The metaverse is finally starting to get the attention of the mainstream,
but a lot of people don't realize it's already here.
The crypto industry has been deep in the metaverse for years,
and now, some of the most anticipated projects are starting to go live.
A lot of that thanks to NFTs and the possibility for digital ownership.
The first and most logical place for digital ownership to spread its wings is in gaming,
and The Sandbox has put itself in the best position to do just that.
Grab your metal case and make sure you don't trip and fall down the stairs.
There's a sandstorm a-brewing.
Let's get it!
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In this video, we're going to do a deep dive into The Sandbox,
a promising metaverse project that's been on an insane rally
since the metaverse kicked off the virtual gold rush.
The Sandbox is a gaming metaverse that's been in development for nearly 10 years.
The original version of The Sandbox game came out in 2012.
It was later ported to Steam in 2015.
Then, in 2018,
Animoca Brands, one of the biggest players in the crypto gaming space,
acquired rights to The Sandbox after buying out its developer Pixowl
for $4.875 million.
Considering how valuable Sandbox is now,
this has got to be among the most successful buyouts in crypto history.
This acquisition was a major shift for The Sandbox game,
where it began to transition from a regular game
to a crypto-based metaverse with a complex in-game economy.
Animoca Brands is extremely well connected.
They were able to sell this vision to investors long before it became a reality.
The project received several large investments early on
from firms like B Cryptos and True Global Ventures,
as well as mainstream gaming companies like Square Enix.
Then, earlier this year,
the project received a massive $93 million investment from SoftBank
in its largest funding round yet.
The project has also received funding through its token allocation and virtual land sales.
The Sandbox token has been one of the biggest gainers of this bull run,
increasing by over 12,000% since launching late last year.
The SAND token floated around 4¢ to 5¢ for months
before finally starting its climb to where it is now,
sitting around $7 at the time of this recording.
At over a $5 billion market cap,
it's hard to say exactly how far this can go
because we could be dealing with one of the applications
that helps crypto go mainstream.
The price of land also has taken off
since "Zuckerborg" made his Meta announcement last month.
Just before the Facebook announcement,
land in The Sandbox was trading for an average of 0.4 ETH.
And now, just a month later,
it's trading at an average of 3 ETH per plot of land.
Volume on OpenSea for Sandbox land has also seen a massive uptick
over the past month as well.
Prominent companies and public figures have been rushing to buy up land in The Sandbox,
which they will eventually be able to build structures,
rent to other users or host events.
Each individual plot of land in this virtual world is an NFT,
and most of the objects are too.
You can take a look at the map on The Sandbox website
to see how the virtual world is laid out.
And you could also identify the owners of individual plots by their logos.
For example,
the international sports clothing brand Adidas announced
it would be purchasing land in The Sandbox.
And there's no doubt that more corporations will be jumping on board soon.
We at BitBoy Crypto actually own quite a bit of land in The Sandbox as well,
which we know will be a popular meeting spot for the BitSquad
once the metaverse takes off.
Crypto exchanges like Binance and Gemini have also purchased land in The Sandbox.
And most of the popular NFT projects have secured plots of their own too.
Some of these projects have even created add-on NFT collections
to bring their JPEGs to life in the metaverse.
One of the first major examples of this was Meebits,
voxelized versions of the legendary CryptoPunks from Larva Labs.
There are also CyberKongz VX,
which has some of the most detailed voxelized NFTs on the market.
By the way,
voxel is short for volumetric pixel.
It's just a term used to describe the 3D graphics
to see in virtual spaces like The Sandbox.
Expect this trend to start getting serious traction with NFT projects
as The Sandbox becomes more popular.
A lot of people will want to have three dimensional avatars
to go along with the two dimensional ones that they have on Twitter,
so you will start to see projects releasing voxelized companions for their OG collections.
They will probably be in high demand.
The communities that already have this option have a big head start in the metaverse.
These collections will likely carry a premium.
Just like we've seen with other pioneer projects in the space.
And you can be a better verse pioneer.
Smash that like and subscribe button.
That puts you in the BitSquad,
the best squad to build sandcastles with.
There will be plenty of metaverse platforms though to emerge in the years to come,
but one of the most exciting things about The Sandbox is that
it is striving for decentralization.
Unlike the Meta Zuck,
The Sandbox will be governed and controlled by a community DAO,
a decentralized autonomous organization.
In addition to being used for the in-game economy,
SAND token is also a governance token for The Sandbox DAO.
Of course, the team does have plenty of tokens just like we see in many crypto projects.
And this does give them an edge when it comes to governance.
But the distribution is even enough
that the community has a major influence as well.
In The Sandbox economy,
you will be able to create assets or jobs
and participate in the economy in a variety of different ways
even if you don't own any land.
SAND tokens will be used for pretty much everything in the game.
It's not just the Facebook hype that has The Sandbox ecosystem blowing up either.
There's also been a ton of anticipation leading up to the release of the alpha version of the game,
where a select group of early supporters get the chance to play the game
before it goes public
to help the team work out any final bugs they may not have caught yet.
Anyone who owns land in The Sandbox will be able to register for a chance
to get in on the early access version of the game.
You'll get one chance in the raffle for every piece of land that you own.
The lucky winners who get to play the game early will also be able to earn rewards
in the form of SAND tokens and NFTs.
Once these Alpha Passes are distributed,
owners will be able to sell them on OpenSea,
so even if you don't win the raffle,
you still may be able to grab one of the passes
if you can afford them.
There's a good chance that they're going to be pretty expensive on the secondary market
considering all the hype that we're starting to see already.
On November 29, the alpha event will begin.
Passholders will be able to explore the full Sandbox experience for the first time.
If you don't have an Alpha Pass,
you'll still be able to access three full experiences in the Alpha HUB,
a central multiplayer experience
that showcases some of the locations and quests that will be in the game.
And you'll also be able to interact with other players.
But in order to access the play-to-earn features,
you will need an Alpha Pass.
Eventually, these features will open up to everyone when the full game rolls out.
The alpha event will only last for about three weeks.
It will come to a close on December 20.
After that, The Sandbox team is expected to announce additional events
and a full roadmap for the release of the game.
Time for the metaverse is now,
and the technology and innovation happening on decentralized metas is increasingly faster
than housing costs in Silicon Valley.
Don't get left in the dust
when there is so much SAND to play in.
That's all I got.
Be blessed.
BitBoy out.