What is The Sandbox?

Last edit: February 27, 2023
Author: Coinranking
Reading time: 12 minutes

Sandbox is a bit like Minecraft but with some extra special features that’s worth exploring.

It was launched in 2012 and was a wildly popular franchise. They had over 40 million downloads and over 70 million worlds even before the game incorporated the Ethereum blockchain.

The gist of the game is to allow users to be virtual real estate moguls by buying, owning and monetising land and assets within the game. This is made possible by using the metaverse concept and allowing users to create passive income from owning LAND on the Sandbox.

Sandbox currently has over 60 partnerships with huge brands like Smurf, Shaun the Sheep and Dapper Labs (Crypto Kitties) and is still growing.

Key Points

A blockchain game similar to Minecraft but with real life income opportunities.
Sandbox is disrupting the traditional gaming market by incorporating blockchain technology.
There are three types of tokens which include ASSETS, LAND and SAND.

Challenging The Traditional Gaming Market

Ownership

In traditional games like Minecraft or Roblox, the game tends to limit creator rights and ownerships. Anything created in the game is owned by the company and not the player.

In Sandbox, the game creations are owned by the creator and can be sold or traded. This is achievable with the use of NFTs.

Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs ) also allow the creation to be traced back to the original creator.

Currency

Traditional games only accept fiat currency and they don't accept micropayments. This also allows users to be vulnerable to credit card fraud.

In contrast, Sandbox allows payments in the SAND token which allows payments to be peer to peer removing the need for a credit card or middleman like the bank.

The Fantastic Four Tokens

Sandbox has four tokens pretty much anyone can buy or choose to invest in. The three tokens are LANDs, SANDs, GEMs and there are ASSETs.

LAND

This token is a piece of digital real estate within the Sandbox game. This is where players can buy and build their personalized experiences on. Each LAND is unique as it is sold as an NFT and it is sold as a 96x96 piece.

On the Sandbox, there will only be 166,464 LANDs available. Players can also combine multiple LANDs to form estates which can host larger events or games.

If you want to be larger, two players can form a district but this is subject to some conditions.

On LAND, players can do different things. This can include playing and creating games or even earning tokens in SAND by monetising your experiences and games and charging visitors a fee.

Players can host contests or events on their LAND and charge participants.

LAND owners can also participate in governance to determine the future plans of Sandbox.

ASSET

An ASSET is a creation that could be described in three different categories which include an entity like a tree or dragon, an equipment like a hammer and a block which can be used to host experiences.

An asset that is created using the VoxEdit feature can later be uploaded to the blockchain as an ERC-11553 token.

ASSETs have unique attributes which include scarcities, tiers and rarities. GEMs are used to determine the value of both when the creator assigns GEMs to an NFT.

GEMs

GEMs are scarce in the Sandbox metaverse and rewarded for staking SAND or LAND.

These ERC-20 utility tokens are burnt on usage to determine an ASSET’s attributes which defines the stats of your ASSETs. One GEM can provide 25 attributes.

Thus, the more GEMs burnt, the higher the attributes and the more value your ASSETs have.

There are different kinds of GEMs which include Power, Defense, Speed , Magic and Luck.

SAND

What are SAND tokens used for? SANDs are ERC-20 tokens that are often associated with the Sandbox. These tokens help facilitate transactions on the marketplace like purchasing LAND or ASSETs. You can also stake it as part of the governance decision making.

Sandbox 3-in-1 Features

VoxEdit

The VoxEdit allows players to use their creativity to create and animate their 3D creations that can be used in the games. This is different from traditional games where characters are created by the developers rather than the players. Players can later upload their creations as ASSETs to the marketplace as an NFT to be sold or even use them on their LAND.

Sandbox Marketplace

The Sandbox marketplace is the place where you can buy your ASSETs, GEMs or LAND. Think of the marketplace as an online e-commerce store for everything you would need to enrich your Sandbox experience.

Gamemaker

This feature allows anyone to create gaming experiences within Sandbox without any need for coding. This is designed to allow just about anyone regardless of experience to create their personalized games.

The program is free to use but you will need to own some LAND so that the game can be placed on it.

Passive Income Opportunities for LAND Owners

Having LAND tokens on the Sandbox could be just as rewarding as owning physical land. Sometimes, even better!

Hosting

Having LAND allows you to host experiences like games, movie nights and even invite celebrities for a performance event.

Players can do this by creating the experiences through the Gamemaker feature and then publish it on the LAND they own.

These experiences can be charged a fee for onlooking virtual people who would want to experience what your LAND can offer.

Renting

Just like in the real world, LAND owners can rent out their land to other players who may have missed out their chance in grabbing the LAND in initial sales.

Prices for LAND are not cheap and thus, renting them out is an easy way to make passive income without having to host any experiences.

Sell Ad Space

If your land is in a prime location on the Sandbox, consider using the billboard-like features to feature ads. Businesses have already been actively looking for ad space within the virtual world to advertise on.

Have your own business? You can even self promote, because why not?

Selling Asset NFTs

When you host an experience on your LAND, you can set requirements for entry such as owning an ASSET.

This way, you can create custom NFT ASSETs and make it a requirement for people to buy it if they wish to experience your game or event.

Selling LAND

LAND prices are skyrocketing and so, if you own LAND you can always flip it for a larger profit in the future.

SAND vs. MANA

Sandbox has a competitor and that is Decentraland. Both blockchain- based metaverses are focused around creating virtual worlds with land plots that can be sold, traded and bought.

However, Sandbox also incorporates a play-to-earn feature within their virtual world which could be a significant advantage.

Plots of Land

Decentraland has 90601 plots of land while the Sandbox has 166,464 plots of land. In terms of real estate, Decentraland has only estates and districts while Sandbox has land, estates and districts.

Tokens

In terms of the tokens, Decentraland has three types of tokens which are MANA, its governance token, LAND and WEAR. Sandbox on the other hand has four types of tokens namely SAND, GEM, LAND and ASSETs.

Wallet

Decentraland uses an Ethereum blockchain but also incorporates the use of Walletconnect to allow Polygon users to join in. Sandbox only allows ERC-20 compatible wallets.

Land Purchase

Users can purchase LAND tokens of Decentraland only within the platform while Sandbox LAND tokens can be purchased on both Sandbox and OpenSea which is a widely recognised NFT platform.

Roadmap

While Decentraland does not seem to have a defined roadmap for future developments, Sandbox has announced plans to migrate to a Polygon NFT layer 2 solution for energy efficiency. Sandbox may also be available for mobile devices soon.

Blockchain Games Enthusiast, Arthur Madrid

There is not much to say about Arthur Madrid as he seems pretty low profile even on the net. Even Sandbox’s official website does not have much information on the founder.

However, some quick browsing through his Linkedin shows that he is pretty experienced in the world of blockchain games and the metaverses.

His posts mainly revolve around events happening with Sandbox and other blockchain events.

Sandbox also talks about their multinational team located across the globe from France to India. The team works globally or in offices and are said to be a huge part of Sandbox’s outstanding progress.

In short, Arthur seems like a simple guy who is just interested in blockchain and hopes to make Sandbox a huge success with his diverse team.

Upcoming Plans For Sandbox

Sandbox is constantly innovating and looking to better their metaverse.

Firstly, decentralization is still in progress and there are hopes to establish a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) to achieve this. Holders of SAND and LAND will later govern the DAO and players will completely own the metaverse.

LAND owners will be happy to know that the metaverse will be progressing for higher quality experiences. There will be more concerts and virtual gaming experiences within the Sandbox.

Sandbox will also be launching a mobile version and look for more partnerships for their platform. The Vox Edit feature will also experience some updates.

How to Buy SAND

SAND is a well known token that can now be bought from nearly any cryptocurrency exchange. Here are just a few crypto exchanges that SAND can be bought from:

Other methods to acquire SAND could also by:

Swapping Ethereum with SAND on Uniswap.
Buying SAND with Simplex.
Receiving SAND through the Sandbox Ambassador Program.
Winning SAND though contests
Earning SAND through a referral program

Once you have the SAND tokens, all you have to do is send them to your Sandbox account and you’re on your way to buying LAND and becoming a real estate mogul. (Virtually of course!)

How To Stake SAND Tokens

Sandbox allows SAND holders to stake SAND into liquidity pools to provide liquidity for traders or people looking to acquire SAND tokens. In return, they will be entitled to rewards from the stake.

There are a few options available when it comes to staking pools:

Final Thoughts on Sandbox (SAND)

Sandbox faces stiff competition from Decentraland and even Roblox. However, there is a good reason for its success.

The Sandbox is a revolutionary metaverse that aims to disrupt traditional gaming platforms like Minecraft by bringing in a real world element.

Virtual real estate is an exciting sector of the metaverse and it seems that Sandbox is leveraging this experience for us.

In contrast, the virtual world is just in its beginning stages and development is still on its way.

There are a lot of improvements that can be made on the Sandbox and it’s great that the developers have a clear roadmap for betterment.