ZEPETO Partners with The Sandbox Open Metaverse to Launch NFT-based Worlds

HONG KONG – May 4, 2021 – The Sandbox, a leading decentralized gaming virtual world and a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, announced today that it has partnered with Asia’s largest virtual world platform, “ZEPETO”, which has amassed over 200 million lifetime users in two years since launch. A subsidiary of Naver Corporation, Korea’s largest tech conglomerate that oversees dominant search and commerce businesses as well as the global messenger LINE, ZEPETO has a strong presence across Asia but is also growing rapidly in North America and Latin America.

The two partners will each offer a parallel 3D space in their respective virtual world environments, where users can socialize, chat, interact, and have fun, while being able to access a series of NFTs for use in The Sandbox featuring ZEPETO game items, equipment, and wearables as well as art and decorative assets. This unprecedented cross-worlds collaboration is a first illustration of the metaverse concept where the same assets can be seen and used across multiple digital parallel universes. These NFTs are made using VoxEdit, the NFT Maker from The Sandbox platform, and will be usable both by game creators within The Sandbox Game Maker beta version to begin creating their own games, stories, and adventures or just showcase them into an art gallery or museum, and by players who can interact with them. The collaboration with ZEPETO marks the first large scale crossover initiative in the Metaverse, where digital assets owned by users are accessed across multiple platforms. Through such initiatives, both ZEPETO and The Sandbox aim to contribute to advancing interoperability in the Metaverse.

The Sandbox will build and maintain a space in ZEPETO world and ZEPETO world will be created in The Sandbox in voxel aesthetics, where users will be able to interact with the first-ever ZEPETO NFTs.

The Sandbox will be organizing the first ZEPETO NFTs sale on May 12th at 1PM UTC on the Marketplace Beta at www.sandbox.game/shop, where 970 NFTs will be made available for purchase in SAND tokens exclusively, the main utility token of the platform. Two exclusive Z-human Characters NFTs will be put on auction on OpenSea for a duration of 24 hours.

The Sandbox is building a unique virtual world where players can build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences using NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and SAND, the main utility token of the platform that serves as the basis of transactions and interactions. In The Sandbox, players create digital assets in the form of NFTs, upload them to the marketplace, and integrate them into games using the #nocode Game Maker.

“The Sandbox aims to empower users and creators to own, trade, monetize, and use their NFTs across multiple virtual worlds without restrictions,” said Sebastien BORGET, COO & Co-Founder of The Sandbox. “Partnering with ZEPETO to bring NFTs to its audience of 200 million demonstrates how users can have unique experiences in both virtual worlds, showing the potential of our vision for an open, decentralized Metaverse.”

“While this collaboration is only a first step, it is significant in that it reflects intent from distinct platforms to increase interoperability,” said Rudy Lee, CSO of ZEPETO. “We intend to continue to explore different possibilities in the blockchain space and consider The Sandbox to be an experienced partner.”

The Sandbox has secured over 60 partnerships, including Avenged Sevenfold, The Smurfs, Care Bears, Atari, and CryptoKitties to build a fun, creative “play-to-earn” platform that offers virtual worlds and game experiences owned and created by players. The play-to-earn model gives players true ownership of anything they collect in the game, allowing them to trade assets to other players (including outside the game on other websites), transfer them to other players, or even sell them.

The Sandbox is scheduled to launch its first public Alpha for players in Q2 2021, enabling anyone to experience a social hub and gain the power to build a fantastic collection of fantasy and role-playing adventures that can be traded as NFTs with other players, creators, and artists on the platform.

This first collaboration with ZEPETO will pave the way to more potential openings from the ZEPETO virtual world with increased interactions provided as parallel universes for ZEPETO users.

About The Sandbox

The Sandbox, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, is one of the decentralized virtual worlds that has been fueling the recent growth of virtual real-estate demand. The Sandbox has partnered with major IPs and brands including Atari, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Care Bears, The Smurfs, Shaun the Sheep, and Binance. Building on existing The Sandbox IP that has more than 40 million global installs on mobile, The Sandbox NFT Metaverse will offer players and creators a decentralized and intuitive platform to create immersive 3D worlds and game experiences and to safely store, trade, and monetize creations through blockchain. For more information, please visit www.sandbox.game and follow the regular updates on Twitter, Medium and Discord.

About Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands, ranked in the Financial Times list of High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2021, is a leader in digital entertainment, blockchain, gamification, and artificial intelligence. Animoca Brands develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including the REVV token and SAND token; original games including The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes; and products utilizing popular intellectual properties including Formula 1®, Marvel, WWE, Power Rangers, MotoGP™, and Doraemon. Its portfolio of blockchain investments and partnerships includes Sky Mavis (Axie Infinity), Dapper Labs (CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot), OpenSea, Harmony, Bitski, and Alien Worlds. Its subsidiaries include The Sandbox, Quidd, Gamee, nWay, Pixowl, and Lympo. For more information visit www.animocabrands.com or get updates by following Animoca Brands on Facebook or Twitter.

About Naver ZEPETO

ZEPETO, a platform operated by Naver Z Corporation, is the largest metaverse platform based out of Asia and is one of the fastest growing avatar services in the world. Since its launch in late 2018, it has accumulated over 200 million lifetime users and secured the largest roster of IP partnerships among metaverse platforms. From animations like Disney or One Piece to musicians like BLACKPINK, Selena Gomez, Twice, or luxury brands like Gucci and Christian Louboutin to sportswear like Nike and the North Face, ZEPETO has successfully attracted the world’s largest names because of its appeal to a global Gen Z userbase. ZEPETO offers users the ability to create and publish their own content such as skins or virtual items, with over 500,000 creators having registered on the platform to successfully sell their own items. For more information visit https://zepeto.me or follow ZEPETO on Twitter or Instagram.