What happened
Over the last 24 hours, the price of The Sandbox (SAND 4.66%) cryptocurrency traded nearly 5% higher as of 12:07 p.m. ET today after Dubai's virtual asset regulator said it plans to put a virtual headquarters in the Sandbox metaverse.
So what
The Sandbox is a virtual gaming world run on the Ethereum blockchain network, where users can create non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to use in the virtual world.
Today, Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), which seeks to promote Dubai as an international leader for virtual assets and to develop a digital economy in Dubai, announced that it plans to create a metaverse headquarters in the Sandbox.
Image source: Getty Images.
''VARA's acquiring land in the Sandbox is symbolic of our belief in this sector, and the onus is on us as government to be the bridge that allows investors and consumers to safely adopt, and collaboratively scale the economy," Helal Saeed Almarri, Director-General of the Dubai World Trade Centre Authority, said in a statement regarding the announcement.
Almarri added: "In addition to yielding direct economic benefit and GDP acceleration for Dubai, the VARA sees this as the first step toward shared learning and expertise development across global regulators, so that the international community can benefit from a virtual economy that has been allowed to scale safely and sustainably."
Now what
For many cryptocurrencies, blockchain networks, or metaverse worlds, it's all about adoption and legitimacy. The fact that VARA is recognizing the Sandbox and choosing it as its headquarters can only mean it views it as one of the leaders in the space.
