The news is finally out! Along with other big brand names such as Gucci, Warner Music Group and Ubisoft, HSBC has now officially entered the metaverse with the purchase of a 3×3 landsite in The Sandbox!
For those new to The Sandbox, no worries at all as I’ll be going through everything you need to know about The Sandbox, including how to buy your own land in this article!
What is the Sandbox?
The Sandbox is a virtual world where players can build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences in the Ethereum blockchain.
Two key terms which you must know,
- SAND: This is the native token for all transactions and interactions within the Sandbox. Based on the Ethereum blockchain.
- LAND: Digital Pieces of real estate in SAND that people can buy. A piece of LAND on its own is an NFT. Value of LAND works very much like actual real estate in reality. Eg: If you buy a house beside MRT its more expensive, same thing in The Sandbox if you buy a LAND beside a Famous LAND owner.
If I could summarise what The Sandbox is all about in one sentence, I’d say that it is essentially a “monetised version of Minecraft on the blockchain”. As such, owners of LAND in the sandbox can pretty much do whatever they want on it like play games, meet friends, host parties etc.
Very much like how uploading a photo on Instagram makes you a user who contributes to the Instagram Ecosystem, the same applies in The Sandbox when you create a 3D game on their platform thus making you a part of their user-generated content ecosystem.
Here are some of the games which were created on the platform:
What’s the big deal about HSBC entering the Sandbox?
Here is where it gets interesting. HSBC bought a 3×3 LAND site in The Sandbox. How big is it and is it a big deal?
After some research, it turns out that it is not as significant as the news portrays it to be as owning a 3×3 piece of LAND is small compared to the total 166,464 LANDs in the Sandbox. Even if we compared HSBC’s LAND to other bigger players such as The Walking Dead or Warner Music, their land is about 8 times smaller.
Therefore, I’d say that in the case of HSBC, to them this is a really really small side project which they probably see as “fun” more than an actual investment.
At the time of writing, I am unable to find the exact plot of LAND which they purchased on the map however if they purchased land somewhere near the center of the Sandbox Map (Prime area), they would have paid somewhere north of 200 Eth which would make it approx. $630,000 USD. The amount is indeed small for a banking giant like HSBC.
Why did HSBC enter the Sandbox?
There appears to be many reasons for their entry into the Sandbox most of which related to advertising and the need to be in Web3 Scene. From my research, I have identified the following,
- Advertising – “Through our partnership with The Sandbox we are making our foray into the metaverse, allowing us to create innovative brand experiences for new and existing customers.” – Suresh Balaji, Chief Marketing Officer, Asia-Pacific, HSBC
- Competition – JPM entered the metaverse as well but through the different platform, Decentraland.
- Branding – “They’ll get to have their name in The Sandbox for everyone to see, and, given their goal is to connect with eSports communities, they can build a reputation for being the go-to bank for eSports” – Josh Goodbody, Chief Operating Officer of Qredo, told GOBankingRates
From reasons above, it is odd to see that one thing is missing and that’s how HSBC does not seem to indicate that they will be conducting any “actual banking” on the Sandbox. One can run wild with the speculation on why or why not but this is probably something that we’d have to circle back to in the near future.
How can I be a part of the Sandbox?
It is incredibly easy to be an owner of LAND in the Sandbox. LAND can be bought like any other NFT on Opensea with the cheapest at the time of writing being approx. 3 ETH(~$9,000 USD). If you head to the marketplace on the Sandbox, all you have to do is open an account, connect your metamask and off you go.
Having said that, it is probably not the best idea to immediately dump 3ETH into a piece of LAND as in my opinion, such a move is still highly speculative in nature and is very likely to be incredibly volatile in the coming weeks. As such, readers can still be a part of the Sandbox by owning either Ethereum or Sand both of which are traded on most major exchanges.
As the entire Sandbox is built on the Ethereum blockchain (along with others), Ethereum may see its value increase in price as more and more people join the metaverse.
For readers who are willing to take on more risk, you may consider buying the SAND token which is the native token in the Sandbox. SAND token is easily available on most major crypto exchanges such as Binance, Kucoin, Huobi & Crypto.com.
Is it time to enter the Metaverse?
In my opinion, the answer is Yes but with a great degree of caution. I’m not particularly bullish on the metaverse and I definitely don’t advocate it in a way where any metaverse-related investment would 10x your money in 3 months.
However, I do consider Metaverse-related instruments a crucial part of a diversified portfolio and seeing that HSBC is the second major bank to do so, I daresay that SAND token is indeed on my watchlist at this point in time.
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