A Comprehensive Guide on How to Buy Land on Sandbox

The advent of blockchain technology has resulted in several innovative tools and ideas. Aside from being the spine of cryptocurrencies and DeFi, blockchain also birthed the intertwined concept of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and Metaverse.

Metaverse has a Siamese connection with NFTs, so all Metaverse usable are NFTs.

What Is Metaverse?

Metaverse is a virtual world existing on blockchain networks where users (humans) can explore and exploit the virtual space with the use of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), artificial intelligence (AI), cryptocurrencies, and other necessary innovative tools like NFTs.

One of the perks of Metaverse is that users can participate in any event or gathering, irrespective of their geographic location. You can be in North America and attend a Metaverse gathering in Europe or Asia.

The advent of Metaverse fosters the yearnings and adoption of NFTs in the decentralized space since NFTs are remarkable pieces used in the Metaverse. The Metaverse's potential social and corporate use cases gave rise to many investors in the niche, one of which is Sandbox.

Sandbox began as a 2D video game launched by Pixowl in May 2012.

With the frenzy adoption of blockchain, crypto, and NFTs, Animoca Brands (founded by Yat Siu in 2014) acquired Sandbox in 2018, and it journeyed into the blockchain space as a 3D decentralized gaming platform running on the Ethereum network

Sandbox is one of the leading brands in the Metaverse space. Aside from being a gaming platform, its adoption of blockchain technology paved the way to a new realm.

On Sandbox, creators can use Game Maker to build games, VoxEdit to create and edit voxel-based NFTs listed on Sandbox's marketplace, and Avatar to create and customize Metaverse's avatars.

Sandbox became notable with its Metaverse land, another remarkable NFT subsidiary in the decentralized space that debuted in Q4 2019.

The advent of Metaverse lands in Sandbox paved the way for a novel economy in its ecosystem.

Initially, players/users can earn $SAND from P2E games while creators earn from creating and selling voxel tokens. But now, land owners in this ecosystem can also have their bite by monetizing their LAND assets through real estate.

In the Sandbox's Metaverse, LAND is an ERC-721 token standard (NFT), a unique tokenized asset that can't be replaced with any kind.

Like lands are extraordinary assets in our physical world, they are also remarkable virtual assets in the decentralized space, where they serve different purposes in the corporate and social realms.

The fundamental goal of these LANDs in the Metaverse is to provide an enabling environment for game developers to exhibit their expertise.

Before delving into how you can acquire land on Sandbox, let's quickly run through some practical terms that can smoothen the purchase procedure.

Land Measurement and Dimension

A 1x1 LAND is a perfect square land 128 meters high. It has an equal length and breadth of 96 meters by being a perfect square, where 1 meter = 32x32x32 voxels.

The smallest unit of a plot of land in Sandbox is a voxel, which replicates the size of a block.

Multiple 1x1 LANDs can be merged to form a more extensive LAND called ESTATE, provided they are next to one another. ESTATEs exist in various sizes, as depicted below.

An extraordinary ESTATE termed a DISTRICT can be formed if they are next to one another. Two or more users can own a DISTRICT, and DAOs especially govern such an extraordinary ESTATE.

The essence of ESTATE is to allow LAND owners with mutual plans or projects to cooperate and develop their projects together.

Source: Sandbox

There are two types of LAND in the Sandbox's Metaverse which are:

1. Regular LANDs: This is where average houses or residential homes are developed. They are not usually near the economic hub where big and notable brands are situated.

2. Premium LANDs: This is where notable brands are situated and are the economic hub for potential revenue generation.

The Sandbox's Metaverse has 166,464 LANDs, of which only 74% (123,840) will be available for public purchase while the remainder will be partly reserved for airdrops to gamers and creators and the sandbox team.

How to Buy LAND on Sandbox's Metaverse.

Enthusiasts and investors can buy LANDs during Sandbox's public sales, usually announced on its official media platforms. You can have a glimpse of available LANDs on Sandbox's map before taking a decision.

To view the map, navigate to the left corner of the homepage and click on the map icon. It reveals the map alongside colored legends, distinguishing available LANDs, premium LANDs, etc.

After checking out the map, you can now proceed to buy LAND after deciding on where you want your LAND to be on the map.

So, How Do You Go About Buying LAND?

• Before buying a LAND, you must log in to your Sandbox account or create one if you don't have one. To create an account, go to the Sandbox homepage and click on the "sign in" tab on the top right corner of the page.

• Next is to sign up with a wallet or via Google or Facebook. However, signing up with a wallet seems easier and safer. Click on the "Sign up with A Wallet" tab.

• Next is to select your preferred non-custodial wallet to sign up with from the list of compatible wallets. We'll use Metamask, so click on the "Metamask" tab.

• You'll receive a notification prompt that will pop up in your Metamask window. Click on the "Sign in" tab to authorize your sign-up with the wallet.

• To make the process seamless, ensure you have Metamask wallet on your PC as an extension; this will ease navigating between windows and gadgets.

  • To add Metamask to your PC, go to the Chrome web store extension and input Metamask in the search field provided.
  • Click on the "Add to Chrome" tab and the "Add extension" tab on the following small notification page.

• You now have Metamask on your Pc after downloading successfully.

If you don't have a Metamask wallet before this, or want to create a new wallet for your LAND, follow the procedure below to set up your Metamask wallet.

• After downloading the chrome extension, click on the Metamask icon, and a welcome page will pop up. Click on the "Get started" tab.

• Next is to click on the “Create a Wallet” tab on the next page.

• The next page is for creating a strong password of your choice, and click on the “Create” tab

• The next page will show your recovery phrase, which should be kept somewhere safe from third parties. Click on the "lock icon" to reveal the phrase for you to copy.

• The next page will reveal your 12 arrays of random unrelated words, which is your seed phrase. Copy it somewhere and keep it safe. You can always use it to import your wallet and reclaim all assets in the wallet in case of theft or a damaged gadget.

• After successfully copying the seed or recovery phrase, click on the "Next" tab, and a page will pop up asking you to verify the recovery phrase you note down. This is to ensure you copied the phrase somewhere. After getting the arrangement altogether, click on the "Complete" icon.

Then a congratulatory page will pop up. Click on the "All Done" tab, and your wallet will become live.

Back to Sandbox.

After signing up with your wallet, you'll be redirected to your Sandbox profile page. You'll need $SAND and ETH to offset transaction fees and purchase LANDs. You can get these tokens on exchange platforms and transfer them to your Metamask wallet.

Now, let's dive into buying LANDs on Sandbox.

• The first step is to open your Sandbox account and find the map tab, as mentioned earlier. Click on the map and choose the LAND you want to purchase from the map. You can only buy LANDs listed for public sales. Available Regular LANDs are usually in grey; Premium LANDs are in yellow; LANDs for sale on OpenSea are in white, while green color depicts LANDs purchased by other investors and enthusiasts.

• Since direct sales of LANDs have ended, you have to buy from resellers. To do this, you can go through the marketplace by clicking on the "Market" tab from the left side corner of the page.

• Click on the "Land & Estate" tab and wait for available LANDs to load.

• Click on your preferred LAND and proceed with payment. As of this explanation, LANDs are only available for sale on OpenSea because public sales have ended on Sandbox.

• After clicking on your preferred LAND, you'll be redirected to OpenSea to conclude payment. Most LAND NFTs are listed for auctions, so you'll have to make an offer through bidding. Click on the "Make Offer" tab to make an offer to the seller.

• Next is to fill up the amount you wish to offer the seller in WETH (Wrapped ETH) in the required field. Then click on the "make offer" tab. You can also pay with DAI, SAND, or USDC equivalent amount of WETH you're offering. It is pertinent to note that the highest or best offer usually wins.

• If the LAND is available for direct purchase without bidding, you'll see a "Buy now" tab instead. Click on the tab to conclude payment.

• Next is to complete the transaction by clicking on the “Checkout” tab.

• Then confirm the payment from the notification prompt sent to your Metamask wallet by clicking on the "Confirm" tab.

That's it. Your LAND will be delivered to your wallet.

What are the Potential Investment Opportunities I Can Do With My LAND?

1. Leasing You can lease your LANDs to game designers or big brands that missed the public sales of LANDs. This is a considerable investment opportunity since general sales of LANDs on Sandbox have ended, and the price of LANDs will surely go bullish. So, users will resolve to lease LANDs from owners or landlords.

2. Events Hosting As a landlord, you can also allow users to host their events on your LANDs. Gaming experience, scenes, and stores can be hosted on your LAND. Furthermore, events like conferences, live concerts, and parties can also be hosted on your LAND for a fee from hosts.

3. Sell off You can also resell your LAND as NFTs on marketplaces. Listing your LANDs for sale allows you to include royalty fees on secondary sales. This is another passive income for landlords after selling their LANDs.

4. Staking The SAND staking initiative for LAND owners began in Q3 2022. Landlords can stake specific SAND for each LAND belonging to them to earn passive income. If you have 1 LAND, you'll be able to stake a maximum of 500 SAND, 2 LANDs (1,000 SAND), 3 LANDs (1,500 SAND), 4 LANDs (2,000 SAND), and 5 LANDs (2,500 SAND).

Happy Reading!

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash