Blockchain gaming exemplifies adoption.
Indeed, due to blockchain’s many unique features, such as decentralization and the promise of disintermediation, how gaming navigates through the remaining few hurdles will successfully demonstrate to the world the benefits of distributed ledgers.
Increasingly, in gaming, the blockchain is merged for various reasons.
On the one hand, developers are keen to break down barriers and prioritize gamers, translating to lower fees, rewarding time and skills, giving participants more latitude.
If anything, blockchain’s use in providing and supplementing liquidity is unparalleled.
After all, the deployment of blockchain is a no-brainer and pretty straightforward. Gamers are accustomed to tokenization and whatnot. The technology, to some, might be “untested” but remains integral to emerging solutions.
Anyhow, gamers are adaptable.
Over time, it has been vivid to see how they easily merge new technologies.
In the 21st century, gaming and the internet are now more synonymous.
However, the fusion of blockchain introduces new norms and fairness. Consequently, it makes gaming more relatable partly because of the innovation of new structures that rely on public ledgers’ immutability.
Introducing The Sandbox
This is why platforms like the Sandbox are building decentralized virtual worlds for gamers to monetize their experiences. Out of this, players can take their creative skills to the next level and make money.
Specifically, The Sandbox allows players to own a piece of their metaverse, participate in governance, and reward users for their playtime.
The Sandbox anchors on the tenets of blockchain, meaning the platform is decentralized and community-driven.
The project has been an immense success. In fact, The Sandbox and The Sandbox Evolution had over 40 million downloads from iOS and Android mobile platforms. And this was before its publisher moved it to the blockchain.
The developer’s objective, at that time, was to disrupt the monopoly held by giants such as Minecraft and Roblox by introducing actual ownership of gaming assets using NFTs.
From the Ethereum blockchain, The Sandbox players can share and monetize assets. Within The Sandbox, creators can build assets, develop games, and share them with others using two of their primary software: VoxEdit and the Game Maker.
Out of this, their assets can be monetized, earning players the much-needed passive income.
Sandbox Main Products
In all, The Sandbox integrates three products that, in combination, lead to a truly comprehensive user-generated content (UGC) production while safeguarding copyright ownership using smart contracts.
- VoxEdit is a desktop-based 3D voxel modeling and NFT creation package for the creation of various 3D models. For clarity, voxels are 3D pixels that are building blocks of any model. Creators can manipulate them using the software to building beautiful blocks. Afterwards, 3D voxel assets can be submitted to the marketplace as NFT assets.
- The Marketplace is where all NFT assets from VoxEdit are listed for sale. But first, assets are uploaded to the IPFS–a decentralized storage system– before registration on Ethereum as an NFT.
- The Sandbox GameMaker—like VoxEdit—is freely available for gaming developers. Using the software, they can create 3D games without coding skills.
The Sandbox Team
Animoca Brands acquired the project in 2018.
However, the original team comprises executives from around the world.
Some of them are:
- Arthur Madrid was the CEO and founder of The Sandbox. He’s a long-term social-gaming entrepreneur who now sits as a board member at Animoca Brands.
- Sebastien Borget was the COO and the co-founder of The Sandbox. He’s vocal about the opportunities that NFTs can bring to gaming.
- Marcelo Santurio was the CFO with over 20 years in gaming, finance, and technology.
- Pablo Iglesias was the brain behind the Sandbox Game.
- Lucas Shrewsbury was the CTO with prior experience at Gameloft, where he held the same position.
Some advisors included:
- Yat Siu, who is the CEO of the Animoca Brands
- Mikhael Naayem, the Chief Business Officer at Cryptokitties and Axiom Zen.
- Alexis Bonte, an Angel Investor
The Sandbox Tokenomics and Market Performance
The Sandbox metaverse is interactive and vibrant, consisting of players, developers, creators, and curators. Therefore, to create a circular ecosystem suitable for each appendage, creators launched four different types of tokens.
They are:
- The SAND ERC-20 utility token that’s also useful in governance, staking, fee payment, curation, and access to the platform. For instance, creators who want to sell their assets only receive SAND tokens in exchange.
- ASSETs rely on the ERC-1155 standard and are user-generated content (UGC). They listed on the Marketplace primarily serving as the building blocks of The Sandbox Game Maker.
- LAND is an ERC-721 token that represents a piece of digital land in the Sandbox metaverse. This parcel can either be land—94m by 94m in the gaming world, or estate, which is a combination of several lands. Their total number is capped at 166,464. To engage with Sandbox, a player needs to purchase LAND. This permits them to populate their portion with games and any other interactive experience they wish to launch.
- Gem and Catalysts are two other ERC-20 tokens that were recently introduced. Their role is to define tiers, attributes, and scarcity of ASSETs. Catalysts are burnt on use. Empty sockets left on an ASSET are filled with Gems—which define attributes. The more sockets, therefore, the higher the quality of the ASSET.
Gamers/users can monetize their skills by:
- Creating NFT assets and selling them on the marketplace for SAND tokens
- Owning LAND tokens which they can rent out or populate by creating different immersive user experiences.
- Building games on The GameMaker on the digital metaverse, LANDs.
In total, there are 3 billion SAND tokens. They are distributed as follows:
- 515,277,777 for Seed Sale ($0.0036/SAND) raising $1.855 million
- 120 million as Strategic Sale ($0.05/SAND), raising $600k
- 360 million for the Binance IEO ($0.08/SAND), raising $3 million
According to trackers, 701,888,415 are in circulation.
As of writing on June 19, SAND had a market cap of around $178 million.
Participants of SAND IEO, Private Sale, and the Seed Sale have since posted impressive ROI of 30X, 50X, and 70X at spot rates.
SAND tokens are traded at various CEXes and DEXes, including Binance, OKEx, Uniswap, Bibox, Huobi Global, and more.
In general, SAND is liquid and tradable in over 70 unique markets.
At the time of writing, there were over 17.3k different holders of SAND suggesting activity, according to Etherscan.
Sandbox (SAND) Catalysts
- The Sandbox is a circular interactive ecosystem suitable for gamers, developers, curators, and investors. There is a role for everyone who wishes to monetize their skills, a reason why the project commands millions in market cap.
- The SAND token is available on Binance and some of the leading CEXEs. Besides, SAND is available on Uniswap. The level of liquidity, therefore, is decent, making it easy for investors.
- Early investors of SAND posted double-digit ROI. This indicates how on-demand SAND token is and how valuable the ecosystem is.
- The Game Maker Fund supports designers and projects. The more games and assets are released, the higher the demand for SAND. So far, there are over 50 gaming experiences supported by the fund.
- Sandbox’s marketplace is one of the most active occupying the top-5 NFTs sale leader-board.
- The acquisition by Animoca Brands reveals the level of quality of the project, their vision and mission, and their objective of commandeering blockchain gaming using NFTs.
- Sandbox integrates different tokens, subsequently drawing investors from both sides of the divide. NFT fans can purchase LAND and create ASSETs that they can sell in the liquid marketplace.
- Sandbox’s roadmap is evolving. With Animoca Brands in the picture, there is more financial strength and marketing reach. This is catalyzing more development and refinement. Already, the team plans to launch the Sandbox Game in 2021 before enabling games on consoles in 2021.
- Sandbox has already struck a partnership with Polygon. Out of this deal, players will enjoy near-negligible Gas, faster transaction speeds, and more scalability from a revamped user interface.
- Atari, an established gaming giant, has a deal with Sandbox. Atari games will now be showcased in Sandbox’s gaming metaverse. In all, the project has over 50 partners.
- The ongoing liquidity mining program on Uniswap for SAND with a multiplier for LAND owners goes a long way in boosting demand for the token.
- All of Sandbox’s smart contracts are audited and certified by Certik—a blockchain security firm.
- Sandbox has a presence in Japan and South Korea, two of the world’s gaming hubs.
- The project is causing waves for its builders’ creativity. Sandbox was honored by the Architecture Design magazine as one of the Top 100 “Game Changers” in their June edition.