$SAND has doubled since October 1: $0.0439 at the open, reaching a high of $0.08806 on Binance on October 7—the highest since March 18. Over the same period, $BTC is down 0.2%. The starting point is Korean, not metaverse-related.
August 22: an attacker exploits The Sandbox bridge on Base and BNB Chain, mints unbacked SAND, and withdraws 14.7 million SAND on the Ethereum side (according to the project's post-mortem). On August 24, Upbit and Coinone place SAND under warning, suspending deposits and withdrawals.
October 2, 07:00 UTC: Upbit, Bithumb, and Coinone lift the warning, and deposits reopen. SAND rises from $0.0482 to $0.0613 in one hour.
October 3–6: it peaks at $0.08396, then pulls back to $0.0649.
Today, from 14:00 UTC onward: it rises from $0.0701 to $0.08806 in less than three hours, while the market is in the red (BTC down 2.6% over 24 hours). No announcement from The Sandbox has been spotted to explain this move.
What the numbers say. On Upbit, SAND/KRW traded 96.5 billion KRW in 24 hours (~$71 million), about 58% of Upbit's BTC/KRW volume, compared with $39.2 million for SAND/USDT on Binance. Open interest in OKX's SAND perpetual rose from $1.5 million on October 1 to $13.0 million at 16:00 UTC, including a $3.9 million increase during the rally. And OKX funding has been negative at every settlement since October 2, 08:00 UTC: shorts are paying to stay in their positions.
My take: a flow-driven rally (Korean access restored, shorts digging in), not a recovery in usage. The Base/BNB Chain bridge remains disabled. Above $0.0840 (the October 3 high), the next marker is $0.0913 (March 18), and shorts remain under pressure. A return below $0.070, the base of today's move, would send SAND back into its $0.065–$0.076 range of recent days.
Can Korean volume keep SAND going without any news, or will those shorts eventually be proven right?
#TheSandbox #Upbit
August 22: an attacker exploits The Sandbox bridge on Base and BNB Chain, mints unbacked SAND, and withdraws 14.7 million SAND on the Ethereum side (according to the project's post-mortem). On August 24, Upbit and Coinone place SAND under warning, suspending deposits and withdrawals.
October 2, 07:00 UTC: Upbit, Bithumb, and Coinone lift the warning, and deposits reopen. SAND rises from $0.0482 to $0.0613 in one hour.
October 3–6: it peaks at $0.08396, then pulls back to $0.0649.
Today, from 14:00 UTC onward: it rises from $0.0701 to $0.08806 in less than three hours, while the market is in the red (BTC down 2.6% over 24 hours). No announcement from The Sandbox has been spotted to explain this move.
What the numbers say. On Upbit, SAND/KRW traded 96.5 billion KRW in 24 hours (~$71 million), about 58% of Upbit's BTC/KRW volume, compared with $39.2 million for SAND/USDT on Binance. Open interest in OKX's SAND perpetual rose from $1.5 million on October 1 to $13.0 million at 16:00 UTC, including a $3.9 million increase during the rally. And OKX funding has been negative at every settlement since October 2, 08:00 UTC: shorts are paying to stay in their positions.
My take: a flow-driven rally (Korean access restored, shorts digging in), not a recovery in usage. The Base/BNB Chain bridge remains disabled. Above $0.0840 (the October 3 high), the next marker is $0.0913 (March 18), and shorts remain under pressure. A return below $0.070, the base of today's move, would send SAND back into its $0.065–$0.076 range of recent days.
Can Korean volume keep SAND going without any news, or will those shorts eventually be proven right?
#TheSandbox #Upbit