The Sandbox

What is The Sandbox (SAND)?

The Sandbox is a game world that has allowed users to create and trade digital assets since 2011. Boasting over 40 million downloads across iOS and Android between The Sandbox and The Sandbox Evolution, the project team took the Sandbox onto the blockchain in 2018.

The Sandbox is yet another example of how Web3 brings more value to users and creators, allowing The Sandbox players to build and own properties and in-game assets that they can sell for actual currency.

Often brought under the umbrella of Metaverse projects within the blockchain industry, The Sandbox unleashes its users’ creativity via incentivization. It seeks to compete with similar projects in the Web2 mainstream like Minecraft and Roblox.

The Sandbox allows players to shape the gaming world the way they envision it by allowing ownership of land that they can build on. It also allows players to monetize the experiences they provide however they want.

The Sandbox allows users to gain real financial benefits and control over their creations. In this sense, it carries the torch for both Web3 and the Metaverse, as well as play-to-earn (P2E) gaming and GameFi.

When Was The Sandbox Launched?

The Sandbox first launched as a mobile app in 2011. It has the advantage of a loyal following in an environment where many similar games fail to show the same kind of longevity.

Following a failed pitch meeting with Apple, The Sandbox team were able to pivot and release a public beta in March 2012. By the end of that year, The Sandbox made it onto the list of iTunes’ best games in the category of Hidden Gems.

The Sandbox Evolution launched in 2016 as a 2D sequel to the pixel art original. It allowed for much bigger worlds, the use of in-game currency that players could earn, and gave players the ability to create their own games within their worlds.

In 2018, the Pixowl team announced its intention to build the next iteration in full 3D, with multiplayer and multiplatform support. Blockchain would allow players to take greater ownership without central authority, and tokenized game items via NFT technology would allow assets to retain scarcity and authenticity.

Since its migration to blockchain in 2018, The Sandbox’s growth has only increased, aided by the interest in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that it leverages. Many artists have created NFT collections called “voxel collections.” In 2022, Tony Hawk announced a partnership with The Sandbox to build the “world’s biggest skate park,” covering 36 plots of LAND.

The Sandbox has seen plenty of other notable partnerships, including with Snoop Dogg, CryptoKitties, and Atari.

Who are the Founders of The Sandbox?

The Sandbox was founded by Pixowl, created in 2011 by 1-Click Media founder Arthur Madrid and his colleague Sebastien Borget.

Madrid, Pixowl’s CEO, is an experienced entrepreneur. Previously, he worked as a consultant for Eurogroup Consulting France and was also an economics graduate of the Université Paris Dauphine. Madrid sold 1-Click Media to Ipercast before founding Pixowl.

Borget, Pixowl’s COO, is a computer systems networking and telecommunications graduate of the Institut National des Télécommunications. He has worked with Madrid since serving as a project lead at 1-Click Media.

According to a blog post by The Sandbox team, the key to the genesis of the project was Pablo Iglesias, also known by the handle Onimatrix. The Sandbox was his personal project, and, after seeing its potential, Pixowl worked together with Iglesias to bring it to market.

Madrid and Borget retain their positions at Pixowl, but it, and, by extension, The Sandbox, was acquired by Animoca Brands in 2018.

How Does The Sandbox Work?

The Sandbox uses three integrated platforms to power player content creation. It empowers players by giving them copyright ownership of the content they create using smart contracts.

The first of the platforms is called VoxEdit. VoxEdit is a voxel editor which players use to create various 3D objects and animate them. Once players are satisfied with their creations, these objects can be exported into The Sandbox marketplace as in-game ASSETS.

The Sandbox NFT marketplace lets users publish and sell their VoxEdit creations. Each is recorded on the Ethereum blockchain, and ownership is authenticated and can be proven.

Finally, The Sandbox Game Maker allows both developers and novice-level enthusiasts to build 3D skills without needing any coding skills. A visual editor makes games easy to build, and creators can add interactive experiences to the metaverse without incurring any costs.

What Makes The Sandbox Unique?

For one thing, The Sandbox is one of the top, if not the leading, games in the blockchain industry. Its other major competitor, Axie Infinity, had been considered the premier play-to-earn platform on blockchain, but certain vulnerabilities being exploited led to a plummet in the charts in 2022.

Even if it is not the most lucrative platform on the market, The Sandbox is unprecedented in that it is composed purely of user-generated content. The developers have not built out a skeleton for users to build around, or laid down any guidelines. The Sandbox is exactly what it says on the tin, a sandbox for players to create whatever they wish.

This freedom allows users to monetize their content any way they choose, and it breeds incredible flexibility.

Furthermore, voxel games have hitherto been centralized, not allowing artists to receive full value for their creativity. The Sandbox takes a more Web3-aligned, user-centric approach to give creators full ownership via NFT of their voxel creations.

Thus, while the game itself remains centralized, all of the in-game content is player-owned and validated by the blockchain.

How is The Sandbox Network Secured?

The Sandbox utilizes the Ethereum blockchain and its transactions are recorded on-chain. SAND can be staked on liquidity providing programs using Polygon, a Layer 2 scaling network for the oft-congested Ethereum blockchain.

This sort of staking is done to improve liquidity of the token, and stakers are rewarded with a share of the profits and fees of The Sandbox marketplace. The rest of the marketplace’s profits and fees go to funding creators.

It must be noted that holders of more LAND tokens reap a greater yield from staking SAND tokens, with the maximum threshold of 1000 LAND tokens multiplying the staking reward by a factor of 1.6. The minimum, 1 LAND, sees the staker’s rewards multiplied by 1.1.

While this is called staking, it doesn’t mean that The Sandbox runs a proof-of-stake blockchain. Rather, it describes the activity of providing liquidity, referred to as LP in decentralized finance.

Instead, The Sandbox relies on the Ethereum blockchain for its security, as per its whitepaper, since it doesn’t have its own blockchain.

What is the Use of SAND?

SAND, the native token of The Sandbox, serves as a utility token that players can use to buy and sell LAND and ASSETS in the metaverse. It is an ERC-20 standard token, meaning that it is fungible and can serve effectively as a currency.

SAND holders also make up a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that controls policies governing the use of tokens. The DAO can also vote on grants, rewarding game creators, as well as set priorities for the implementation of game features.

While SAND is the medium for users to interact and transact, LAND tokens represent parts of the world that players own. With these pieces of LAND, players can create and monetize experiences for others. LAND can be used for games, multiplayer experiences, to build housing, and provide social experiences.

ASSET tokens, meanwhile, are created by players via user-generated content. VoxEdit helps players design and animate objects, which are finally published to the marketplace as ASSETs. These ASSETs are tradable but also serve as elements in The Sandbox game maker tool.

Who Controls The Sandbox?

The Sandbox was created by Onimatrix and developed by Pixowl, which in turn was acquired by blockchain gaming and GameFi behemoth Animoca Brands. Following a funding round in July 2022, Animoca Brands was valued at well over $5 billion.

However, it is only the game itself that is centralized. All in-game content, meaning LAND and ASSETs, is controlled by the players who own them.

The Sandbox DAO also has a role to play in the direction of the game, with SAND holders getting a vote as to priorities for game feature implementation and platform roadmap alterations.

How Much SAND Is In Circulation?

SAND has a finite supply of 3 billion SAND tokens, just over 1.2 billion of which were in circulation as of July 2022.

A fraction over 17% of SAND tokens were allocated for the seed sale, while 12% was set aside for a Binance Launchpad sale. This equals around 30%, or just under one billion SAND having been used for fundraising.

Reports suggest that Animoca raised $3.4 million in seed capital, while also conducting a LAND presale of 5% of its total supply to raise 1,400 ETH, then worth around $300,000.

Almost 26% of the SAND supply has been earmarked as a company reserve, founders and team members received 31%, and 10% was used to reward project advisors.

ERC-721 non-fungible LAND tokens, meanwhile, are extremely scarce. There are only 166,464 LAND tokens available.

How Do You Buy SAND?

SAND can be purchased on several major exchange platforms. Binance is a notable option for SAND purchases since SAND used the Binance launchpad for fundraising.

SAND can also be purchased on decentralized exchanges (DEX) including Uniswap. It can also be traded peer-to-peer as well as against LAND and ASSETs on The Sandbox marketplace.

Is It Possible to Buy SAND Instantly?

Purchasing SAND using a DEX like Uniswap means that transaction speed depends on the blockchain being used for the transaction. Base layer Ethereum can take a few minutes to reach finality, but layer 2 solutions like those offered by Polygon tend to reduce that to just a few seconds.

Purchasing SAND on a CEX (centralized exchange) like Binance is instant, but no actual movement of funds takes place. Settlement only happens when you withdraw your SAND from an exchange and into a non-custodial wallet.

How Do You Store SAND?

SAND can be stored in any Ethereum-compatible wallet since it is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token.

Connecting to The Sandbox marketplace and actually using your SAND requires a non-custodial wallet, which means a wallet where you fully own and control the assets within. Custodial wallets, like exchange accounts, have you sign the ownership of your tokens over to a third-party custodian.

Non-custodial wallets can come in many forms, including hot and cold wallets. Cold wallets are kept offline for increased safety, while hot wallets connect to the internet for convenience and are easy to use with games like The Sandbox.

The Sandbox Energy Consumption

The Sandbox doesn’t have its own blockchain. As such, its energy consumption isn’t significant at all compared to proof-of-work blockchains like Bitcoin, with its legions of computer chips mining away.

However, it could be argued that energy consumption is a moot point in the case of The Sandbox since it is a platform for creativity. Players all around the world enjoy The Sandbox because they can unleash their creativity, build, interact, and reap the rewards of their artistry.

Many cryptocurrencies are criticized for being nothing more than resource hogs with no creation of value, but The Sandbox provides a platform for exactly that.

It could also be suggested that The Sandbox is responsible for part of Ethereum’s resource consumption. Prior to ETH’s move to proof-of-stake, it has been quantified as having an annual consumption of around 80 TWh.

While the proof-of-stake merge will soon invalidate this argument, humoring it would mean that Ethereum’s competition will have to be analyzed. And Ethereum is most commonly compared to the traditional financial infrastructure.

As per Galaxy Digital’s estimates in 2021, the banking industry alone consumes a conservative 260 TWh each year. Wired made the same sort of energy-glut accusations against Wall Street HFT firms and described their output as “societally worthless.” The Sandbox, by contrast, is anything but.

Is SAND a Good Investment?

The Sandbox is one of the standard bearers of GameFi and Web3 that represent a movement against the centralized, corporate-owned internet where creators receive little to no value from their work.

This push towards true digital ownership is being bolstered from many quarters, and mass adoption seems closer than ever, given the adoption of Web3 by some of gaming’s brand leaders. An example of this is game retailer GameStop’s expansion into blockchain technology via its successfully launched GameStop NFT marketplace and non-custodial Ethereum wallet.

However, The Sandbox is where it is because of its appeal as a game and a platform for creativity where users can reap fair rewards for their work. While it is already one of the top blockchain games right now, its sights are set on giants of the genre like Minecraft and Roblox.

If The Sandbox can continue to appeal to players and creators, it stands to reason that its finite supply of SAND will become more and more in-demand as the marketplace starts to thrive and players use each other’s creations.