The Sandbox's SAND token, just days after tech companies including Meta and Microsoft announced the formation of something called the Metaverse Standards Forum, is up almost 20%.

SAND, over the last 24 hours, had gained 19% to $1.31 as of this writing, according to data compiled by CoinMarketCap. Similarly, over that same span, Decentraland's MANA token had gained almost 9% to $1.02.

The Sandbox and Decentraland are Ethereum-based games in which users can buy virtual land plots—sometimes for millions of dollars—and each could benefit massively should the metaverse, an immersive NFT-based future internet, flourish the way many have predicted. Each also could be a takeover target for an established tech giant, and rumors have swirled.

But Co-founder and COO of The Sandbox Sebastien Borget said today, and not for the first time: Nah.

The stated goal of the Metaverse Standards Forum, which was announced on Tuesday and also includes Alibaba and Sony, is to foster coordination and cooperation among the hundreds of companies working to establish themselves in whatever the metaverse becomes.

Meta, Microsoft and Other Tech Giants Say They Want an Open Metaverse—Should We Believe Them?

On Tuesday, 35 technology companies—among them Meta (formerly known as Facebook), Microsoft, Alibaba, and Sony—announced their founding membership in an organization calling itself the Metaverse Standards Forum.  The Forum’s stated goal: to foster coordination and cooperation among the hundreds of companies currently jockeying to create (or depending who you ask, dominate) the still-nascent metaverse: an immersive collection of digital spaces and worlds navigated via 3D avatars that many see as...

Many in the Web3 community remain skeptical. Danny Greene, general manager of the Meebits DAO, told Decrypt: "At the end of the day, we’re fighting for a decentralized future and these are corporations that are representing shareholders."

Yat Siu, the founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, the $5 billion dollar software and venture capital firm behind numerous metaverse projects including The Sandbox, has previously called Meta's ambitions "digital colonialism."