Well, this is a tough one. It seems The Sandbox, that big metaverse platform everyone was talking about a few years back, is in some serious trouble. According to a report from The Big Whale, a French crypto outlet, they’re letting go of more than half their staff. That’s over a hundred people from a team of around 250. That’s a huge cut, no matter how you look at it.
A Complete Leadership Overhaul
But it’s not just about the layoffs. The company’s co-founders, Arthur Madrid and Sebastien Borget, are apparently being moved out of their executive roles. I remember they were the public faces of the whole project. Now, their responsibilities are being taken over by Yat Siu, the CEO of Animoca Brands. Animoca is the majority shareholder, so I suppose that move makes some sense from a business perspective. Still, it’s a pretty dramatic shift from the original vision.
They’re also shutting down offices all over the place. Argentina, Uruguay, South Korea, Thailand, and Turkey are all on the list. Even their base in Lyon, France, is expected to close. That really signals a full-scale retreat, a pulling back from global ambitions to focus on… well, it’s not entirely clear what’s left to focus on.
The Struggle for Real Users
And that’s the core of the issue, I think. For all the money they raised—something like $300 million over eight years—they just never found a real, sustained audience. Their daily active user numbers have apparently dwindled to just a few hundred. And sources are suggesting that a lot of those are probably bots, mostly operating out of South America. That’s a far cry from the bustling digital world they promised to build.
The value of their SAND token tells a similar story. Even with the recent uptick in the wider crypto market, it’s performed pretty poorly. Its market cap has collapsed from a peak of $6.2 billion in 2021 to around $700 million now. That’s a 90% drop. It makes you wonder about the actual utility of it all.
The Big Question: What Happens to the Money?
Perhaps the biggest question hanging over this whole restructuring is what will become of the company’s crypto treasury. It’s estimated to be worth between $100 million and $300 million. A huge chunk of that came from the sale of “virtual land” back during the metaverse hype peak in late 2021. They brought in $350 million from that.
There’s talk that its fate could be decided by a governance vote among SAND holders. But that might not mean much. Reports indicate that back in August, only 291 votes were cast across three different proposals. That’s a staggeringly low number of people who seem interested in steering the ship.
The Sandbox itself hasn’t commented on any of this yet. It leaves everyone watching to piece the story together from the outside, wondering if this is the end of the road or just a painful, necessary correction.
