Bursting in popularity, DeFi is occupying a front line in the new decade dominated by digital innovation. The breakthrough that occurred in the field within the short span of existence is hard to ignore: from a narrow scope of niche decentralized applications, it has succeeded in rapidly transgressing on a blue-chip corporate level, now a battleground for the primacy of adoption. JPMorgan has vividly demonstrated that by fuelling $1 trillion in a growing field of Metaverse – the one stealing everyone’s eye due to its superior functionality extended to multiple virtual worlds. Being able to thrive beyond the physical constraints, metaverse creates a new standard of the marketplace – the one in which all interaction takes place virtually, ignoring the alienation of geographical constraints. This, in turn, gives rise to an entirely new type of tradeable – NFT, the one that entitles its owners to the sole proprietorship of a bitesize of digital reality.
The development of its own version of the metaverse, on the other hand, has always implied a struggle. Finding the right set of crew members suitable for the task is easier said than done. Although many brands would willingly engage in the creation of something pushing beyond the physical constraints, they are hurdled back by the longetivity and seemingly insurmountable complexity of the task. The solution was begged for; so it came in the form of SandStorm – the unexpected bridging line between the brands and the largest community of developers constantly staying up for new challenges. Since the platform has been launched, hundreds of brands had a possibility of expanding their presence beyond the physical realm and testing out the opportunity of the virtual shopping mall or the all-immersive interactive video gaming space. NFTs is what adds flavour to the experience: by the opportunity to buy and exchange digital collectibles, the community acquires new virtual ownership rights that entitle them to possessions in the variety of virtual worlds, abolishing constraints of a single version of reality. That opens up a completely new stage to discover, invent and experiment.
In an attempt to learn more, we reached out to the CEO of SandStorm: we spoke about the possibilities of metaverse to qualitatively transform our lives, as well as the contribution of SandStorm in assisting brands to get root on the virtual terrain.
First of all, could you tell me about the goals of StandStorm enterprise? By which means do you aim to attain those?
Sure! Global IPs and legacy brands are how we believe the metaverse will reach hundreds of billions of users. That said, our goal is to become the key bridge for legacy brands to connect with builders, track, and manage their metaverse builds over the next 5 years.
By providing brands with a trusted platform where they can connect with verified metaverse builders, we’ll grow the decentralized metaverse as a whole. In order to maintain our role as the most trusted platform for brands to enter the metaverse, we’ve teamed up with Certik the top smart contract auditing firm. In addition to passing extensive security audits, we manually approve all NFT builders that apply to mint on the platform. This helps us maintain a high quality of builds available for brands on the marketplace.
What are the complexities of making a footprint on the soil of the metaverse? How can SandStorm help?
There are a lot of moving parts currently in the decentralized metaverse. A great example is our investors and partners The Sandbox are in Alpha currently and many other virtual worlds haven’t even come online yet. We’re extremely early so being positioned alongside The Sandbox with hundreds of builders showcasing their work daily on the beta platform, we’re leading the charge for builders. As to how SandStorm can help, the space is currently in price discovery mode and with both brands and builders now transacting on our platform we’re starting to see we’ll be able to provide the space with data to help stabilize build prices.
What success stories can you list as an example?
Each month we host a builder competition where over 500 metaverse builders create NFTs and get a chance to win 10,000 SAND ($50k USD). Last month’s competition winner got hired by the brand we teamed up with for the competition giving one NFT builder an incredible opportunity. Driving digital job creation for builders is an area we’re super excited to help out with on the platform.
Please, tell me a bit more about your existing community of developers. What are the criteria by which you recruit them on board of SandStorm?
There are 100 beta builders on our platform at the time of writing this and we’re growing by about 25 builders per day. Currently, there isn’t a place for them to get exposure currently outside of Twitter and our Discord. The vast majority of our community on the platform have participated in our monthly builder competitions which is a great filter. In addition to the monthly competition, the top builders on our platform have an opportunity to be featured on our Sandbox Marketplace collection called “Builder Highlights.”
Generally, what’s your vision of the metaverse within the framework of everyday life? How will it be reflected on me and you, for example?
The decentralized metaverse is going to touch every industry in some capacity. Some businesses will use it for brand awareness initially and many will leverage it as their core way to deliver virtual services to existing customers. We’re seeing this play out with entertainment, fashion, music, shopping, virtual banking, virtual real estate tours, and many other industries.
Speaking further, what changes would you implement in the existing approach to Metaverse integration – in order to take it mass-scale?
Brands need to start taking their metaverse strategy seriously this year. With GenZ and GenAlpha spending 8+ hours per day online, this movement isn’t a question of IF the metaverse will happen, it’s WHEN.
Please, introduce us to the main Brand Packages of SandStorm, and their core distinctions.
Sure! We have 4 packages to help brands enter the metaverse right now. Flash, Lightning, Cyclone, and Tsunami. These range from our full self-serve platform with hundreds of builders all the way to reaching millions of people with white-glove service. The full-service package is where a team of builders creates a fully immersive metaverse build on your brand’s virtual land and helps promote it through our social hub inside The Sandbox. Learn more about the plans here https://sandstorm.co/pricing/
What is the main appeal of NFTs within the virtual design of metaverse?
Verifiable ownership. In a virtual world, you need to be able to truly own your virtual goods. NFTs will drive the new digital economy in more ways than we can even predict right now. On our platform, we’re seeing everything from skyscrapers, to luxury cars, to full nightclubs being minted. People underestimate the importance of ownership especially when it comes to self-expression online.
If you were to lay down your ideal version of the metaverse, what would its main components be?
A dream scenario is that we have a decentralized, entirely creator-driven economy, where each user helps govern how the world works. This can be accomplished through verifiable ownership, user voting, and a lot of really cool concepts the brilliant minds in web3 are working on currently.
What are your future expansion plans? And what’s your vision of SandStorm in 2022?
We’ve started with VOX file formats for The Sandbox and are excited to help bring millions of users into the metaverse. Our long-term goal is to support builders from multiple decentralized virtual worlds becoming the central hub for brands to easily have assets built for multiple virtual worlds. Effectively a one-stop shop where builders create assets to launch your brand into all the top virtual worlds simultaneously.
