20 May 2025

What is The Sandbox? An overview of the popular gaming metaverse

What is The Sandbox metaverse, and who created it? What are the peculiarities of the virtual world? What interesting things does it offer to the users? How is the gameplay arranged?

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The Sandbox – what is it?

The Sandbox is one of the most famous and successful gaming metaverses designed on the Ethereum blockchain network. Users can buy NFT land, design games, create NFT avatars, various game items, and travel around a vast virtual world. The Sandbox allows users to earn money from their creations through a marketplace, talent contests, and other initiatives.

This metaverse belongs to the “sandbox” genre. This is what the name alludes us to. It means that the main features of the game are focused on the management and creation of items, the study of the virtual world, its content, and total freedom of action. The game is very similar to Minecraft, as it is built on “cubic” graphics – voxels.

Although the sphere of metaverses is in its infancy, the platform has taken a strong position among the leaders and has attracted more than 2 million supporters. There are many celebrities and world-famous brands among them, for example, Snoop Dogg, Gucci, The Walking Dead, Smurfs, Warner Music, and Atari. These collaborations are an essential factor in their popularity.

Who are the founders of The Sandbox? How did the project develop?

The Sandbox entered the market in 2012, managed by Arthur Madrid, Sebastian Borge, and Pixowl Inc. At the time, it had the format of the ordinary mobile game for iOS and Android, but even then, it included custom game worlds with various additional elements.

Key development points:

In addition, in 2021, an element of DAO appeared in the virtual gaming world, through which the owners of the native assets were able to participate in the management of the platform. Now they can influence essential processes.

The Sandbox metaverse offers an exploration of an extensive roadmap of the project. There are plans to improve gameplay and content creation tools, make the product available on consoles, hold a premium NFT sale, and more.

What makes the metaverse so special?

The Sandbox consists of many NFT lands of different sizes. The owner can add game items to their land, either purchased or created by themselves. You can attach games to each land, and there is also a function to lease the land to other players. Items and games are generated in special editors provided in The Sandbox. We’ll talk about them a little bit later.

The control over everything presented on the land plot belongs entirely to the landowner. The users, who don’t own the land, can travel around the metaverse and connect to public games, simulations, adventures, and other activities for free or for a commission. Or they can create content to sell on a trading platform. Then someone will buy it and place it on his/her land plot.

What options does the user have in The Sandbox?

At the moment, the focus of the virtual Sandbox is not gameplay but the creation of the content and exploration of different land plots.

The users who connect can:

To realize this potential, the metaverse offers three tools.

The virtual world of The Sandbox, like other projects of this kind, has its own map. You can see the entire collection of land plots, their location, and who owns them there. The map also shows land that is for sale and available for rent.

What in-game assets does The Sandbox offer?

The tokenomics of The Sandbox metaverse is based on three tokens, the main of them is SAND.

SAND is the platform’s native asset, which is required for transactions and interactions with The Sandbox ecosystem. It is needed to buy in-game assets, land, and access to some games.

LAND is a non-fungible token that represents the land in the meta universe. It can be bought when there are public sales on the platform. Tokens are also available for purchase on OpenSea.

ASSETS are NFTs created by users (game objects, avatar elements, decor).

The future of the virtual world of The Sandbox

The Sandbox game metaverse hit the crypto world with its surge in 2021, but don’t forget that this was the golden age for many NFT-, GameFi projects. Nevertheless, managers’ plans demonstrate that the platform has potential for further growth. The number of renowned partners, the level of sales, and capitalization also show a solid foundation of the metaverse.

Thus, there is every chance to modify and improve the gameplay, new features and tools, additional complexity, and absolutely new ideas.

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