Getting to know The Sandbox’s Sebastien Borget
Sebastien Borget discusses all things the metaverse, including its often misunderstood definition and the importance of interoperability.
As a speaker at this year’s Binance Blockchain Week, Sebastien Borget shared his thoughts with our community and team. With his project The Sandbox making headlines around the globe, he’s an incredibly busy man.
On a sunny Friday afternoon, I took some time to catch up with Sebastien, COO and Co-Founder of The Sandbox. Unless you’ve been living under a crypto crock, it’s hard not to recognize the project.
The Sandbox is easily one of the most popular and developed metaverse games available. We’ve even seen the likes of Snoop Dogg, Adidas, and HSBC purchasing plots of The Sandbox land. To say Sebastien’s project has become a metaverse big brand is an understatement.
In the build-up to last month’s Binance Blockchain Week, we took some time to settle in.
“It’s my first time at a Binance event,” mentioned Sebastien as he called in from Austin, Texas. “It’s also my first time in Dubai! I’m staying three days… and will be meeting some old Binancians, perhaps even for a birthday”.
It seems even the crypto world is a small one. It’s not often you have an industry leader on the other side of your video call. So, with the opportunity at hand, it felt fitting to discuss perhaps the industry’s most contentious topic: what exactly is the metaverse?
As happens so often in crypto, key innovations become marketing buzzwords and jargon. Many times, we end up with a crypto word salad that doesn’t actually amount to much. Even with the metaverse on every journalist, speaker, and investor’s lips, it seems like most would struggle to explain what it is.
“Everyone has been made aware of what the metaverse is, but there is still a lot of confusion about exactly what it is. For us, the definition is really around this myriad of virtual worlds which anyone can access through a 3D avatar.” They can use [this avatar] to engage in various activities that reproduce [aspects of] real life.”
“You can work, play a game, socialize, dance, attend virtual concerts, visit virtual museums and art galleries, and more.”
Even with a definition, it still seems like the metaverse has entered the buzzword realm of Web3, NFTs, and GameFi. Perhaps what makes the metaverse even more difficult to understand are the similar applications we’ve already experienced.
Since the early 2000s, gamers have spent large parts of their lives in virtual worlds. Others have even used them as an opportunity for income. Just look at World of Warcraft’s gold miners or Second Life’s begging bots.
Social events are also commonplace in these multiplayer platforms. Already, we have three of the main ingredients for the metaverse: social interaction, an opportunity to earn, and 3-D virtual worlds. But these three together don’t actually complete the full recipe.
“What’s really important is that virtual worlds are not metaverses,” Sebastien noted. “[The games] we’ve seen for the past 25 years, Roblox, Second Life, Fortnite, are great virtual worlds, but they are not metaverses. [They] are closed wall garden platforms where users cannot take their identity, digital assets, or currencies outside of the platform.”
“What has been abused is the marketing of the metaverse.”
Here is the secret ingredient. A metaverse is a connected world with interoperability, and that’s where so many are going wrong.
“What has been abused is the marketing of the metaverse,” Sebastien added. “Several projects that are traditional games are now pretending to be metaverses because they’re a transmedia experience. I don’t believe it fits with the definition, and I’d encourage more projects to enable interoperability, allowing their users to use assets made by other projects in their worlds.”
“The idea of the metaverse is to visit this myriad of virtual worlds through the same identity and carry your assets from one to another”
For many projects, the solution to creating an interconnected world is blockchain. Projects pay no license fees to implement blockchain technology. It’s open to all and is easily accessible using a wallet created with a click. And, perhaps most importantly, it gives the user direct control of their assets no matter where they are.
When it comes to this point, Sebastien was in firm agreement. “[blockchain] is integral. It’s the only technology that enables users to own their identity in the form of an avatar. ”
You can also plainly see this in The Sandbox’s use of digital assets and NFTs from other platforms.
“[We take] Bored Ape Yacht Club, Crypto Punks, World of Women [NFTs], and let people play with their 3D avatars of them. This brings more utility to the NFTs they hold too.”
“Blockchain… has enabled the possibility for a truly open metaverse to exist, where users are self-sovereign and have full ownership of all their digital content.”
For regular users, there’s another key problem that seems yet to be resolved. Like many other metaverse projects, The Sandbox has made its home on Ethereum. While it’s one of the most popular blockchains, it’s also one of the most expensive.
Minting NFTs, transferring tokens, and swapping crypto can easily rack up a hefty bill. When I bring up the topic, Sebastien is sympathetic to the issue. In fact, it’s part of the reason why The Sandbox is beginning to migrate many of its assets to Polygon, such as SAND and Land.
Another factor to cover is the price of Land in The Sandbox Land. In a nutshell, it’s expensive. Prohibitively so for anyone looking to buy on the secondary market. When questioned, Sebastian answered honestly.
“I think the economy of The Sandbox is starting to open progressively. We will enable landowners to publish seasons and experiences on their own. It will start to shift more and more towards the actual economics of this platform.”
“If there is no revenue being generated by the revenue of users… then the land value readjusts based on that.”
One thing that can’t be denied is that The Sandbox is making a big return for brands, investors, and initial holders. When it comes to supply and demand, economics can’t be argued with here. But not all returns are measured in dollar value.
A return on investment can be difficult to calculate for brands. How do you measure if purchasing land is profitable when millions have been spent on providing a free customer experience?
“Brands are looking to enter the metaverse because they are looking for new ways, not to sell more, but to be closer to the fans of the brand and give them value in the form of experiences.” Sebastien confidently explained without pausing.
“The metaverse is something that’s able to provide that. It gives the NFT community ownership; it allows them to be closer, to be creative.”
“The Sandbox is a place first and foremost for creativity.”
In a fitting end, I began to question Sebastien about the future. We’ve got a long way to go to realize the metaverse fully, but the steps are clear to him.
“There’s still a lot that can be developed into this ecosystem. That’s why we’ve launched The Sandbox Metaverse Accelerator. We received more than 1,000 submissions from entrepreneurs with ideas on how they can keep improving discovery, usability, utility, accessibility of NFTs, and the metaverse in general, among other ideas.”
“We’re going to support 100 startups with a check size of 150,000 to 250,000 USD. We also believe a lot in supporting the ecosystem overall.”
And what kind of projects can expect to receive this funding? “[We’ve] started to make investments and collaborations [with] anyone we believe is genuinely interested in reinforcing the notion of ownership, community-driven, and value for the users first and foremost.”
And there you have it, straight from the source.
Jump into the metaverse today with The Sandbox
If you want to dive deeper into the metaverse’s inner workings, you can catch Sebastien’s keynote speech from day two of this year's Binance Blockchain Week.
Don’t also forget that The Sandbox provides a polished way to explore the Metaverse today.
For anyone jumping into the game, there’s no better place to start than with Sebastien’s current favorite experiences from Alpha Season 2: The Snoop Dogg Mansion, Club XYZ with DJ BLOND:ISH, and South China Morning Post’s educational Star Ferry recreation.