Which Is Better: Sandbox or Decentraland?

Metaverse tokens played a big part in the 2021 bull market. When Facebook announced its metaverse project, investors flocked to the markets to acquire the most promising blockchain-based metaverse worlds. This spurred a huge rally that played as a market catalyst for NFTs as well as GameFi tokens.

Two of the most important metaverse projects currently running are Decentraland and Sandbox. They are quite similar in their functioning so many investors wonder how to differentiate them and pick out the best one.

Similar to comparing payment network tokens like XLM vs XRP, we can provide some relevant metrics that allow you to compare SAND and MANA. This should help you understand how they work and which one has the most potential.

What Is the Metaverse?

The metaverse is a virtual world where users can evolve, explore, communicate, play games, and much more. When it’s powered by blockchain technology, the metaverse allows users to benefit from digital ownership of their virtual assets.

Consequently, they can buy virtual land and real estate and use them to build their own gaming or social experiences. People can do virtual meetups in the metaverse, play various games, and monetize these activities through NFTs and blockchain tokens.

These NFTs can represent anything of value in the metaverse. It can be virtual land, cosmetics for your avatar, gaming items, vehicles, real estate — the possibilities are endless. Moreover, the tokens in each world can be used for purchasing these NFTs, staking to receive revenue, or accessing advanced functions in the world.

Exploring Two Popular Metaverse Platforms

As previously mentioned, the Decentraland vs Sandbox comparison is a recurring discussion in the metaverse enthusiast communities. To help you understand these two popular platforms, we provide some of their fundamentals below.

Definition of Decentraland

Decentraland is a web-based metaverse world that can be accessed through one’s browser. It’s one of the first functional blockchain-backed metaverses that can be freely explored by its users. The world is comprised of 90,601 LAND parcels, each one represented by an NFT.

This allows users to benefit from land ownership in the world and build their own experiences and houses on their land. They can then monetize these experiences and ask for users to pay with MANA tokens in the world.

The MANA token is the native currency of Decentraland. It allows users to purchase and mint NFTs, as well as participate in the open real estate market.

Definition of Sandbox

Sandbox is a similar venture to Decentraland, albeit more focused on communities and gaming. It runs on Windows instead of web browsers, which allows it to provide some of the best graphics in the space.

Creators can use its built-in tools to design various metaverse assets. These are characters, clothing, game items, etc. They can then put them on sale on the NFT marketplace to make profits in SAND tokens.

The Sandbox is comprised of 166,464 land parcels. Here users can deploy their gaming and social experiences. The SAND token is essential to creating unique NFTs and can be staked on one’s virtual LAND to provide passive income or rare ingredients.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the Sandbox has been endorsed by various brands and celebrities. These include Snoop Dogg, Bored Ape Club, Ubisoft, Adidas, and many more.

So, What Crypto to Choose?

As you might have noticed, Decentraland and the Sandbox are pretty similar concepts. However, the Sandbox benefits from a larger user base and better brand endorsements. Moreover, the graphics of the Sandbox are of much higher quality, and the gaming experiences are worth playing. Moreover, the integrated creation tools allow even beginners to start making NFTs and sell them to other users. At the same time, in Decentraland users need to have advanced knowledge of 3d modeling to do this.

To sum up, the Sandbox looks like the more promising platform, although both are still in the early stages and are barely usable.