Gaming metaverse The Sandbox has officially launched its own DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization), giving $SAND holders and LAND holders the ability to govern the platform.

What the DAO Brings

To truly enable an open metaverse and bring the team’s initial vision to life, the DAO allows the community to impact the ecosystem’s future by voting on various important topics such as treasury allocation, game jam winners, game jam themes, new gameplay mechanics and more.

Users can make their voice heard by submitting proposals referred to as Sandbox Improvement Proposals (SIPs). Through these proposals, the community can band together and vote to make their voice heard so that a final decision can be made on a certain topic.

The Sandbox Co-Founder and CEO Arthur Madrid said the following in the official announcement:

“We believe a gaming open metaverse must be governed by all users: creators, players, and LAND owners to make it timeless and push the boundaries of our community. Blockchain technology enables a full decentralized system of decisions and power to people. We think Fortnite or Roblox will adopt it at one point.”

Anyone can participate in governance using a plot of LAND or at least 5 $SAND tokens. Each user has their own Voting Power (VP), which is determined “based on a tailored voting strategy” that takes into account your SAND and LAND holdings across both the Ethereum and Polygon networks, according to the official FAQ section of the DAO’s website.

Co-Founder and COO of The Sandbox, Sebastien Borget, added:

“The launch of The Sandbox DAO marks a significant milestone in our journey to build the open metaverse, together. Four years ago, we began empowering a new generation of creators through decentralization, blockchain, and NFTs. These creators are now the citizens of a digital nation in the making and hold the power to decide how the platform should evolve and what initiatives it will support. I can’t wait to see how each of us will take action in supporting good causes, growing the ecosystem, and paving its future.”

The first set of SIPs are now live for voting, covering foundational details that allow the DAO to exist and operate accordingly. This includes 3 proposals, with the official Medium post also mentioning 2 additional proposals that are focused on bringing real-world positive impact by committing to actions that focus on environmental protection and humanitarian efforts. A new set of proposals will be published every other Wednesday at 9 AM CET.

Rollout Plan

The plan is to progressively roll out decentralized governance in 3 phases using a treasury of 25 million $SAND, with the first phase being the debut of the DAO, which now took place on May 28th.

This first phase marks an early release of the system, and as such comes with limited options that include voting on SIPs as well as proposing your own using a template linked on the new website. Submissions have to be sent via a dedicated proposal email for now in order for them to be reviewed by the DAO Project Management Team. It’s also said that certain operations such as finance will be managed by staff for the time being, but that the DAO will have “its own tools and money.”

In the second phase, titled Exploration, the organization will no longer rely on The Sandbox staff, becoming more self-sustaining and autonomous than before.

The 3rd phase will mark the DAO’s full launch, unlocking all features while decreasing the reviewing process of proposals.