Sandbox Overview: What is the SAND Coin?

Who Created Sandbox?

Sandbox was created by Arthur Madrid and Sebastian Borget who are the co-founders of Pixowl, a tech company building games powered by blockchain. Before its blockchain integration, The Sandbox game was in operation since 2012 as a mobile-first game that allows players to create their own virtual world. The game received early success right after its launch on both Android and iOS platforms gaining as many as 70 million users between 2012 and 2018.

The game’s latest version, now on the Ethereum blockchain, enables players to build digital assets and NFTs on top of the virtual land assets using SAND (the game’s utility token).

The team behind the project is made up of experts who’ve worked for big companies like Facebook and Zynga as well as serial entrepreneurs with successful track records in start-ups. What’s even more exciting is the fact that the team behind the project aims to give control over the entire platform to the platform’s user through a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization)

How Does Sandbox Work?

Sandbox is a game that’s all about building your world. You’ll have to do everything from collecting resources, growing livestock, and crafting items that will help you thrive in this new environment. The whole thing operates on the principle of “everything you build belongs to you” so mainstream audiences get to be introduced to blockchain technology in a fun and exciting way.

The creative play-to-earn model that The Sandbox deploys comes with several tools to help you create and animate NFT based assets using a tool called VoxEdit, trade those assets on the platform’s marketplace, and play any game you can imagine on Sandbox’s Game Maker.

How are LAND In-game Assets Used in Sandbox?

Built into the Sandbox metaverse experience are pieces of digital real estate called LAND. These can be bought with the SAND token on the platform’s marketplace and be used to build several experiences.

For instance, players can build custom games on top of LAND, earn SAND tokens by publishing those games, or simply trade their LAND for other in-game assets or even charge other players a fee in SAND tokens for visiting the LAND.

The important thing to note about LAND is that each piece is designed as an NFT on Ethereum’s public blockchain and therefore is tradeable and owners have full custody. There are over 160K pieces of LAND on the Sandbox and large companies such as Atari, Binance and Coinmarketcap have already grabbed primed locations on Sandbox’s metaverse.

There are three categories of LAND in the game. The first involves a standard 96×96 meters unit. Then there are ‘Estates’ which comprise different LANDS for a more complex game experience. Finally, there are land districts that are owned by several players and can be used to collaborate for a shared vision. LANDS can be converted into a district as long as they are next to each other, and with a minimum of two owners, each must stake a certain amount of SAND tokens.

How Many Types of In-game NFTs Are There in Sandbox?

The platform has built 6 types of digital assets out of the 10 possible available through the ERC721 protocol.

The 6 types of NFTs you can create with the Voxel Editor are; Animals, Creatures, Props, Equipment items, Digital Collectibles, and Materials. There’s also an option to convert assets into ERC20 tokens using a converter tool built inside The Sandbox.

How is the SAND Token Used?

As mentioned earlier, the SAND token is the platform’s utility token. It features several use cases with the first being its use as an ERC20 currency set to be spent on the platform to gain access to games and purchase other in-game assets.

SAND is also used by creatives who animate in-game assets on the platforms. These creative artists need SAND to upload their in-game assets to the platform’s marketplace as well as buy Gems that add rarity and uniqueness to the in-game assets they create.

SAND is also a governance token. It can be used to participate in the platform’s decision-making. As mentioned, Sandbox’s team is moving towards becoming a fully-fledged decentralized autonomous organization where players and creators have full control and ownership of the entire platform. Using the SAND token, platform users get voting rights on important decisions such as grant attribution to content and game creators as well as feature prioritization among other agendas.

The SAND token is also used for staking thus allowing for passive revenues that can be earned on the platform. There are two phases of staking with the first involving the addition of SAND liquidity on decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap. In addition to liquidity mining, the team behind the project is also working on multiplying SAND yields on players who own LAND, therefore, rewarding LAND holders with SAND.

In addition, the SAND token is designed such that 5% of all transactions are split into two with half going to the platform’s foundations and the other half distributed among stakers. This increases the overall amount awarded to stakers as the platform grows.

Where Can I Buy SAND?

The SAND token is available on several exchanges and the most prominent one being Binance. You can buy it with either BTC or ETH although you’ll need to follow certain steps for this, such as creating a wallet where you should add your Binance address. Apart from Binance, here are other venues where you can buy SAND:

• Huobi Global
• Uniswap
• Gemini
• Kraken
• Bybit
• Gate.io
• KuCoin

SAND Token Advantages

The SAND token is a utility token that enables players to buy and sell in-game assets as well as render their services on the Sandbox platform. It’s also an incentive for early adopters who stake their SAND on the network thus rewarding them with dividends from transaction fees. The more transactions conducted, the higher the yields of staking, increasing over time. The token is also easily available with a listing on over 100 crypto exchanges.

SAND Token Disadvantages

The main disadvantage of the SAND token is that it’s not a deflationary token as is the case with Sandbox’s competitors such as Decentraland. This could be a drawback for some traders who are looking to be long-term investors in a deflationary crypto project. Also, the tokens are pre-mined which could lead to centralization if the distribution is not done correctly.