Introduction to The Sandbox (SAND)
Let's provide an introduction to The SandBox metaverse and investigate the basics behind the project
Just picture in your mind a child's huge sandbox filled to the brim with toys and tools to build anything your imagination can envision, including fantastic new buildings, games, and new worlds to explore. Well folks, that's The Sandbox.
The Sandbox has been around for over eight years in non-cryptocurrency format on iOS and Android. This version of The Sandbox has 40 million downloads and is viral among its community.
So with the advent of cryptocurrency and its current rise in popularity, it was only a matter of time until the blocky gaming characters melded with the blockchain.
The result is games built on the blockchain, plus huge project communities, plus a mechanism to monetize gaming experiences. This is readily apparent in The Sandbox.
The Sandbox provides its own metaverse where users not only create their own imaginative virtual world, the user completely owns it. That's correct, The Sandbox is decentralized, meaning all of a users creations are owned by the user.
This concept of ownership furthers the developers forward vision to construct a functional metaverse (ecosystem) powered by its own currency, SAND
What is SAND?:
The SAND token is critical in the operation of The Sandbox ecosystem.
SAND is the native utility token in The Sandbox metaverse. It is built on Ethereum as an ERC-20 utility token.
The SAND token is utilized in the ecosystem for all essential operations such as:
For players
- playing games present in the metaverse;
- purchasing any necessary equipment;
- customizing avatars.
For creators
- purchasing LAND and ASSETs;
- collecting from other users utilization of creator's creations;
- for buying and selling ASSETs on the marketplace.
But the SAND token is not limited to just this utility. It is also a governance token as well as a token that may be staked for passive income.
What is LAND?
LAND is the virtual real estate upon which ASSETs are built in The Sandbox ecosystem. There is a limited number of LAND available in this metaverse.
Each LAND is represented by a corresponding NFT on the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC721 token. These NFTs are tradeable on the market and the creating user has complete custody over it.
The Sandbox, Web 3.0, and Big Tech
Big Tech's entry into the metaverse arena poses a severe threat to a fully decentralized metaverse.
Sebastien Borget, The Sandbox co-founder and CEO, believes the main consideration at present is defending the metaverse against forays by Big Tech. And this goes beyond mere competition reaching into the core goals of metaverse development.
Borget, speaking about Big Tech and the metaverse stated:
We don’t think those companies can build something truly fun that’s catered to the users because they’ve been so focused on their key business model and how to satisfy shareholders rather than satisfy users who own the asset, who own the governance of their own platform.
[Ye, J. Big Tech threatens open, blockchain-based metaverse, says The Sandbox founder. (Accessed December 15, 2021)].
According to Borget, “our goal is to build an open metaverse that can stand against what we call competition that is the Web 2.0 metaverses” [Id.].