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Have you heard about The SANDBOX project? Let’s get to know it better!
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Let’s take a look at the dynamics of The SANDBOX from NFT Index based on Messari’s detailed report
What is The Sandbox?
The Sandbox is a gaming metaverse. It’s a virtual world where players and creators can create 3D assets and experiences (like games) that can be monetized with NFT.
How many active players are there?
The number of active customers was up about 37% from the previous quarter and grew with each successive quarter in 2021. In November 2021, The Sandbox launched a limited alpha version of its gameplay, which attracted thousands of players.
What are the LANDs?
LANDs are blockchain-enabled tokens (using the ERC-721 standard for non-fungible tokens, also known as NFTs). They represent physical sections of the Sandbox metaverse. The number of Sandbox LANDs is limited, with only 166,464 plots. Just imagine, 62% of them have already been allocated!
New plots are offered for sale through auctions or at a set price. In 2021, The Sandbox recorded over $350 million in LAND sales!
LAND price analysis
The average price of The Sandbox LAND rose from $1,308 at the end of the third quarter to $11,364 at the end of the fourth quarter. That’s almost a 10x increase in average price!
This is due in part to the growing trend of the metaverse and the continued expansion of The Sandbox. After the Series B announcement, Sandbox LAND rose significantly in December.
As we analyze the virtual world of The Sandbox (in terms of total LAND per plot), we can determine which LANDs have sold the most. Plots in The Sandbox are divided into 1×1, 3×3, 6×6, 12×12 and 24×24. The heat map shows the plots that had the highest aggregate bidding volume in the secondary markets. This effectively helps determine which LAND areas are most desirable (which were available for sale).
The redder charts indicating higher trading volume are predominantly clustered in the lower left quadrant of The Sandbox. One possible explanation is that as the Sandbox expanded, traders were reaching for the expanding areas of the map.
Top LAND owners
The top LAND owners are mostly investors in The Sandbox (e.g. Binance, Galaxy Interactive, NFT communities – Whale, MetaKovan, Kongz) or large crypto-oriented companies that have committed to building within The Sandbox Metaverse.
The 5 largest LAND owners own 11% of the total LAND offering. Measuring ownership in the digital world is an innovation to ensure that:
- the amount owned by any one entity decreases over time, thereby fostering entrepreneurship in the world
- monitoring that LAND owners are actively building their plots rather than holding them for speculative purposes.
In November, The Sandbox completed a $93 million Series B fundraising round led by Softbank. The project takes a distinctive approach to in-game content, partnering with various brands and licensing intellectual property to dozens of companies.
Subsequently, in December, The Sandbox completed a round with Hong Kong entrepreneur Adrian Cheng to buy LAND that was purchased from ” Mega City ” The Sandbox, a place created to mimic Hong Kong with ownership by various Hong Kong companies and famous people.
In November 2021, The Sandbox launched the long-awaited alpha version of its virtual world, which allowed users to interact with other players and explore the “Main Center” of The Sandbox universe. As part of Sandbox Alpha, the developers released 4 collections of NFT avatars – Agora, Gearbox, Ducks and Faction. Sandbox Alpha was limited to 5,000 walkthroughs and gave out thousands of NFTs to players. As The Sandbox seeks to expand its user base, its next alpha season is scheduled for May 1, 2022.
Since many transactions are required to interact with The Sandbox’s virtual world (trading floors, NFT creation, etc.), integration with Polygon will provide more interaction between tokens. The Sandbox and Polygon teams are currently working on a custom bridge to make all tokens in The Sandbox available on Polygon.
Conclusion
The Sandbox had a record-breaking quarter in secondary LAND sales and Fund revenues. In addition, it expanded its overall buyer base and released a significant number of new LAND parcels for purchase on the open market. The project remains fairly centralized in LAND ownership. With 38% of the total parcels still to be distributed, it is possible that The Sandbox will see an increase in LAND ownership as it continues to gradually auction off LAND.
Most importantly, The Sandbox has launched its alpha game to several thousand players along with many new NFTs, including its own collection of NFT avatars. As it aims to create a virtual world populated by people and experiences, the team has various Q1 events planned around the world, as well as the upcoming launch of The Sandbox DAO.
Today, SAND is trading at $3.16, down 2.3 times from its November high of $7.5.
