WFT is the Metaverse Sandbox?

Coinbase and Sandbox making waves

This week The Sandbox, a platform that allows users to trade and monetize virtual assets in the Ethereum blockchain, is considering raising fresh funds at a valuation of more than $4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

This is actually in the wheel house of the intersection of Gaming and NFTs, apparently. The Sandbox develops a decentralized gaming platform that leverages non-fungible tokens and blockchain technology.

With Coinbase’s NFT Marketplace going live in Beta, it’s really interesting all this momentum in the space. It makes you wonder what the real reason Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard is? Microsoft has been rapid-fire acquiring gaming talent and IP for the last few years and have sort of won the most lucrative sector of the Metaverse, that is Gaming.

Microsoft just won the metaverse before it's begun, if it can also create NFT marketplace traction for its aspiring Gaming duopoly with either Tencent or Sony. With Netflix and Amazon also hitting gaming harder, it’s clear gaming is the real on-ramp to the Metaverse, even if NFTs might be the charm to turn crypto apps into social apps like Coinbase seems to be doing.

The Sandbox, an Animoca Brand Corp-owned blockchain-based online game, seeks to raise $400 million in a fresh funding round that would put its valuation at $4 billion. The project’s native token soared by double-digits as the reports surfaced. The token is worth $2.87 today according to coinmarketcap.com. While Facebook failed to create a stablecoin, it’s only choice now is to clone Roblox’s use of an internal.

WTF

I’m very curious to see that Softbank has interested the Metaverse mix in this place. If completed, this funding round will follow a previous one from November last year, when The Sandbox completed a $93 million round led by SoftBank.

So what the heck is it? The Sandbox is essentially a sandbox game for mobile phones as well as Microsoft Windows. Developed by game studio Pixowl, the platform was released in May 2012. Three years later, it was launched on Steam.

So is the Metaverse land-rush really more about the NFT of Gaming? Not all is what it seems to be.

I mean on YouTube, with regards to the Creator Economy, you can already, I mean Creators will be able to monetize short-form videos and sell content as NFTs. YouTube Shorts could be transformed by Metaverse physics and Web 3.0 alchemy! So why does someone like Softbank think Sandbox is the charm?

The Metaverse Birth Platforms

The Sandbox apparently, has expanded well beyond its initial gaming plans and has outlined intentions to have a Metaverse platform of its own. As such, it managed to attract prominent names such as HSBC. As we know from crazy startups like WeWork and Uber, Softbank has a gambling tendency.

It’s not clear yet which platforms or ecosystems could really translate well to the Metaverse. Microsoft’s new game Starfield, perhaps. I imagine Skyrim would look pretty nice in VR, tbh.

The NFT of Gaming hype is perhaps the most interesting. Sandbox plans to move “aggressively” on hiring and acquisitions, Sebastien Borget, chief operating officer and co-founder, said at a press conference in Lisbon on the sidelines of the Non Fungible Conference. The firm currently has 200 employees, double what it had last year, he said. It could look to acquire companies that are creating compelling metaverse experiences for users, Borget added. 

The Metaverse is hypothetical and it could only really arrive in 2030 or so, and buy this I don’t mean an actually appealing Horizon Worlds. As for Sandbox, As NFTs and blockchain disruption in the gaming sector gained traction, the brand was acquired by Hong Kong-based blockchain game developer and investor in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) Animoca Brands in 2018.

Animoca had previously raised $2.5 million in funding for the development of The Sandbox in 2019. In Q3 of the same year, the project welcomed an investment worth more than $2.0 million in both cash and crypto from Square Enix, B Cryptos, and True Global Ventures.

Quite a high probability to me that this is all acquired by ByteDance, that’s based in Beijing and the creator of TikTok. Yat Siu, executive chairman of Hong Kong-based metaverse (“Mr. Metaverse”) start-up Animoca Brands, says that as new technology worlds are being built around the Web 3 idea, the biggest threat isn’t regulation but companies like Facebook and Tencent.

The Future of Gaming Controls the Metaverse

Outside of Microsoft and Sony, Tencent really is the gaming power-house. While China has regulated the gaming sector inside of China, brands like ByteDance still need to develop a global strategy for their gaming efforts, even while firing a lot of their staff. The most viable intersection of the Creator Economy and gaming, would come from TikTok itself somehow.

Softbank is also an investor in ByteDance.

This is of course why I mention Sandbox today.

While the Sandbox today in part, feels like a sad version and vastly inferior minecraft, could it become something more?

The Ethereum-based decentralized NFT gaming metaverse company has also been expanding into virtual real estate and concerts. That’s not unlike Fortnite having internal concerts. Amazon MMO New World had terrible server issues in anticipating demand for its game launch not too long ago. Due to launching the game in a borken state, just a few months later the game is practically dead.

Gaming, is hard.

Sales of real estate in the metaverse topped $500 million last year (2021) and could double this year, according to investors and analytics firms. So what exactly are they buying?

So far, real estate sales have been concentrated on the “Big Four” — Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels and Somnium. Never heard of them? WTF I know, right.

Real estate sales on the four major metaverse platforms reached $501 million in 2021, according to MetaMetric Solutions. Sales in January topped $85 million, the metaverse data provider said. It projects that at this pace sales could reach nearly $1 billion in 2022. Some brands are literally buying up digital twin zones anticipating it will be very lucrative.

I know Unity has big plans for the Metaverse, which I can at least trust. Unity has the capabilities to actually pull it off.

This is a fat juicy to be continued.

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Anyways I hope you enjoyed the topic, that’s all for today.