SAND, the native token of the metaverse gaming platform The Sandbox, is leading the crypto market after surging to a three-month high of $0.93 on Wednesday morning.
Despite a slight drop to $0.90 by press time, SAND has still risen a whopping 25% over the past 24 hours, data from CoinGecko shows.
The token was changing hands around $0.70 on Tuesday before the news broke that The Sandbox signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Saudi Arabia Digital Government Authority (DGA).
“It was a true honor to sign our MOU partnership ceremony between TheSandboxGame and the Saudi Arabia Digital Government Authority (DGA) during LEAP 2023 conference, and we look forward to exploring, advising, and supporting mutually each other in activations of the Metaverse,” Sandbox co-founder and COO Sebastien Borget tweeted on Tuesday.
It was a true honor to sign our MOU partnership ceremony between @TheSandboxGame and the Saudi Arabia Digital Government Authority (DGA) during #LEAP 2023 conference, and we look forward to exploring, advising and supporting mutually each other in activations of the Metaverse pic.twitter.com/mTBYqlwvUa
The Sandbox is a virtual gaming world where players can build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences. It originally used the Ethereum blockchain for both its native SAND tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) before transitioning to Polygon in a move intended to enable faster and cheaper gas transactions.
The exact details of the agreement between The Sandbox and the Saudi Arabian government remain scarce, however; and MOUs are not necessarily legally binding, rather signaling the two parties’ intent for a broader agreement in the future.
The Sandbox didn’t immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.
Metaverse tokens on the rise
Elsewhere in the market, another metaverse-adjacent token, the Enjin Coin (ENJIN), hit a five-month high of $0.52 earlier on Wednesday. At the time of this writing, ENJIN is up 11.7% over the day, and as much as 85% over the month, trading hands at $0.51, per CoinGecko.
One of the most successful video game series of all time is set to receive the NFT treatment in 2023, as Japanese publisher Square Enix has partnered with blockchain gaming firm Enjin to release NFTs based on the Final Fantasy franchise.
The NFTs won’t be purely digital products, however. They’re tied to physical action figures and trading cards based on the smash role-playing game (RPG) Final Fantasy VII to commemorate the original PlayStation game’s 25th anniversary.
Square Enix will first rel...
ENJIN powers the eponymous online gaming platform, which enables players to own and trade their in-game items.
The native token for Chiliz (CHZ) is also enjoying a hefty rally amid the sports-centric project's layer-1 blockchain launch. The token has more than 14% over the past 24 hours and trades at $0.17.
ImmutableX (IMX), Flow (FLOW), Decentraland (MANA), and the token behind the play-to-earn crypto game Axie Infinity (AXS) are drafting on the sector's recent bullish activity, too.
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