The Sandbox (SAND) rallies near one-year high despite Animoca Brands depositing tokens to Binance

The Sandbox (SAND) rallied close to its yearly high at $0.77. The gaming token, which has drifted sideways, finally took off, showing signs of breaking its downward trend. 

The Sandbox (SAND) token broke out, trading near its 2024 highs. SAND is still far from its all-time high, but it has set up on a recovery trajectory as all other assets pump. 

SAND rallied despite the recent outflows initiated by Animoca Brands, one of its main VC backers. Wallets associated with Animoca Brands have deposited more than 25M SAND to Binance, valued at $8.65M. 

The wallet, most probably assigned to Animoca Brands, divested all its SAND within the month, with the latest transaction for another 1M tokens. Despite the deposits, SAND has not seen any significant selling pressure. 

Animoca Brands participated in the last Series B round for The Sandbox, which raised $93M in 2021. The Sandbox managed to raise $120M during one of the most active stages of the Web3 market. 

The Animoca Brands wallet received SAND on October 4 and later sent the funds to an exchange. SAND tokens are more than 93% unlocked, with only a small share remaining to be distributed through February 2025. 

The recent SAND rally followed an overall recovery of Animoca Brand’s top products. Axie Infinity (AXS) rallied above $8, currently standing at a one-month high. The AXS rally was nearly vertical, similar to SAND. Searches for ‘Axie Infinity’ have also increased in the past few days. The game’s active daily users are back above 100K once again, reaching a three-month peak. 

Moca Network (MOCA) surged from recent lows of $0.07 to $0.08 as the project continues to build on its adoption. Moca Network and the Moca Foundation are yet another attempt to build a system for Web3 identities. The Mocaverse is also one of Animoca Brands’ leading products, attempting to repeat the success of The Sandbox. 

Gaming tokens make a comeback

Gaming tokens, representing play-to-earn, metaverse, and Web3 games, are making a comeback. The entire market also doubled its market capitalization as SAND rallied by more than 100% in a week. Gaming tokens expanded from a recent valuation of $15B up to $28.21B.

 The Sandbox remains a top-three gaming token and continues to develop its games and events. For now, the gaming space lags behind meme tokens, but it could still recover thanks to liquid trading pairs and strong reputations. 

SAND also reawakened after months of low activity, with open interest rising within days. SAND open interest recovered from under $50M to $170M in the past couple of days, with a 66% predominance of long positions. 

The token is considered a risky play, even though it has a significant upside after months of sideways trading. 

SAND traded at $7.46 in 2021, during the peak of Web3 gaming. In the case of an extended bull market and altcoin recoveries, SAND is considered one of the candidates that could return to an all-time peak. 

Sandbox NFTs floor price rises

In another sign of revival, Sandbox NFTs had a recent floor price rally. The floor price rose to a six-month high, from 0.07 ETH to 0.17 ETH. 

The NFT land plots are still selling slower compared to the peak NFT and metaverse craze in 2021. However, the meme space is also shifting to older NFT collections, pumping forgotten items. ETH holders are showing signs of considering re-buying valuable NFTs with the hopes of a comeback, especially after Opensea launches its new version. 

The prices of metaverse land plots rallied due to a recent promotion by the co-founder of the Sandbox metaverse, Sebastien Borget. He used the ad to remind that virtual land sales are already five years in the market, introducing a new space for celebrity interactions and gamer ownership. 

5 years ago, we introduced the first virtual LAND 🏞️ sales on @TheSandboxGame – the first of many successful ones that defines a world of culture in the Metaverse.

Are you a LAND owner? Share you plot and tell us when you got it ?

Some facts/stats 📊
– over 27,000 unique LAND… pic.twitter.com/yhpGDZlz5B

— Sebastien 🏞 (@borgetsebastien) November 24, 2024

While The Sandbox land plots do not trade that actively, big brands and celebrities still own their land plots. The Sandbox continues to bet on scarcity and exclusive access to develop its metaverse. 

SAND tokens were awarded to NFT owners, expanding the supply of tokens to 3B. SAND has no upper limit to its supply, and will be rewarded for activity in the future.

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