Bitbns Academy ➜ Tokens Info ➜ What is the Sandbox?

What is the Sandbox?

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The Sandbox is a virtual world that is based on the Ethereum blockchain, where players have the opportunity to build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences using SAND, the ecosystem’s native utility token. It is used as the basis for all transactions and interactions within the gaming ecosystem. SAND can be earned by playing games and contests in The Sandbox or can be bought on cryptocurrency exchanges such as Bitbns.

The Sandbox can also be defined as a play-to-earn game that combines blockchain technology, DeFi, and NFTs in a 3D metaverse. Players can monetize their gaming experience in the form of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), upload them to the marketplace, and integrate them into games via Game Maker.

Where did it all start?

Sandbox was launched in 2011 by Pixowl. Initially, it was a mobile gaming platform to compete with Minecraft. However, it was remarkably successful with more than 40 million downloads across the globe and in 2018, the co-founders Arthur Madrid and Sebastien Borget aimed to explore the potential of developing a 3D metaverse on the blockchain. They seek to allow users to truly attain ownership of their creations in the form of NFTs and earn rewards while participating in the ecosystem.

The revamped Sandbox project was released in 2020 and is easily one of the fastest-growing games in the crypto world.

In November 2021, The Sandbox successfully secured funding of $93 million from investors including SoftBank, a well-established Japanese mobile giant. In addition, the game attracted more than 50 partnerships such as Atari, a famous gaming company, CryptoKitties, The Walking Dead, hip-hop star Snoop Dogg, Shaun the Sheep and Matic Network.

Creation of metaverses for enhanced gaming experiences is an emerging trend and the Sandbox is undoubtedly one of the leaders. Ever since Facebook rebranded as “Meta”, metaverse ecosystems have been all the rage and now we know the reason, as to why.

What does the Sandbox do & how?

Behind The Sandbox

The Sandbox focuses on user-generated content, the Sandbox creates a metaverse of players who contribute to the platform’s development.

However, it is the core team and the Foundation behind the ecosystem that keeps the Sandbox intact.

The leading core team consists of:

Arthur Madrid, Co-founder and CEO at Pixowl, Board Member at Animoca Brands.
Sebastien Borget, Co-founder and COO at Pixowl.
Lucas Shrewsberry, CTO at Pixowl.
Marcelo Santurio, CFO at Pixowl.

The Foundation

The Foundation supports The Sandbox and its ecosystem by offering grants to incentivize high quality content and game production on the platform. to produce NFTs. So far, the Foundation has supported over 18 projects and distributed grants to 100 artists for the production of NFTs.

The Sandbox ecosystem employs a fee capture model, where 5% of the overall transacted value is collected from marketplace transaction fees. The remaining 95% of the transacted value is collected from LAND sales, premium NFT sales, and subscription services.

A total of 26.50% of all SAND transaction volume goes back into the Foundation.

It is calculated as: 5% x 50% + 95% x 25% = 26.50%

The overall valuation of the metaverse develops via the valuation of all games funded by the Foundation, which in turn creates a virtuous circle to enable funding games of a larger scale.

Sandbox’s ecosystem

VoxEdit: VoxEdit, simply put is a free software used for 3D Voxel modelling (Voxels are square 3D pixels that are visually similar to lego blocks), which allows users to create and animate 3D objects such as people, animals, foliage, and tools, and export them into The Sandbox marketplace to become game ASSETS or NFTs.

Game Maker: Game Maker allows users to build and test their unique 3D games within the Sandbox metaverse, this requires no coding knowledge and is simple to use. Users can design as well as organize several elements and objects, including the NFTs created using VoxEdit, in an environment called LAND.

The Marketplace: The Sandbox’s marketplace facilitates a platform for users to upload, publish, and trade their creations (ASSETS) made using VoxEdit with SAND, the ecosystem’s native utility token. The ASSETS acquired can then be incorporated into LAND using Game Maker to create unique games. These NFTs can be entities, buildings, wearables, and more, all of which can be used within The Sandbox.

Note that the Sandbox uses various tokens in its ecosystem for players to interact with the platform, including SAND, LAND, and ASSETS.

Technical Infrastructure

ASSETS

ASSETS are the NFTs generated by users using VoxEdit. These voel assets can be utilized in the game in numerous ways like environmental assets or elements associated with an avatar.

GEM and CATALYST indicate the tier, scarcity, and attributes of the ASSET. CATALYST adds empty sockets to the NFTs that can be filled with GEMs. Greater the quality of the CATALYST, the greater number of sockets the player’s ASSET will be allotted with.

LAND

LAND is a virtual piece of real estate found within The Sandbox. It is an unique ERC-721 token which is purchased by the players to build their own version of games on it with ASSETS using the Game Maker tool. Multiple LANDs can be combined to make an ESTATE. There are a total of 166,464 LANDs in The Sandbox which can be bought with SAND and Ether (ETH) through public LAND sales. Tap here to know more.

Besides this, LAND can also be bought from other users on The Sandbox Marketplace and NFT platforms like OpenSea, but they are comparatively more expensive.

SAND

SAND is essentially an ERC-20 token with a total supply of 3 billion SAND and a circulating supply of 920 Million SAND coins.

It is a native utility & governance token, it is utilized to execute any type of transaction and interaction within The Sandbox ecosystem. As a result, players are required to hold SAND to play the game, customize their avatars, buy LANDs, or trade ASSETS on the Sandbox Marketplace.

Players holding SAND can propose and vote on changes to the platform via a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) structure.

Besides this, holders can stake SAND within the game to earn rewards, including a share in the revenue from all transactions in the form of SAND tokens. Another significant use is that staking SAND can increase the chance of finding valuable GEMs and CATALYSTs, which are the game resources required for creating ASSETS with greater levels of rarity.

SAND Token Allocation

SAND can be earned by playing different games and contests in The Sandbox or purchased on cryptocurrency exchanges like Bitbns. Click here to trade.

So far, SAND has achieved an all-time high of $8.40 with an increase of 16890.5% in 2021 alone. The Sandbox is crossing boundaries and is headed to greater heights as a metaverse ecosystem.

Where is the Sandbox headed?

After surpassing pre-determined milestones time and again, 2022 will most likely witness the launch of the co-building mode of Game Maker. Sandbox also aims to enable games on consoles this year.