that The Sandbox is the metaverse platform to watch. Here’s everything you need to know about The Sandbox, and what they’re doing for The Metaverse.
Brands, LAND and SAND
The Sandbox metaverse is made up of LAND NFTs, pieces of digital real estate in the virtual world where owners can build and create experiences. LAND has been released in rounds since 2020, selling out within hours. Now, LAND sells out within mere minutes. The image below shows a small segment of The Sandbox’s LAND map. To view the full map, visit The Sandbox’s website.
Among the high-profile LAND owners in The Sandbox are Atari, Binance, Bored Ape Yacht Club, CyberKongz, CoinMarketCap, Metakovan and Pranksy, all of whom would be able to build interactive virtual environments or games for the platform.
In March this year, Atari announced that 3D voxelized versions of Atari’s most popular creations will be made available to players, and that they will be creating a virtual theme park with Atari-themed creations, attractions, games, and buildings to explore.
The Sandbox has also formed IP partnerships with over 165 brands to create voxelised versions of their characters and products in the virtual world. These include The Walking Dead, Deadmau5, Shaun The Sheep, Care Bears, Richie Hawtin and Snoop Dogg.
The platform is also building towards a “play-to-earn” model, which allows users to be both – players and creators. With in-game assets as NFTs, users will be able to sell and trade their assets on secondary markets to monetize their creations. The platform’s utility token, SAND, was created to simplify transactions on the platform. Since Facebook’s Meta announcement on 28 October, SAND has seen a 235% increase in value.
Attractive Incentives for Creators
The Sandbox is committed to helping creators develop their brands, and has attractive incentives built into the platform. 95% of the revenue generated by items sold on the platform are given to creators, and 50% of all SAND revenue is reinvested into the Sandbox Foundation. The foundation’s treasury already contains more than $100 million, which will be used to provide grants to creators, artists, and players.
The Next Evolution Of Decentralized Games
The main mission of The Sandbox is to successfully roll out blockchain technology into mass-volume games. With the high profile brand partnerships and their recent entry into Meta’s social metaverse, there’s no doubt that they will be one of the biggest players in the field.
“The Sandbox is a unique platform as it leads blockchain technology into the gaming world. The gaming industry is a huge untapped market when it comes to the adoption of blockchain tech, and our team saw that in 2011. Creating a metaverse where gamers can create and gather assets on the blockchain technology, The Sandbox goes for making a revolution on the market. And it already does,” said Arthur Madrid, CEO of The Sandbox.
The Sandbox is still in development, so it can’t be played just yet. You can however, pre-register your interest on their website, or buy LAND to create your own games and experiences. For creators, the alpha version of their Gamemaker is available now, where you will be able to get a preview of The Sandbox’s environment and begin building for the metaverse.
For more information on The Sandbox, see their whitepaper and FAQs.
