About

The Sandbox is a virtual world, or metaverse, where players can create, own, and monetize gaming experiences using blockchain technology. The project team frequently collaborates with real-world organizations, enabling players to interact with their favorite brands and/or celebrities from across the globe through exclusive content and virtual events. The ecosystem is designed to be inclusive, allowing anyone to contribute and benefit from the growth of the virtual world.

User engagement is encouraged through a strong emphasis on community and social activity. Players use an avatar to explore the virtual world to meet other players, broaden their community, and participate in events and challenges. Inside the metaverse, players can individually or collaboratively create games, assets, and experiences using integrated tools such as VoxEdit, which enables the creation of voxel-based assets, and Game Maker, which assists players with designing and building interactive games without needing to know how to code. All content created with these tools is minted onto the blockchain as ERC-1155 non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which can have different rarities and whose value can be increased by using “Catalysts.” The assets can then be exchanged on the protocol’s marketplace or third-party marketplaces, such as OpenSea.

History

The Sandbox was initially launched as a 2D mobile game in 2012 by Pixowl, a software development company that was founded in 2011 by Arthur Madrid and Sebastien Borget. The mobile game iteration of The Sandbox accumulated 40+ million downloads by April 2018, and one month later, it was rebranded as a 3D metaverse game, with more blockchain-focused developments beginning soon after.

Animoca Brands, a gaming-focused software development company and VC Fund, acquired Pixowl in August 2018. As a result, the full scope of Pixowl’s assets, including The Sandbox’s intellectual property, was transferred to TSB Gaming Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Animoca Brands. The SAND token was initially deployed on Ethereum on Oct. 29, 2019, and later bridged to Polygon on Nov. 4, 2021.

Notable milestones in the project’s history include:

• December 2018 - The Sandbox announced a Creator Fund to incentivize artists to create in-game assets for the platform and released the Alpha version of VoxEdit.
• Q1 2020 - VoxEdit Beta was released, and rounds two and three of LAND pre-sales were held.
• Q2 2020 - The LAND Moonsale occurred, including six rounds of LAND sales over five weeks.
• June 2020 - The Sandbox released the Closed Alpha version of Game Maker to early testers.
• Q3 2020 - Game Maker public beta was released, the marketplace launched, and SAND was listed on secondary exchanges.
• November 2021 - The Sandbox declared its intent to migrate to Polygon.
• November 2021 - The Closed Alpha version of The Sandbox game was released.
• June 2022 - LAND contracts were deployed on Polygon.
• September 2022 - The SAND staking on LAND program launched.
• August 2023 - The Sandbox begins requiring KYC verification for its staking program.

Source: The Sandbox’s Whitepaper (pgs. 21-23)

The most recent development occurred on May 28, 2024, with the release of The Sandbox DAO. This is an offchain community governance feature that enables LAND and SAND holders to influence the project’s direction and development in nine categories. The governance model is intended to roll out in three phases, with Phase One released at launch. In Phase One and Phase Two, the project team intends for DAO administrators to curate proposals focused on treasury management, distributing rewards for assets and games, providing grants to charity, and making decisions about the DAO’s NFT collection. In Phase Three (intended to start Nov. 24, 2024), community members will gain the ability to submit proposals. Other contemplated ideas for Phase Three are mentioned throughout the governance FAQs, including:

• Proposals - “Currently, only The Sandbox DAO team can propose ideas. However, in the upcoming Phase 3, this privilege will be extended to members who meet specific criteria as proposers.”
• SIP Voting - “Yes, in The Sandbox DAO Phase 3, you will have the option to delegate your vote to another DAO member.”
• SIP Voting - “From Phase 3 onward, you can claim your delegator status.”