What Is The Sandbox Metaverse? A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners

Living in a virtual world was only something you’d think to see in a sci-fi movie. Now with various metaverse platforms such as The Sandbox on the rise, it’s become a reality. But what exactly is The Sandbox metaverse?

The Sandbox is a community-driven gaming metaverse built on the Ethereum blockchain. Using the platform’s free software you can create assets and experiences that can be shared and monetized to earn real money. Anyone can own assets and properties, play, build, and earn to enjoy a virtual life.

If you have ever wondered what it’d be like to live in a virtual world, The Sandbox is the closest thing to that. Below you’ll learn exactly what this metaverse is all about and how it works.

What Is The Sandbox Metaverse?

The Sandbox is a metaverse platform that offers dynamics and alternatives never seen before in other games, developed with a stable and firm framework and aimed to deliver a long-term profitable platform. 

You can travel freely around the open environment of the platform, participating in all kinds of commercial and recreational activities, using a mechanism similar to that employed in The Sims or Second Life.

By utilizing cryptocurrency and NFT technology, The Sandbox offers users a true ecosystem where they are able to build, play, spend, and earn real money. Considering The Sandbox is a virtual world, you can engage in recreational and economic activities that are comparable to those found in the real world.

There are three main digital assets that make up this metaverse: SAND, LAND, and ASSETS.

Each of these are digital assets that utilize blockchain technology to allow users to live and engage in a true virtual economy.

The goal of developing a metaverse on the blockchain network, according to the development team, is to expand the possibilities for generating new forms of digital assets based on ownership and governance, providing users the freedom to decide and participate as they see proper.

The Sandbox metaverse, on the other hand, aims to merge the finest aspects of play-to-earn with daily activities. 

You can earn money by executing a variety of activities within the platform, as well as attending parties, visiting museums, and making buildings, all while enjoying a design that is evocative of Minecraft and Lego.

Is The Sandbox Free?

The Sandbox metaverse is free to join and play. It provides users with VoxEdit (a free-to-use voxel creator for creating in-game assets) and Game Maker (a free game maker that requires zero coding skills). Though some activities are free, certain games and assets within the platform cost money.

In addition to being able to create your own assets and develop your own games, there are some free-to-play games in this metaverse. That being said, they are few and far between.

To really enjoy everything this virtual world has to offer, you will need to purchase some in-game currency using your Web3 wallet.

What Do You Need to Get Started in The Sandbox?

To get started in The Sandbox you need a supported wallet like MetaMask. Your wallet is used to store and manage your cryptocurrencies and tokens like $SAND, LAND, and GEMs. It also allows you to interact with blockchain technologies. Also, you’ll need to get $SAND (in-game currency).

Essentially, your wallet is your key to accessing the blockchain and The Sandbox metaverse. It is used to sign in to the game and allows you to buy, sell, and store all of your digital assets including cryptocurrency and NFTs.

This provides you with true ownership of your digital assets and allows you to interact within the virtual realm. 

Moreover, if you want to experience The Sandbox to the fullest, you will need to buy $SAND on a trusted cryptocurrency exchange like CEX.io, and you can use the CEX.io wallet to keep your SAND safe.

That being said, you can sign in to The Sandbox and begin exploring using your social media account (this option will automatically create a Venly wallet for you). You can always purchase $SAND at a later time if you’d like.

For the full experience, getting yourself some $SAND is highly recommended.

How Does The Sandbox Work?

The Sandbox allows you to both create and consume digital assets, experiences, and virtual real estate using its native token SAND. You can either choose to consume these assets and experiences, or you can build your own assets and experiences to earn real money. Ultimately, the decision is yours.

Below are the tools used in The Sandbox to create assets and different experiences—all of which can be monetized.

VoxEdit

You can utilize this free software to design NFTs by creating, animating, and transforming voxels. Voxels are three-dimensional square pixels that resemble Lego or Minecraft blocks.

When designing, you may construct any item, including avatars, costumes, buildings, greenery, animals, and cars, which can be exchanged as an NFT digital asset on The Sandbox marketplace.

The combination of Ethereum’s blockchain and VoxEdit’s technology creates a perfect setting for NFTs to be exchanged and sold to other users. 

Users of other games can purchase and sell NFTs on The Sandbox’s Marketplace, allowing owners to freely move their tokenized products between platforms thanks to blockchain technology’s safe, guaranteed, and trustless transactions.

Game Maker

Game Maker is a software app based on the interpreted Delphi programming language that allows you to design blockchain platforms and video games without the need to know anything about programming. 

One of the most popular features is that it lets users construct and test their own 3D video games in The Sandbox’s universe, including integrating NFTs created using VoxEdit into tokenized LAND terrains.

If you buy LAND, you can use it to change the landscape, create buildings, place avatars, create interactive mini-games, and choose missions from the community Resource Library. 

Other players are able to visit your LAND after it is finished, generating you passive income.

The simplicity with which it is possible to monetize games made inside The Sandbox environment—which may become the primary source of revenue for designers—is one of Game Maker’s most well-liked features.

What Is SAND?

SAND is the main utility token and currency of The Sandbox. It’s an ERC-20 token built on the Ethereum blockchain and also acts as a governance token. It’s required for buying and selling NFTs including LAND and ASSETs. You also need to hold SAND to participate in the governance of the metaverse.

$SAND is used for numerous functions in The Sandbox metaverse.

• Medium of exchange: $SAND is necessary for making purchases from The Sandbox’s marketplace. It’s also required to purchase: LAND, ASSETs, GEMs, and CATALYSTs Avatar customizations.

• Governance: You need to hold $SAND to participate in the governance of the platform.

• Selling Assets: As a creator, you need $SAND  to upload your voxel creations to The Sandbox’s marketplace to sell them for a profit.

• Staking: $SAND is also for staking LAND. In return, stakers earn rewards such as highly coveted GEMs. $SAND can also be staked into a liquidity mining pool for rewards.

• Playing games: Although some games are free to play (F2P), not all of them are. The game designer can choose to charge players a small amount of $SAND in order to play their games. Additionally, players can earn $SAND by playing play-to-earn games.

• Hiring designers: You can use $SAND to hire game designers and artists to collaborate on projects with you or commission them to design ASSETs for your project.

• Contests: Game designers can choose to give $SAND away as a reward in contests hosted on their LAND.

Ultimately, $SAND is used for everything in The Sandbox ecosystem.

What Is LAND?

LAND is a digital piece of real estate in The Sandbox metaverse. You can use LAND to build and monetize digital experiences and fill them with ASSETs. LAND is a unique, ERC-721 token on the Ethereum blockchain. A total of 166,464 LANDs are available. Multiple LANDs can be combined to form ESTATEs.

Since LAND is stored as an NFT on the blockchain, you are able to literally own digital real estate within this metaverse. LAND is really the foundation of The Sandbox’s entire ecosystem as it hosts experiences and assets that allow users to earn money. 

More so, multiple plots of LAND can be combined to form ESTATEs. A special type of ESTATE owned by more than one person is called a DISTRICT.

Partners like Square Enix, Atari, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Binance, Smurfs, Deadmau5, and others own certain LANDs in The Sandbox. 

The gameplay, visitor counts, economy, visibility, and monetization potential of the games established on those LANDs are all influenced by the proximity of a LAND owner’s LAND to these important partners and other crucial positions.

How to Buy LAND

You can easily buy your own LAND on a secondary NFT marketplace such as Opensea. To find LAND to buy on Opensea, follow these steps:

Step 1: Visit Opensea

Opensea is the most popular NFT marketplace. You will need your wallet to sign into Opensea and purchase your own LAND.

Step 2: Search for “The Sandbox” at the top of the website. 

Click the result in the list. Ensure that the result you click has the blue “verified” checkmark next to it, as shown in the image below.

Step 3: Search for your preferred plot of LAND.

Using the optional filters on Opensea, you can find your preferred plot of LAND. You can view this in-depth guide if you need more help choosing the right plot of LAND for you.

Step 4: Confirm your LAND purchase.

Once you have found the LAND that you want to purchase, either place a bid or buy now, and confirm the transaction using your wallet.

What Are Estates?

The Sandbox ESTATE is a group of 1×1 LANDs that have been merged together into a larger parcel. Typically, ESTATEs come in sizes of 3×3, 6×6, 12×12, and 24×24. ESTATEs can either be bought readily assembled or they can be created by merging 1×1 LANDs that are adjacent to each other. 

ESTATEs can also be broken down into smaller ESTATEs or even individual 1×1 LAND plots. Below is a chart that breaks down the different ESTATE sizes according to The Sandbox.

ESTATE Type	ESTATE Size	LANDs Per Parcel
Small	3×3	9
Medium	6×6	36
Large	12×12	144
X-Large	24×24	576

What Are Districts?

A DISTRICT is a special kind of ESTATE owned by two more people. DISTRICT owners are entitled to special governance rules that affect all experiences incorporated in the DISTRICT via a DAO. This governance allows LAND owners to collaborate and build together.

Requirements for an ESTATE to become part of a DISTRICT:

• ​​ESTATEs must be adjacent to each other.
• Each DISTRICT must have a minimum of two owners.
• Each owner needs to stake a certain amount of $SAND.
• All DISTRICT approvals are submitted to a vote.

What Are Premium LANDs?

Premium LANDs surround major partners or social hubs. Premium LANDs experience higher traffic from players, due to players joining the metaverse through these social hubs through portals and then branching outwards to explore the nearby LANDs. Hence, Premium LANDs have more benefits than LAND.

Benefits of Premium LANDs include:

• More traffic: More traffic means greater potential for monetization income through pay-to-play games and renting the LAND out to other developers.
  
  Another benefit of having more traffic is that more players may see any advertisements that have been placed on billboards on premium LANDs. Renting billboards can earn LAND owners more money, and has the potential to direct visitors to other forms of monetization outside of the platform.

• More exposure: There is potentially less need for Premium LAND owners to market their experiences on social media, compared to someone who built an experience on a regular LAND since Premium LAND has more exposure.

• Exclusive assets: Premium LANDs are initially sold with exclusive, limited-time ASSETs. Over time, these ASSETs can become highly desirable by collectors and game designers as they get rarer. 

What Are ASSETS?

ASSETS are voxel creations in The Sandbox. They are designed to provide content to experiences like games that are designed on LAND. Once uploaded to The Sandbox’s marketplace, ASSETS are converted into ERC-1155 tokens (NFTs) which can then be monetized and traded on the marketplaces for a profit.

There are several types of ASSETS found within The Sandbox ecosystem including:

Entities: NFTs that populate an experience with non-playable characters (NPCs) such as people and animals. Basically, entities bring the virtual world of The Sandbox to life.

Equipment: These NFTs can be equipped to help players complete game objectives such as swords, shields, helmets, gloves, etc. These NFTs can be stored in a player’s inventory.

Wearables: These unique NFTs give you the ability to customize your avatars. T-shirts, pants, shoes, hats, and glasses are all forms of wearable ASSETS used to make your avatar character unique.

Art: Framed artwork, statues, and landmarks are all examples of ASSETS that serve as visual decorative items to spruce up the look of the game.

Blocks: You can think of blocks as the building blocks of The Sandbox world. Water, mud, and sand are examples of blocks that are used to change the look of the world. Artists can create unique blocks to design special worlds that contain purple water, sparkly lava, and different soil types.

Essentially, ASSETS are quite literally the building blocks that bring the virtual world of The Sandbox to life.

How Do Sandbox Creators Generate Revenue?

Creators in The Sandbox earn revenue by creating and selling digital assets and experiences. You can sell your creations on the marketplace and charge others a fee to interact with the games and experiences you create. Additionally, you can rent LAND and advertising space to other users for a fee.

Additionally, you have the option of staking your SAND tokens. Users are required to pay transaction fees of 5% each time a transaction takes place on The Sandbox.

The Staking Pool receives 50% of those fees, which are then used to reward token holders. The foundation that supports The Sandbox gets the remaining 50%. The foundation then distributes the tokens it has in reserve to ecosystem players for as by rewarding game creators who add new features to their creations.

According to its whitepaper, The Sandbox also intends to include player subscriptions and advertising in the future.

How to Acces The Sandbox Metaverse

Accessing The Sandbox metaverse is easy, just follow these five steps below:

Step 1: Go to The Sandbox and Sign In.

Visit The Sandbox’s official website and choose Sign In on the top-right corner to create your account.

Step 2: Sign up using your wallet or social media account.

The Sandbox Metaverse supports numerous wallets, but I recommend Metamask. If you don’t want to install a wallet plugin, you can connect to Bitski directly from your e-mail. 

Also, you can log in using your Twitter, Google, or Facebook accounts through Sandbox’s Venly integration. (If you sign up using your social media account, a unique Ethereum wallet address will be automatically created for you along with a PIN code via Venly.)

Step 3: Enter your email and nickname and hit Continue.

Your nickname can contain A-Z, a-z, and 0-9, but no special characters.

Step 4: Select Create Avatar on The Sandbox homepage.

Using the Metaverse Avatar Creator tool, you can choose from over 39 predesigned embodiments with customizable skin tones and apparel colors. You can also customize your avatar’s head, shirt, pants, and shoes. Once you’re happy with how your avatar looks, select Save Changes.

Step 5: Complete your profile by clicking Settings.

General settings: Here you can modify your email and username if needed. You can also input personal information (name, web address, description) and social links (Youtube, Discord, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, Twitter). 

Security and password: Make sure to create a secure password to ensure your account and all of your assets remain safe. 

Now you’re all ready to explore this vast virtual world.

The Sandbox is one of the first true metaverse worlds that allows you to interact with an entire online ecosystem containing thousands of users, and endless opportunities to earn a real income by monetizing assets and experiences.

It’s fun, it’s easy to use, and I’m confident that it’s the future. In fact, you can experience everything The Sandbox has to offer in virtual reality using these recommended VR headsets.

If you enjoy gaming or if you consider yourself a creator, I highly recommend trying out this metaverse for yourself. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.