It's an honor to have Sebastian Borget and The Sandbox come to NFT Paris 2023.

Co-founder and COO of the Sandbox, Sebastian Borget, will be speaking IRL at the NFT Paris Conference. The Sandbox will also be hosting a booth at our event.

Read more about The Sandbox and Mr. Borget below!

Here's our content in-brief:

• Who Is Sebastian Borget: A sharing about Borget's past building experience in blockchain and gaming
• Building Big Time In The Sandbox: Borget's transition from his own business to building the Sandbox
• Our Partnership: Sebastian Borget & The Sandbox at NFT Paris

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Without further ado, let's get into the piece!

Who is Sebastian Borget?

Sebastian Borget is the co-founder and COO (chief operating officer) of The Sandbox metaverse, a popular decentralized virtual gaming platform, and the president of the Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA) since March 2020. The BGA is an organization consisting of 300 influential members from the crypto world, committed to promoting and encouraging blockchain technology adoption within the gaming industry.

How did he come to hold such prominent positions within the blockchain and gaming spaces? Perhaps, we can attribute this to Borget's decades-worth of experience in the industry.

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From 2007 to 2011, Borget was the COO of Wixi Inc, an entertainment-on-demand platform that was very popular at that time.

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In 2011, Sebastian Borget and his business partner and CEO Arthur Madrid co-founded the American mobile game development studio Pixowl Inc, which launched the beta version of The Sandbox mobile video game for Android and iOS in March 2012. 

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According to a statement made by Sebastian Borget, he wanted to create a video game that will support a growing community of players, by allowing them to participate in creating the worlds available in the game. This was a trend in the gaming industry back then when one of the most popular sandbox games of that time was Minecraft, released by Mojang Studios a few months before The Sandbox, on November 18, 2011. 

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The Sandbox game was almost an instant hit after the launch, with more than 5000 new daily players and a total revenue of over $5M. Pixowl launched an upgraded 2D sequel of the original game in June 2016, called The Sandbox Evolution, which brought a series of notable improvements, including bigger virtual words, better graphics, and enhanced physics.

The possibility for players to earn in-game currency that can be used to buy objects within the game was also added. Considering what was about to happen two years later, it's almost like Pixowl predicted the future of The Sandbox game with this feature.

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Building Big Time In The Sandbox

On August 27, 2018, the Pixowl game studio was acquired by Animoca Brands Corporation for $4.9M, with Sebastian Borget continuing to lead the team behind The Sandbox after the sale. Animoca Brands is a leading software and venture capital company based in Hong Kong, specializing in blockchain technology and digital entertainment. Aside from owning The Sandbox, it has over 380 investments in its portfolio, including Dapper Labs, Axie Infinity, and OpenSea.

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Soon after the acquisition, Pixowl announced its plans to create a new, open-world, decentralized 3D version of the game based on blockchain technology. From here, it took over three years of development before they released a new game, The Sandbox Alpha, which went live on November 29, 2021.

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With new features that allowed players to monetize their gaming experience by using NFTs (non-fungible tokens), it quickly became one of the most popular P2E (play-to-earn) games in the blockchain gaming industry. Here are some jaw-dropping statistics about the web3 platform.

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• Dedicated gamer base: 30,000+ daily active players
• Staked (locked-up/vested) cryptocurrencies: Over 128 million SAND tokens on the virtual gaming platform, the equivalent of $84.5M at the time of writing
• Huge partnerships: Not limited to web3 companies, with big brands like Adidas and Atari joining the Sandbox as well

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For those new to the Sandbox, SAND is the utility token used to make transactions on the platform, such as buying or selling virtual land or other in-game items. Players who own virtual land in The Sandbox can stake SAND tokens on liquidity pools on the Polygon network to increase their earning rewards in the game. 

The Sandbox game is free to play for everyone, but the play-to-earn feature is only available for players who own virtual land plots within the game, which can be purchased as NFTs on The Sandbox marketplace platform.

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Playing a crucial part in the development of the Sandbox, where does Sebastian Borget now stand? Well, he was ranked the #4 most influential people in the crypto industry by CoinTelegraph, and Times magazine has featured The Sandbox in the top 100 most influential companies of 2022. He has also made personal investments in over 30 crypto projects, something that shows his passion for blockchain technology and his confidence that it represents the future of innovation.

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How Is Sandbox Partnering With NFT Paris

The Sandbox is having a booth at our event, and co-founder Sebastian Borget will be speaking live at the NFT Paris Conference.

We can't wait to hear what he has to share about his journey in web3, someone with these accomplishments is sure to provide some industry insights!

Are you excited too, anon?

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Closing Thoughts

In summary, Sebastian Borget has been building in the gaming world for a long time now, and his pivot to the blockchain industry is beneficial for the space as a whole. That's why we say the best talent builds in web3!

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Anyway, hope to catch you at NFT Paris 2023. Till then, coolkidz!

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