“In the early days of the Internet, people rushed to buy web domains. In the early days of Web3, people, brands, and celebrities bought virtual land. Do you wish to become a virtual landowner?” – Sandbox
The Sandbox metaverse is a virtual world divided into patches of land that are not interconnected. We call them parcels (from English parcels); they are also LAND tokens (English land). These Sandboxes are unique NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. LAND tokens can be combined, creating one new ESTATE token, which allows you to combine areas in the metaverse and build a larger object or game.
Sandbox Metaverse Map
The Sandbox metaverse map is divided into 166464 parcels of land. The area of one LAND plot is 96×96 m. Owning a LAND token gives you specific rights and opportunities in the metaverse:
- Participation in decision-making within the platform;
- The ability to customize your plots of land by building a real estate on them or creating a gaming experience;
- Opportunity to earn by monetizing this experience;
- Opportunity to earn prizes during the Alpha Seasons due to the mere fact of ownership;
- And, of course, you can sell or rent the site or the property on it.
The map interface lets you view general information about each lot, its owner, size, and type.
Parse types and their cost
In total, several types of parsels are visually distinguishable:
- Parcels are available for purchase. Marked in blue on the map. It is, one might say, “primary.”
- Parcels that have an owner. Marked in green. You can bargain for them.
- Premium Parcels. Marked in yellow. They are grouped around large ESTATEs and give additional bonuses to the owner.
There are four of these premium bonuses:
- More SAND from staking ;
- Early access to new features;
- More attention to your sites from users. We don’t know yet if this works organically or if some mechanic is supposed;
- Gem airdrops for your avatar.
In the Sandbox metaverse, buying land is as easy as any other NFT. Since the real estate market in the metaverse functions similarly to the stock market, you can place warrants and bid for parcels that already have an owner. To do this, you must select any LAND on the Sandbox map and offer a price (Place Bid). Next, you will be transferred to the OpenSea market. Today, the minimum value of one parcel is 1.28 ETH, which is approximately $1675 as of November 10th.
And in the first round of presale, LAND could be bought for only $28.80! At the public sale, LAND was priced at $48.80.
Land Ownership Prospects
There are 2 opposing views on land ownership and real estate in the metaverse. American billionaire Mark Cuban, to put it mildly, considers this stupidity. However, the saturation of the metaverse with global brands such as Ubisoft, Atari, Nvidia, Vodafone, and others may indicate otherwise. We have already talked about the prospects of the metaverse, and this may be a new trend in the Web3 industry. However, the metaverse evolves and changes, so it is impossible to predict the interest in investing in plots of land in the long term. That is why platforms like Sandbox are now trying to interest landowners with numerous bonuses.
