What is The Sandbox?

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sunflowercorporation

6 min readJun 7, 2022

Metaverse firm The Sandbox is looking to raise $400 million at a valuation of more than $4 billion in April 2022. Read why this project is important to the crypto industry and how you can earn in the gameplay.

The Sandbox is a virtual sandbox world similar to Minecraft. Users can develop a virtual world, create objects, move around and participate in mini-games.

The project is built on the Ethereum blockchain. Players own pieces of the metaverse, which are non-fungible LAND tokens. Users create virtual world objects represented as NFTs. Digital real estate and objects are traded on The Sandbox Marketplace. Here you can use the SAND utility-token for payments and interaction with the metaverse.

Who created The Sandbox and when?

Arthur Madrid and Sebastien Borget founded The Sandbox in 2011. The studio Pixowl Inc. developed the game’s predecessor. Before that, Madrid worked at Eurogroup Consulting France, and Borget was a project manager at 1-Click Media.

The game was introduced in 2012 for the iOS and later for Android. Since 2015, Sandbox Evolution was released for mobile devices. Both products are the predecessors of the current solution.

In 2018, Animoca Brands acquired the studio Pixowl Inc. The developers proposed a modern implementation of a virtual universe built on the blockchain. The project was announced at the Pocket Gamer Connect conference.

The trading floor appeared on the platform in 2020. The metaverse has been available for gameplay since 2021. Now the project is still at the finalization stage, and some of the features are not yet available.

The platform is growing rapidly thanks to partners. The Sandbox cooperates with famous companies, such as Adidas and Atari, and invites celebrities to join advertising campaigns. For example, Snoop Dogg:

In August 2020, The Sandbox raised funds through Binance Launchpad.
In November 2021, the platform raised $93 million from Japan’s SoftBank and other investors.
The Sandbox is in talks with new investors to raise $400 million in April 2022.

How does The Sandbox Metaworld work?

Users move through the virtual world and participate in mini-games. They shape the universe and fill it with objects. They are content creators because the platform gives them total freedom of action.

The metaverse is housed in a 408 by 408 area, with a total of 166,464 plots. Users buy properties with pre-created objects. Only owners can add content and edit it.

A single 1x1 plot of LAND is 96 metres in width by 96 metres in length, making it a perfect square. They are also 128 metres in height.The metaverse consists of voxels — volumetric pixels. In the virtual world, 1 metre is the equivalent of 32x32x32 voxels.

There are properties of different sizes:

What can you do in The Sandbox?

The Sandbox is a GameFi project. So, you can earn as part of the gameplay.

The first step is registration. Connect your Web3 Wallet, and enter your username and email address. You can use a Google, Facebook or Twitter account. Each participant has an avatar. You can use a ready-made character or create your own.

The platform gives a lot of opportunities to develop the user’s creativity. Players can create virtual objects, build buildings or change the topography of the areas they own.

The platform provides two solutions to develop the metaverse.

1. VoxEdit is a 3D modeling program for creating objects from voxels. The elements are assembled into a single composition of colorful cubes like a LEGO constructor. The program is designed to realize static and animated objects.You can use the metaverse tools to create plants, animals, objects and structures, and to modify avatars, weapons, and clothing. Created objects are non-fungible tokens, so you can export them to a marketplace. Many users make money by selling voxel objects.

2. Game Maker is a solution for filling the metaverse, implementing mini-games and applications. The tool can work with static and interactive objects.

You don’t need programming skills to use the program. It allows you to work with objects derived from VoxEdit. Users create interactive environments in their own territories. They can share scenarios with community members.

The Sandbox’s metaverse is built from objects represented as NFTs. It is buildings, objects, and items that avatars wear. Objects and plots are traded in The Sandbox Marketplace. When you buy something, you can use it in the metaverse. Game Maker allows you to place objects on your own plots.

Property owners have extra sources of income. They can charge fees to visitors, rent out areas, and make profit from mini-games. The tenant also pays the owners a part of the income from presentations, trainings, and other events held there.

How is the “tokenomics” of The Sandbox structured?

The project uses SAND, LANDs and ASSETS values.

SAND cryptocurrency is an ERC-20 standard utility-token and mean of settlement. SAND is used on the internal marketplace to trade plots and objects. The issuance limit is 3 billion coins. The platform takes a 5% fee for the creation of game objects and scenarios. A part of the fees goes to the development of the platform. SAND stacking is available to users. They receive profit in proportion to the volume of blocked assets. If the user has contributed to the stacking, he has a better chance of finding valuable game resources GEM and CATALYST. These are used to create rare objects.

LANDs are NFTs of the ERC-721 standard. They are plots of the metaverse. They are traded through the transfer of NFT tokens.

The maximum LAND emission matches the number of plots. They can be purchased at public auctions. Trading began in 2019, and most of the plots have already sold out. A list of the auctions held of the 27 rounds of sales is available on the Sandbox Gitbook. A total of 166,464 LAND tokens will be available.

The developers plan to create a voting mechanism using SAND and LANDs. Users will be able to manage the project through DAO. They will determine the direction of its development and make decisions on the allocation of funds to improve the platform. According to the roadmap, this feature will be added this year.

User objects of the metaverse consist of voxels and are represented by ASSETS tokens. These are NFTs of the ERC-1155 standard, which includes fixed objects and elements that can be attached to the avatar.

How is The Sandbox developing?

Most of the project’s revenue comes from the sale of the plots. In 2021, revenues totaled $80 million. The sale of plots will continue until 2023.

A mobile version of The Sandbox is due to launch this year. In the future, the developers plan to improve the VoxEdit and Game Maker tools.

Celebrities have a significant influence on the promotion of The Sandbox. In December 2021, the platform sold 189 plots next door to the property of American rapper Snoop Dogg. One of them sold for 70,903 SAND ($458,038 at the time).

Major corporations are planning integration with The Sandbox. Warner Music Group will open a music park there in 2022. The Sandbox wrote about it on its channel on Medium.

Gucci plans to implement an interactive Gucci Vault space at The Sandbox. Purchased designer items will be available for use in the metaverse. Gucci has already purchased the plot.