Last week, Animoca Brands announced that its TSB Gaming unit raised $2.01 million in cash, Bitcoin and Tether during the third quarter of 2019.
TSB is developing the blockchain version of The Sandbox. It issued over 288 million SAND utility tokens and simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) convertible securities to Square Enix, B Cryptos, Mindfulness Venture Fund I and True Global Ventures 4 Plus Fund, among others.
Japan-based Square Enix is a well-known game studio that developed the Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider series.
SAND is the token that will be used in the blockchain version of The Sandbox, a gaming platform that allows users to create their own content and games. Animoca acquired The Sandbox in 2018. It allows users to create, own and monetize voxel (the 3-D counterpart of a pixel) items in the game.
Last year, TSB Gaming raised $2.5 million via SAFE notes and presale of SAND. Animoca’s securities were suspended by the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) in September last year concerning queries about the sale of SAND. As the game was yet to release, the company had to reclassify the $2.5 million as future revenues. It clarified that the Square Enix announcement was delayed as a result of this.
Meanwhile, the decentralized version of The Sandbox provides ownership of the voxel items to its creators in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Gamers can use SAND (using ERC-20 standard) to trade the items in the game, thus creating value for virtual content. These NFTs or digital assets built into the game use the ERC-721 or ERC-1155 token standards.
Developers, gamers and other content creators need to buy another token, LAND, to build real estate within the games.
Animoca has a partnership with South Korea’s Kakao to release The Sandbox on the Klaytn blockchain protocol.
Animoca Brands has other partnerships for blockchain content and is the official licensee of Formula 1’s blockchain game F1 Delta Time. The company also has a deal with the soccer club Bayern Munich for blockchain collectibles.
Separately, the Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA) was formed by game and blockchain developers to promote the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in the industry. Participants include AMD, ConsenSys, Ubisoft, Enjin, and Web3 Foundation.
