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Sandbox and Time partner to create “Time Square” in the metaverse

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Time and Sandbox have joined forces to create “Time Square” in the metaverse, which is modelled after the Times Square neighbourhood in New York.

TIME Square will be built on TIME’s property in The Sandbox as a hub for gathering, art, and commerce, inspired by the aesthetic energy of New York’s Times Square.

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TIME’s president, Keith A. Grossman, made the announcement at the Sandbox event held at NFT.NYC. A chance for architects to create TIME Square was also mentioned in the announcement. TIME is also looking for suggestions from the metaverse community and its devotees in order to find a creative architect who can create a graphic representation of the TIME Square. He further added,

“We are thrilled to now tap into that community as we seek to find the architect to design TIME Square in the metaverse, as we create an immersive experience with The Sandbox.”

Virtual Manhattan, Sandbox to help create the core of Metaverse

According to Time’s president, Grossman, their objective is to develop a location that will serve as the metaverse’s hub. Time is concentrated on building a community on Web3 that will gain from the tremendous 100-year legacy and access TIME has developed since launching TIMEPieces in September 2021.

The owners of TIMEPiece NFTs will also receive exclusive advantages and experiences from TIME Square. For the TIMEPieces community, the website will offer virtual access to discussions, events, screenings of TIME Studios productions, and educational opportunities.

Sebastien Borget, COO and Co-Founder of The Sandbox, said,

“The Sandbox is often viewed as a ‘virtual Manhattan’, a vibrant space alive with culture, entertainment, and brands, where anyone can discover, learn, work, meet new people, play, dance, and find amazing new opportunities.

According to Sebastien Borget, the partnership will make TIMEPieces the beating heart and soul of the digital Manhattan. The location will serve as a meeting point for companies and creators to collaborate.

Sandbox to solicit funds at $4 Billion value

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According to Bloomberg, The Sandbox, the world’s second-largest metaverse player, is trying to raise $400 million at a $4 billion valuation.

Sources close to the media house stated that The Sandbox, a platform that allows users to exchange and monetise virtual assets on the Ethereum blockchain, was considering seeking new funding at a valuation of more than $4 billion.

Although detailed specifics are few at the moment, Bloomberg sources claim that the newest fundraising will include both new and existing investors. Sandbox, which is majority-owned by blockchain gaming company Animoca Brands Corp., has been in talks with potential investors for the investment round, according to reports. Furthermore, the media house stated that the level of the rise is subject to market movements and investor demand and that it might be modified accordingly.

Following the $93 million arrangement, a new fundraising deal would be made. In November, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led a Series B round of funding for the metaverse player. The investment was the fund’s first into crypto assets, and it was intended to aid in the development of The Sandbox’s open metaverse.

The Sandbox acclaims up the ladder

In 2018, Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong-based gaming company, purchased The Sandbox and turned it into a multi-billion dollar project that is now deeply established in the metaverse and NFTs spaces.

The metaverse player grew to prominence thanks to its two name-brand mobile games, which have accumulated a total of 40 million downloads. It joined the blockchain space in 2018 by offering user-generated content and a marketplace where users could upload, publish, and sell non-fungible tokens. With its own cryptocurrency, SAND, the company has expanded into virtual land sales, fashion, and concerts.

Snoop Dogg NFT concert

In perspective, Adidas AG, retailer Carrefour SA, and Warner Music Group Corp., which wants to hold live concerts on the platform, are among the companies that have recently purchased virtual plots in the metaverse. For his song “House I Built,” Snoop Dogg debuted his first metaverse-filmed music video, which showed his digital double dancing. In addition, top multinational organizations, including HSBC Bank and Samsung, have recently expressed interest in the initiative by purchasing virtual pieces of property in its metaverse.

Ledger and The Sandbox Partners to Spread Crypto Education

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Ledger, a well-known hardware wallet maker, hopes to employ Metaverse technology to help spread Bitcoin awareness and education.

The wallet business is partnering with The Sandbox to boost crypto education and security in its virtual environment.

The Sandbox will provide it with 36 territories, allowing it to build an education and security center in its Metaverse.

The Sandbox is making room in its Metaverse for Ledger. It will allow the company to educate members of its community about crypto-security so that they can secure their investments.

The French firm has been actively expanding its operations beyond traditional cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and now takes NFTs.

In early March, Ledger introduced a limited version of the Ledger Nano S Plus, a brand-new hardware wallet designed to enable NFTs.

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Sandbox and Time partner to create "Time Square" in the metaverse 4

Ledger wants to spread security and education

Both Ledger and The Sandbox think that the greatest way to learn is via direct experience.

As a result, Ledger will rely on The Sandbox’s core value proposition. Digital ownership in games, in particular, may be used to generate gamified instructional experiences.

Players will be rewarded with one-of-a-kind artifacts resulting from these experiences, which were designed in conjunction with Swipe Back. While also infusing utility into the incentives to provide winners with unique access to activities.

In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Ian Rogers stated that the most important component of working with The Sandbox is teaching people about security.

He asserted,

”The reality is that educated people become Ledger customers, and so we just want to make sure that all people have all the education they need to be safe and to properly manage this incredible right and freedom that they have of self-custody. Self-custody really gives you personal freedom, but it’s also a responsibility. You have to take it very seriously to maintain that right and not lose it.”

To top it all off, Sandbox announced on Twitter about the collaboration.

“The Metaverse should offer endless opportunities for artists and communities to create, construct, and share ownership of ideas and experiences in a worry-free way,” stated Sebastien Borget, COO and Co-Founder of The Sandbox.

HSBC Forays Into The Metaverse Via Sandbox

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British multinational investment bank HSBC has entered into a partnership with NFT gaming metaverse Sandbox. Announcing the same, the blog claims that the new collaboration will help create a host of opportunities for digital communities across the world to engage with global financial services providers and sports communities in The Sandbox metaverse.

The move will enable the global financial giant to acquire a plot of LAND, virtual real estate in the Sandbox metaverse, which will be developed to engage and connect with sports, esports, and gaming enthusiasts.

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As per the article, the agreement will encourage other global institutions to continue innovating in Web3 to fulfill consumer demands for “robust experiences in the metaverse through decentralized and gamified offerings.” Suresh Balaji, HSBC’s Chief Marketing Officer for the Asia-Pacific region stated,

At HSBC, we see great potential to create new experiences through emerging platforms, opening up a world of opportunity for our current and future customers and for the communities we serve. 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.

COO and Co-founder of The Sandbox, Sebastien Borget, feels that the collaboration is the beginning of broader adoption of Web3 and the metaverse by institutions driving brand experiences and engagement within this new ecosystem.

HSBC went from critical to fully embraced the digital realm

HSBC joins the list of Sandbox’s over 200 existing major partnerships including Gucci, Warner Music Group, Snoop Dogg, Adidas, Steve Aoki, The Smurfs, and CryptoKitties. The blog post further added that details of the HSBC and The Sandbox collaboration would be announced in due course.

It is to be noted that HSBC was initially critical of the blockchain industry. But as the crypto industry evolved, it jumped ship like many other investment firms. From being “No to Bitcoin” in early 2021 to eventually employing a blockchain-based product for enabling foreign exchange transactions, the financial giant has made a huge turnaround.

However, this isn’t the first time that a major bank has dipped its toe in the metaverse space. In mid-February ’22, Wall Street behemoth JP Morgan announced its entry with a virtual lounge in Decentraland.

Gucci ‘vault’s into Sandbox Metaverse

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Gucci lovers seem to have gotten an early Valentine’s day present. The luxury fashion house has purchased some land on The Sandbox, a digital world platform.

The real estate platform on Sandbox will be launched, as the fashion brand spreads its wings in the Metaverse for its GenZ centric world, Gucci Vault.

An undisclosed quantity of land has been purchased by the brand, on The Sandbox, where people and brands are allowed to buy and establish virtual real estate. The fashion house and The Sandbox will collaborate to develop an interactive fashion experience based on the Vault, which the brand describes as an experimental area envisioned by Alessandro Michele and housing its metaverse projects.

However, the luxury fashion house did not provide any additional information on what the virtual world will feature. Nonetheless, the brand said on its Discord server that it is working on creating immersive experiences for The Sandbox.

The global brand has revealed that it has purchased virtual land in The Sandbox and will begin developing a world on the Metaverse platform, joining Adidas, Warner Music, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Atari, and others. Sandbox’s announcement isn’t the label’s first step into the virtual world. This revelation came following the announcement of its NFT partnering with SUPERPLASTIC, last month.

SUPERPLASTIC and GUCCI collaborate to make NFTs

SUPERGUCCI, a limited series of CryptoJanky non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and ceramic sculptures, is the result of a collaboration between the luxury fashion brand and SUPERPLASTIC, the premier global company behind limited-edition vinyl toys, animated celebrities, and digital collectibles.

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CryptoJanky NFTs’ initial drop has been available on SUPERPLASTIC’s website and through the vault since February 1.The first drop contains 10 limited-edition NFTs and accompanying ceramic sculptures, all of which were handcrafted in Italy and co-designed by both labels. A press release read,

 “Each extremely limited and valuable NFT draws inspiration from Gucci’s signature patterns, icons, and symbols, reinterpreted through the lens of SUPERPLASTIC synthetic celebrities and artists, Janky & Guggimon.”

In other news, Gucci was the first luxury brand to introduce an NFT auctioned via Christie’s, in May 2021.

Russian Central Bank To Dive in Stablecoins, Testing in the Regulatory Sandbox

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As per the latest report, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation is checking how stablecoins can work. It was reported that the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina said the bank has begun testing stablecoins in the regulatory sandbox.

Russia Starts Testing of Stablecoins in Regulator Sandbox

Stablecoin has undeniably been the trend of 2019, major market players and central authorities caught up researching different types of stablecoins, and the most widely known is the one that is pegged to fiat currency. However, the most recent in this race is Russia. Consequently, Nabiullina, the head of the Central Bank of Russia says that they are also at the stage of studying this topic. She elaborates that the country’s upcoming stablecoins are designed for companies that want to issue digital assets backed by real assets.

“First of all, we need to understand what will be the advantages to our citizens, for business, for example, compared to instant payment systems, because the issue of the digital ruble can have serious consequences leading to changes in the structure of the financial market, deposits outflows, and funds redistribution,” Nabiullina added.

According to her, the interest graph of cryptocurrency in Russia has decreased in the last few years but Russians are still doubling down on the future of cryptocurrency. She adds that the people in Russia believe cryptocurrency could be “the creation of a system of private money without government intervention”.

This being said, companies with the help of sandbox are now able to test their products and services under the purview of government. Nabiullina went on to add that they have tested stablecoins in their regulatory sandbox and continued;

Companies that want to issue tokens secured by some real assets. We in the ‘sandbox’ look at how they can work, but we do not assume that they will function as a means of payment and become money surrogate,”

Mastercard Extends Payments Services to Web3 and NFTs

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Mastercard has unveiled ambitions to increase access to the non-fungible token (NFT) market by using card payments.

In a blog post published on June 9, Raj Dhamodharan, the business’s executive vice president, claimed that the company had collaborated with Immutable X, Candy Digital, The Sandbox, Mintable, Spring, and Nifty Gateway, and MoonPay to allow NFT trade.

“We’re working with these companies to allow people to use their Mastercard cards for NFTs purchases, whether that’s on one of these companies’ marketplaces or using their crypto services,” he said. “With 2.9 billion Mastercard cards worldwide, this change could have a big impact on the NFT ecosystem.”

Mastercard to ease payments for NFT

Obtaining an NFT from a marketplace such as OpenSea now requires funding a crypto wallet and paying in a token such as ETH or SOL. This is, however, beginning to change.

Coinbase and Mastercard have already teamed up to enable cash payments on Mastercard’s new NFT platform. Visa is keeping a close eye on the NFT business after purchasing a CryptoPunk late last year. MoonPay has been offering its partners an NFT payment solution since January.

According to Dhamodharan’s blog post, a recent Mastercard survey of more than 35,000 people in 40 countries indicated that 45 percent of those polled had purchased or were considering purchasing an NFT, and about half of those polled wanted more flexibility.

Visa also announced the introduction of its own NFT creator program earlier this year to promote independent NFT artists and small businesses looking to increase their revenue using NFT technology.

The promotion of mass adoption of cryptocurrency and NFTs by two of the world’s top payment processing networks might be the impetus for both asset classes to launch a new bull market in the second half of 2022.

When buying NFTs with Mastercard, the same cybersecurity tools and “complete range of capabilities to reinforce customer safety” will be in place as they are when making retail transactions. Making NFTs less vulnerable to phishing scams and more secure for beginners would allow the NFT market to expand.

Uganda’s Central Bank Invites Firms To Discuss Crypto

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The Bank of Uganda (BAU) has invited members of the Blockchain Association of Uganda (BAU) to share their knowledge with the central bank as it considers allowing cryptocurrency businesses to participate in its Regulatory Sandbox.

The bank cited a meeting between the two parties in early May in a letter to Kwame Rungunda, the BAU’s chairperson, dated June 1. Before moving on to technical conversations, the central bank recommended the country’s crypto advocacy group brush up on the sandbox regulations.

Uganda’s central bank launched a regulatory framework last year

The bank created a regulatory sandbox framework in June 2021, allowing financial technology (FinTech) firms to test “innovative financial solutions” in a regulated environment in the hopes of increasing the country’s adoption of electronic payments and other digital financial services.

The Bank of Uganda’s recent letter appears to be a U-turn in its stance on bitcoin.

The bank issued a warning on cryptocurrencies in late April, notifying all payment service providers in the country that permitting crypto transactions would expose the country to money laundering and scams.

Any provider, such as a bank or fintech company found to be aiding the trade of cryptocurrency would have their financial license revoked, according to the statement.

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Sandbox and Time partner to create "Time Square" in the metaverse 8

Cryptocurrencies are not prohibited in Uganda, and they can be bought, kept, and exchanged. Cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, remain unregulated, and no company has yet been granted a digital asset license to operate in the country.

Crypto adoption in Africa is gaining traction, attracting the attention of several venture capital firms and crypto firms. Crypto usage in Africa surged by approximately 1,200 percent between 2020 and 2021, with nearly 2% of Ugandans using it.

Other African countries are following suit, with the Central African Republic being the first African country to embrace Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender and just the second country in the world to do so.

Metaverse Welcomes a Dentistry for the First Time

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The Dental Design Studio is the first company to establish a claim in the metaverse for dentistry. The British dental firm has 15 physical facilities in the United Kingdom, as well as one in the Sandbox.

The dentistry firm intends to construct interactive mirror versions of its surgeries on the property. Patients can sit in a dentist’s chair, have a consultation, get virtual treatments, talk to the staff, and study oral hygiene videos in the dental metaverse.

Users can design their own avatars and even alter their appearance, right down to their teeth. While people are unable to receive dental treatment, the company recognizes the commercial potential of establishing a presence online.

Dental education possibilities in the metaverse

All of this appears to be a waste of time rather than a useful application of the metaverse. However, there is a unique educational opportunity here.

Dental courses and lectures, according to the dental chain, can be offered online. Regional surgery can now reach an international audience with this new initiative.

“At The Dental Design Studio, we have always been interested in technology and have tried to innovate in any area that will benefit our patients. As people are increasingly starting to use the metaverse as a form of social interaction, we got the idea to create a group of dental practices in the metaverse – giving patients the chance to experience the dentist in a different way. ”

Dr Jeff Sherer

Dentists, according to Dr. Sherer, can benefit from having their surgeries in the digital world. Meanwhile, a startup called Immersive Touch is utilizing virtual reality to help dentists rehearse procedures before doing them in real life.

Gucci to Accept Crypto Payments at Select Stores

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Gucci, the iconic fashion house, will start accepting cryptocurrencies in certain U.S. outlets later this month, with plans to expand the service to additional North American locations this summer.

According to Vogue Business, in-store purchases will be performed using a QR code that consumers will get through email and scan with their crypto wallet. The businesses will take Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Shiba Inu, among other digital currencies.

Wooster Street in New York, Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles, Miami Design District, Phipps Plaza in Atlanta, and The Shops at Crystals in Las Vegas are among the first to accept cryptocurrency.

Other high-end businesses, including Off-White, have already begun to take cryptocurrency.

Spend your crypto in Gucci style

Gucci’s latest step into Web3 is accepting bitcoin payments in-store. Gucci made its metaverse debut earlier this year when it paid an unknown sum for virtual land in the decentralized blockchain game The Sandbox, which it intends to use to create a virtual “Gucci Vault” for Gucci-themed NFTs.

The fashion icon is one of several well-known fashion and clothing brands that have entered Web3 to assert a position in the digital realm.

Dolce & Gabbana, Adidas, Nike, Vans, and Balenciaga are among the brands that have joined Gucci in this new world. These firms will also face off against crypto-native fashion houses like Digitalax, Blanksoles, DRESSX, and Red DAO, which have already established online communities around their brands.

The brand said it would give bitcoin and NFT education and training to its employees in advance of the program’s debut.

Gucci’s president and CEO, Marco Bizzarri, tells Vogue Business, “Our team is constantly eager to adopt new technologies when they can create a better experience for our clients.”

“Now that we have the ability to integrate cryptocurrencies into our payment system, it is a logical progression for those clients who want this choice.”

A one-of-a-kind art film sold for $25,000 in June makes it the first premium company to release an NFT. In addition to its Sandbox investment, it has published two more NFT projects and launched a Discord channel since then.