With almost 1M active monthly users and over 40M installs to date, The Sandbox is one of the leading metaverse-like projects in the web3 space.
A decade ago, what started as a mobile game has gradually become an ecosystem with interconnected games, experiences, and virtual spaces. The Sandbox breaks the barriers of traditional gaming by giving users total ownership of their own in-world assets. By enabling creators to design, share, and monetize their creations and experiences, The Sandbox fuels the growth of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), virtual land ownership, and community-designed gaming experiences and makes it possible for everybody to win in the circular economy of the Sandbox.
The Sandbox History
The Sandbox began in 2012 as a play-to-earn game for iOS and Android designed by Pixowl, who had initially hired Onimatrix to adapt his personal project The Sandbox to play on tablet and mobile devices. The year 2018 marked a new milestone for the project when Animoca Brands bought it and adapted it to become a more united, community-driven, and interconnected virtual world, fully in 3D, with unique multiplayer and multi-platform game experiences and rewards.
How does The Sandbox work?
The Sandbox ecosystem is based on Ethereum blockchain, thus transforming the traditional gaming market where one entity is the absolute owner and the rights of users and creators are limited. Thanks to blockchain technology, The Sandbox is an entirely decentralized, 3D user-generated content platform that enables true digital ownership, immutability, and monetization of assets.
“We believe that genuine digital ownership and cross-platform operability — which, until the rise of blockchain, have mostly been false promises — will drive significant demand for digital products and services and grow what we think will evolve into a significant new market for digital goods based on true ownership (a market that did not even exist just a few years ago)” said Yat Siu, CEO of Animoca Brands.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are an essential element of The Sandbox ecosystem. Creators are encouraged to design their own in-world assets and store them as NFTs to monetize using the platform’s main utility token, SAND.
The platform uses a few tokens stored on Ethereum with different token standards:
SAND, the most common token that uses the ERC-20 standard. It is used to facilitate all transactions and interactions. With this token, you can do pretty much anything on The Sandbox, from playing games and purchasing equipment to creating 3D virtual assets and selling them on the marketplace. SAND tokens can be staked to generate even more SAND, including other tokens like ASSETS, LAND, CATALYSTS, and GEMS.
ASSETS are 3D voxel-based creations like people, digital wearables, and in-game assets that use the ERC115 standard. ASSETS can be turned into NFTs with the ERC-721 standard.
LAND tokens give ownership rights to virtual real estate in the ecosystem where owners can house events and ASSETS. LAND tokens are NFTs based on the ERC721 standard.
CATALYSTS are tokens based on the ERC20 standard that define the level of scarcity of the assets. They can make your assets more powerful.
GEMS are ERC-20 tokens that get burned on usage. Gems can be purchased from other players or by staking SAND.
The Sandbox product portfolio is comprised of three tools:
VoxEdit – a 3d voxel modeling software where creators can build and animate 3d voxel-based assets like animals, people, vehicles, digital wearables, and more. These assets can be turned into NFTs and traded on the Sandbox Marketplace.
The Sandbox Marketplace – the venue where all creators can sell their virtual asset creations to other users in the virtual ecosystem only after uploading them into the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS).
The Sandbox Game Maker – a straightforward program that allows developers with no coding skills to create 3d games and experiences for free.
How to join The Sandbox metaverse?
It is very easy to join The Sandbox metaverse. To do so, you will need to go through four steps:
Step One – Connect your cryptowallet
The first thing you will need to do is to connect your crypto wallet. It is not mandatory to have any crypto tokens in your wallet. This is only for registration purposes and to ensure you have a safe place where you can store all your future earnings.
Step Two – Customize your avatar
This is the fun part of the registration process. You will have to create your avatar. This step will take most of your time as you’re given so many choices to customize different body parts: skin, hair, clothes, and more.
Step Three – Navigate the map
You will be presented with a map to navigate the various plots of digital land inside The Sandbox. Many of them will be ‘experiences’ created by the players themselves. You can pick whichever catches your interest.
Step Four – Download the free Sandbox client software
In order to complete the quests, you will have to download the Sandbox client software, which is absolutely free. However, there is a set of requirements to ensure a smooth and efficient experience:
64-bit processor;
Memory: 4 GB RAM;
OS: Windows 7 (or higher);
Storage: 2 GB available;
Graphics: 512 MB.
Is The Sandbox game free to play?
Playing The Sandbox game is absolutely free, but owning a digital plot of land on it is not.
Most of the games on the Sandbox platform are free-to-play (F2P), although some might charge a minimal fee. Whether the game is free or not is totally up to the designer of the game. By playing games on The Sandbox, you can earn SAND, which will allow you to purchase ASSETS, avatars, digital wearables, and even access certain non-free games.
Can SAND reach $100?
At the moment of writing, 1 SAND is equal to $0.893. Currently, there are 1.5 bn tokens in circulation out of a total supply of 3 bn. The current token market stands at 1.3 bn.
According to PricePrediction, by 2030, the token could be trading at $20.25 before reaching the highest mark of $29.42 in 2031. On the other side of the spectrum, CaptainAltCoin predicts the price in 2030 could reach $9.23. Since the cryptocurrency market is highly volatile, it is almost impossible to predict the price of SAND, especially in the long run. Therefore, no algorithms or analysts could possibly give an accurate prediction.
Can you make money with The Sandbox?
There are several ways you can make money with The Sandbox:
- Create ASSETS and sell them on The Sandbox Marketplace
The Sandbox allows players to create their own voxel-based ASSETS using its VoxEdit tool and sell them on its marketplace in exchange for SAND. The prices can range from a few SAND to a thousand.
- Purchase LAND, improve it, and sell it
With The Sandbox, you can purchase LAND, improve it, add interactive experiences and resell it on the platform’s marketplace.
- Create experiences on LAND and monetize them
The Game Maker software allows any interested user with no coding skills to create games absolutely for free. These games can be published on LANDs, and you can charge a minimal SAND fee from the players interested in playing your game.
- Rent your LAND
If you’re the owner of a plot of land on The Sandbox, you can make a passive income by renting your LAND to game creators who want to publish their games without owning their own LAND. The feature is under development.
Does The Sandbox have a future?
The Sandbox is constantly evolving and has no intention of ever standing still. As the interest in the metaverse is growing, we see more brands commit to the platform to gain visibility and establish a virtual place to engage with their audiences.
The luxury brand Gucci is the first to make a major move into the metaverse by building its own virtual world called Gucci Vault Land, “an experimental safe for NFTs, vintage items, and emerging creators.”
Brands like Nike and Adidas are already setting up virtual stores on the Sandbox.
The Warner Music Group also made the headlines with its music-themed amusement park to be launched soon, which could bring big stars like Dua Lipa and Ed Sheeran into the metaverse world, among others.
The Sandbox already has 165 partnerships in the form of virtual concerts with such big names as Deadmau5, Snoop Dogg. And Snoop Dogg is not new to the metaverse. The famous rapper has already sold a plot of land worth $450,000 in his own virtual world on the Sandbox platform called Snoopverse. And these are just a few of the big headlines in which the name ‘The Sandbox’ is featured.
On another note, the metaverse platform is making big steps to support the growth of the metaverse. The Sandbox has launched a $50M incubating fund, and it aims to fund the development of 30 to 40 small metaverse start-up projects each year over the next three years.
Seeing this, the answer is YES; The Sandbox most definitely has a bright future ahead. The platform is already changing the dynamics among players, creators, and gaming platforms. Always at the forefront of any developments in the metaverse, The Sandbox platform has set the course for that one interconnected metaverse the world dreams of, and it won’t stop until it’s there.
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