Benzinga | Nov 2, 2021 11:51AM EDT

SAND Token Surges 100% As Softbank Leads $93M Investment Round To Expand NFT Metaverse

The native crypto token of blockchain platform The Sandbox (CRYPTO: SAND) surged 100% in the last 24 hours after news of its latest investment round went public.

What Happened: The NFT and blockchain gaming platform raised $93 million from investors in a Series B funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp's (OTC:SFTBY) Vision Fund 2, according to a report from Reuters.

The investment marks the fund's first investment in a company that issues its own cryptocurrency tokens.

Although the company declined to disclose the valuation at which the round took place, The Sandbox token has a market cap of $2.5 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. The company behind Sandbox reportedly owns 22% of SAND tokens in circulation.

The Sandbox is a blockchain-based virtual world that allows users to create, build and trade virtual assets, including NFTs, on the Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) blockchain. The SAND token is an ERC-20 token secured by a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism.

The platform has partnered with several well-known brands and celebrities including Snoop Dogg, CryptoKitties, Care Bears and The Walking Dead. Snoop Dogg will reportedly build a digital replica of his mansion in The Sandbox's NFT metaverse.

According to the firm's chief operating officer Sebastien Borge, the latest investment round is in aid of fueling the Sandbox creators' economy.

"We are creating this open metaverse. We are positioning the Sandbox against those giant tech companies who are claiming the metaverse to be theirs, offering an alternative where users are first," he said.

Price Action: SAND was trading at $2.72 with a daily trading volume of $9.5 billion at the time of writing. The token's price rallied over 300% in the last seven days, driven by investors' interest in metaverse gaming platforms after Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) changed its name to Meta Platforms Inc.

Photo by Richard Horvath on Unsplash.