The famous metaverse The Sandbox, in addition to gaming and land commercialization is now focusing on sports by giving the possibility through crypto and NFTs to have a more inclusive experience.
Not just land and crypto: The Sandbox launches into sports
Animoca Brands is not only thinking about the sale of land in The Sandbox, but now also provides the opportunity to approach the world of sports through crypto.Â
In the wake of the enthusiasm for the Qatar World Cup, The Sandbox decided to offer its users the opportunity to have a privileged relationship with their favorites and play with them or simply participate in seminars on sports and NFTs.Â
The virtual space dedicated to this new sports project will be called NFTSTAR and will have as its first members the very star of Brazil Neymar Jr, legend Luis Figo and Tottenham star Son Heung-Min.Â
Abe Ren, who is also its co-founder, heads the new project in the service of gaming, of those who enjoy a more immersive experience with their idols, or of those who are simply passionate about sports (in the specific case of soccer).Â
Ren stated the following:
“We are thrilled to partner with The Sandbox to promote our brand, celebrities and proprietary NFTs. This collaboration allows us to collectively grow the community of sports, eSports and video game enthusiasts.”
COO of The Sandbox, Sebastien Borget addressing the progress in different directions made by the metaverse project where he is at the helm said:
“Sports are an important part of global culture, and as such it is a pleasure to welcome NFTSTAR to The Sandbox metaverse as we continue to grow our sports-based experiences and activations, such as the recent Kuniverse with Kun Aguero.”
The all-around experience will include sports, not only gaming but also NFT collectibles, social experiences, and whatnot.Â
To emphasize this concept, the programmer in charge of creating this new space, Loretta Chen, wanted to give her own view.Â
“It is the beginning of an exciting adventure that will include avatars, phygital experiences and the creation of a global sports space that will expand into playable social hub experiences, including a stadium.”
Key players in the metaverse include Decentraland.Â
As of 2021, the company together with The Sandbox has reached market cap slices of $10 billion by establishing itself strongly in GameFi.Â
What determined the success of Decentraland and the Animoca Brands metaverse relative to established brands such as Gucci or Adidas was the timing, which rewarded the former two in favor of the latter for less time in the industry.Â
Not just lights
According to DappRadar, not all that glitters is gold. In fact, the two metaverses would be empty or almost empty.Â
The figure that emerged is that only 20,000 users worldwide in the last month have joined the virtual world.Â
The MANA and SAND (the corresponding tokens) do not fare any better either, leaving 90% of their value on the field in the last year.Â
The end of 2022 also marks the arrival of a new competitor for The Sandbox, namely RobotEra.Â
RobotEra began as a gaming project with a focus on the world of cryptocurrencies, which it leverages to monetize through play-to-earn, for the buying and selling of NFTs or the proceeds from building part of the metaverse in which the user can participate.Â
In essence, users are actively helping to build the planet Taro, an imaginary world in which with the help of technology and robots, land is built to be resold or rented out by expanding the metaverse further and further.
