The Sandbox: Welcome to the Metaverse, the Gaming Future!
The Sandbox: Welcome to the Metaverse!
Welcome to The Sandbox! The Sandbox is a virtual world, also known as a metaverse, where you can purchase and own land and build in-game non-fungible tokens (NFTs). That includes objects like characters, vehicles, weapons, etc. You can also customize your experience and monetize the Voxel assets you create.
The enchanting land of The Sandbox metaverse has its own currency, too, SAND. You can use the SAND token to buy things in the game or you can hold it in your Atomic SAND Wallet for safekeeping. In The Sandbox, the sky's the limit. Well, not really, your imagination is the limit! You can create, build, play, party, sing, dance, you name it. Best of all, you can meet your friends there, too! We'll talk about these fun things a bit later; for now, let's cover some background information on this metaverse experience.
The Sandbox's Background
In 2012, Pixowl Inc. released The Sandbox. It was a smash hit, and it allowed users to build their own world. In 2016, The Sandbox Evolution came as a sequel to the original.
The game is similar to Minecraft, where players can build their own worlds. That said, The Sandbox takes it a step further, allowing you to take real ownership of your virtual creations. You can also own the land, the structures, and features you build on it.
This dynamic really takes the game to a whole new level: the metaverse. Currently, more than 160 companies are working on building the metaverse. The term metaverse refers to all the virtual worlds, like The Sandbox, that make up the Metaverse.
Metaverse Features
This virtual world has so much going on! You have so many things to do, learn, explore, trade, and interact with. You'll spend hours learning, exploring, and most of all, having fun!
For the new players–Welcome! The game's idea is to build things, places, and people. You can interact with everything and everyone. All the characters you meet (excluding entities) are real people in real-time interacting with you with their avatars; the characters they created.
The Sandbox is very incentivized to promote earning. Play a game, earn a reward; build a game, monetize it; create an asset, market it!
Now, let's take a deep dive into all the game's fun facets!
Vox Edit
The Sandbox metaverse is made up of voxels. A voxel is a three-dimensional large pixel. You can manipulate this voxel easily in the vox edit software. That way, you create pretty much anything your imagination can come up with. You can build a monster, then bring it to life with animation!
Marketplace
In the marketplace, you can buy or sell NFTs. Anything you create can be an NFT: art, armor, skins, weapons, characters, entities, the list goes on and on. Import your creations into the marketplace via the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) network. The IPFS network is a decentralized storage space. To prove ownership for these creations, you mint them on the blockchain.
Once this process is complete, you can put your assets up for sale on the marketplace for other players to buy.
Game Maker
By now, you're thinking how can I create a game? You might not have the coding or skills to do and think that's a hurdle. Here's where The Sandbox's Game Maker will help. It gives you an all-access pass to create your own game! What's great is that anyone can do it! You don't need any special skills or coding knowledge.
As The Sandbox continues to ramp up all the features it looks like a lucrative opportunity to make a great side gig building and selling NFTs. That's also considering how much NFTs are currently worth in the marketplace.
Possibilities and Limitations
The Sandbox's possibilities span beyond game-related creations. Besides avatars and games, you can create jobs. You can become a builder, real estate agent, or even a tour guide. Do you have a product you'd like to launch? You don't have to wait years like in real-life. In The Sandbox, you can create anything you want within months or even weeks. These are only a few possibilities from the endless list you can come up with within this virtual world.
It might seem like the metaverse is limitless with all the freedom to create and do fantastical things. Still, the metaverse is just like any reality; it has limitations. That's also the case with The Sandbox world. Games like The Sandbox have no strict narrative for the player to follow. In traditional games, you have a known goal and a defined path/plan to get there. For some players, the lack of general direction is boring or even intimidating. If you're looking for a standard narration game to play, keep waiting for one of the 1,000 games coming later this year to The Sandbox. Maybe one of them will pique your interest.
While The Sandbox has some limitations, the game offers the chance to have fun and earn money while doing so. That's actually something relatively novel. Are you ready to jump in? Let's take a look at what you need to join this universe.
How to Get Started: Minimum Requirements
To get started in The Sandbox, you need to create an account and connect your Atomic SAND Wallet. Once you create your account, you'll be able to download the game on your Windows PC. Other OSs, like macOS, are still in development.
Upfront Costs to Enter The Sandbox
The Sandbox is free to join and free to play. That said, you need to pay for personalized avatars and in-game upgrades. That's just if you want to play. If you want to get in and start building things, you may need to own some land. In the current release, though, it appears that you can download the game creation software and build some levels.
LAND Cost
The entry barrier to buying land is pretty high. To get a piece of virtual real estate, you have to spend more than $10,000 to get one LAND. Now, keep in mind that, at the time of writing (February 25, 2022), The Sandbox is just in its early alpha release stage. The game structure is subject to change over time with upcoming releases.
To create NFTs to sell on the marketplace, you need to apply and submit some samples to The Sandbox. If they like your work, they'll invite you to join. Only then will you be able to download the Vox Edit software to develop your Voxel NFTs. The earnings potential seems to be unlimited once you get going. If you make some really cool NFTs with good attributes that everyone would want to buy, then you can sell your NFTs for high prices.
Money Mechanics: It's More than Just SAND
The Sandbox's native utility token is Sand. You can use this to buy land and NFTs in the marketplace. SAND is an ERC20 token, meaning it's built on Ethereum. That said, it operates on the Proof-of-Stake model.
SAND has a 3 billion token maximum supply. Right now, only 680.2 million SAND tokens are in circulation. That's only almost 23% of SAND tokens' total supply.
According to CoinMarketCap, almost 21% is in storage in a company reserve, 22% were for private token sales, and 1% to the CMC Educational Campaign. Another 30% of the supply was spread amongst the founders and team members working on the project. 10% was dedicated to public sale, and finally, 16% was set aside as rewards to advisors.
SAND's Value
The SAND token launched on August 14, 2020, at $0.05 USD per token. The price remained flat until January 2021, when the price doubled to $0.10 per token. It kept going up at a substantial rate until March 21, 2021, when it hit $0.81 per token. After that, it started on a downward trend.
By mid-summer 2021, it sunk down to only $0.18 per token. After hitting that low, the price started to gain momentum. It hit $1.00 on August 31, 2021! The $1.00 mark is a major milestone for any cryptocurrency. Yet, the token was unable to hold its ground for too long. It started sliding down again but managed to retain its footing.
By October 24, 2021, it was down to $0.84 per token. That was on the eve of a major breakout. On Halloween (October 31, 2021), the price shot up to $2.11. By the first day of November, it was at $3.00! By November 17, 2021, it was up to $4.31! On November 24, 2021, it hit an all-time high at $8.40! After that achievement, the price started to decline, falling to $5.04 on December 4, 2021. After a period of ups and downs, the price settled at $4.42 on January 20, 2022. By February 21, 2022, it had hit a low of $2.88.
Now, let's talk about another investment you can make in The Sandbox: LAND.
LAND
Anyone will tell you that land is always a great investment. It's a finite supply and it always becomes more valuable as time marches forward. The Sandbox has LAND ERC721. Despite it being a virtual world, where everyone is creating something, LAND's supply is finite. You're probably asking: how many LAND parcels does The Sandbox still have? How can I get one?
Well, The Sandbox has a total of 166,464 LANDs. The Sandbox holds 10% of it or 16,704 LANDs. 25,920 LANDs or 16% are set aside for partners, creators, and gamers as rewards. That means only 123,840 LANDs, or 74%, are available for players. That's not much left!
You can acquire most of this land, more specifically 100,000, on OpenSea. That said, LAND isn't cheap. If you're lucky, you may find one for around $10,000.
The Sandbox: How to Make Money in This World
The SAND Token allows users to do many things. First, the token allows you to access The Sandbox. That means you'll be able to participate in The Sandbox's economy and acquire land and assets.
The Sandbox's Tokenomics Ecosystem
Sand, land, NFTs, gems, and catalysts are the stores of value in The Sandbox. NFTs are in their own category, but we can look deeper into the Sand, land, gems, and catalysts. Let's discuss each of these!
Stake your Sand, Stake your SAND on Your LAND!
Users also can stake their SAND and earn rewards. When you stake and save up SAND, you'll be able to vote on key decisions, like content, game creators, etc. The Sandbox is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). That's why it needs the users' votes to sustain this governance model.
If you own land, you can stake your SAND on your land to earn gems and catalysts. Then, you can use these to power up your assets with attributes! Read on to learn more about the special power-up system in place in The Sandbox.
LAND
LAND is 96×96 meters. That's the basic unit, but you can buy multiple land parcels to create estates. These estates come in sizes of 3×3 (9 LANDs), 6×6 (36 LANDs), 12×12 (144 LANDs), and 24×24 (576 LANDs). Those are some pretty big pieces of land. If you look at the land map, you can see that the partners have large estates.
NFTs
In The Sandbox metaverse, almost everything is an NFT. The land upon which you stand is an NFT, the assets you create and meet in the metaverse are NFTs, too. That's why, as time goes on, your land and assets are bound to increase in value.You can also add attributes to your assets to increase their value. Let's see how.
Gems and Catalysts
The Sandbox metaverse has gems and catalysts. These allow you to power up your characters.
Gems
Gems are an ERC20 utility token. You burn these tokens when you use them. They allow you to define your assets' attributes. The more attributes your assets have, the more valuable and useful they become in the metaverse. One gem gives your asset 25 attribute points.
Catalysts
Catalysts are a place to store your attribute gems. You need to have a catalyst to store your gems. The catalysts come in 4 tiers: common, rare, epic, and legendary. Each tier holds a varying amount of attribute points: 25, 50, 75, and 100, respectively.
The bottom line is that the gems and catalysts are the in-game power-ups. How can you obtain them? Staking SAND tokens on your LAND will generate gems. You can also buy them from the marketplace. The catalysts at the moment are to be determined, as these features are unavailable.
What's Going on in The Sandbox Right Now?
To get the games up and running, The Sandbox needs some cash. What better way to do that than a $2 million game creation fund that creators can tap into? The DAO manages this fund and so far, 15+ in-development games are using this fund. On top of the fund, partners like Atari and others have games in the works for The Sandbox.
As a game maker, you get to use the tools to make the game. You also retain ownership of the games and content that you produce. As a game maker, you can receive SAND as a reward, and even better, land! You need that land for your games to have a place to live.
Future Prospects
Many things will come down the pipeline. In 2022 Q2, The Sandbox anticipates it'll enable SAND staking and the DAO mechanism for governance. That'll start the Proof-of-Stake system and allow players to vote for management in The Sandbox Metaverse.
In 2022 Q3, we'll see Sandbox's first live concert featuring DeadMau5 and Ritchie Hawtin. Sandbox is also launching the new, Sandbox-only, Walking Dead game. It's going to be the best virtual party you can attend from the comfort of your own home!
In Q4, The Sandbox will launch its mobile version, so you can take it with you on the go! These aren't the only updates, though! Many more things are coming to The Sandbox in 2022, but we don't have concrete days yet. These include:
- Adding new international partners and premium NFTs
- Launching the game's platform with more than 1,000 games available
- Ensuring the game's availability on multiple platforms, like consoles
- Starting land sales at regular intervals
- Adding a co-creation mode in the game maker to build games with partners remotely
- Increasing opportunities to earn through more events
- Updating Vox Edit to make asset and NFT creation easier
As you can see from the long list above, The Sandbox is planning many great things for its users. Now, if you want to get in on the action and fun in The Sandbox, you need to buy some SAND tokens. We'll take you through the best way to get your hands on some SAND, the Atomic Wallet!
How to Buy The Sandbox
Atomic Wallet is a great place to store your SAND tokens to use in The Sandbox metaverse. It's a great way to store, send, and receive crypto! It also integrates a built-in exchange/swap where you buy more than 300 cryptocurrencies. What's more, you can stake several tokens right in the Wallet!
For each transaction you make in Atomic Wallet, you're eligible to get up to 1% cashback per transaction paid out in Atomic Wallet's native token, AWC. When more people use AWC, it accrues more value, so hurry up and invite your friends, too!
How to Get Started with Atomic Wallet?
- Download the wallet.
- Create an account.
- Verify your ID.
- Buy some SAND with fiat currency.
- Start sending and receiving.
Final Thoughts
The Sandbox offers an immersive metaverse where you're free to unleash your creativity even if you don't have coding expertise. That has helped increase adoption and send its native token, SAND, above the $1.00 mark briefly.
What the future holds depends on the platform's successful launch along with its 1,000 games. We'll wait and see if this launch will help address some limitations to gameplay.
That said, owning SAND and The Sandbox is very easy with Atomic Wallet. Simply follow the 5 steps in this article and you're ready to immerse yourself in The Sandbox metaverse.
FAQ
What is the metaverse?
The metaverse is a virtual worlds' network, existing on the internet. You can enter the metaverse via a virtual or augmented reality headset, console gaming system, or computer. The metaverse includes multiple virtual worlds, like The Sandbox and Facebook's virtual world. Each virtual world has its own rules and regulations. That means each one has its own unique look and feel. Some say the metaverse is the internet's future. Still, only time will tell which direction the metaverse ultimately takes.
How does buying LAND work?
The Sandbox has regular land sales that you can participate in to buy LAND NFTs. Each land is unique and you can develop it how you see fit. OpenSea, one of the largest NFT marketplaces, also sells most of the LAND. On this secondary market, you can directly buy plots of land.
How do you create with Vox Edit?
Building things in Vox Edit is just as simple as dragging and dropping. It doesn't require any code! The creation process will become even easier with the enhancements coming later this year. Simply follow these 3 steps to get started:
- Sign up with the creator fund and submit some sample work.
- Download the Vox Edit studio, if you get accepted (we hope you do!).
- Export your model to the marketplace for sale.
How do you buy and sell NFTs on The Sandbox marketplace?
After you create an account, fill your Atomic SAND Wallet with SAND tokens. Then, you'll be able to buy NFTs in the marketplace. If you already created an NFT, simply import it into the marketplace. You should also attach your wallet address to get paid when you sell your NFTs. The Sandbox lets creators retain 100% of the rights to their creations, so that's a great opportunity to make a profit.
What can you do in the metaverse?
The question should really be what can't you do in the metaverse? When it comes to creativity, your imagination is the only thing that can limit you! That's why it's called The Sandbox: you can make whatever you want in it. If you don't feel inspired, you can go to a concert, play one of more than 1,000 games, or just take a walk and explore the virtual world. You can even call your friends, meet somewhere, hang out, and do something fun. Rollercoaster Tycoon is a partner, so you could head over to their area and have fun at the theme park!
Resources
Atomic Wallet
Learn more about what Atomic Wallet has to offer on the official website.
Atomic Wallet Asset Status
Learn more about each cryptocurrency's status that Atomic Wallet has on the asset status page.
The official The Sandbox site
Head over to The Sandbox's site to gain more insights into The Sandbox metaverse on the official website.
The Sandbox Roadmap
Check out The Sandbox Roadmap to learn more about the exciting features and events to come.
The Sandbox Creator Fund
Learn more about how to become a creator and how to tap into The Sandbox Creator Fund.
Gems and Catalysts
Learn more about gems and catalysts through The Sandbox Gitbook.
The Sandbox Official Documentation
Read the official documentation book for more in-depth answers to your questions.
