The Sandbox, a metaverse platform based in Hong Kong, has put its India expansion plan at the top of its priorities. In the next two years, The Sandbox is looking to make India its largest market. Despite having crypto and NFTs as elements of its operational ecosystem, the metaverse platform has shown confidence that it would see growth in India. Currently, the Web3 industry is largely unregulated in the country and the government has maintained a strict stance against letting Indians engage deeply with the volatile sector.
The Sandbox is an entity of venture capital giant Animoca Brands. It first entered India this year and established its Indian entity called the BharatBox. The Sandbox teamed up with global venture accelerator Brinc to create BharatBox, that envelops cultural elements of the country such as Bollywood.
“We are ready to engage with and help regulators to discuss the space,” media reports quoted The Sandbox co-founder Sebastien Borget as saying. A complete list of laws for Web3 firms to ab ide by in India are expected to arrive by mid-2025.
In the last few months, BharatBox has forged partnerships with three media mammoths in India — Eros Entertainment, Hungama, and Shemaroo. As per CoinDesk, BharatBox has struck a total of 25 deals this year.
To process crypto trading and transactions within its ecosystem in India, The Sandbox has already stepped into a partnership with the Okto Web3 wallet.
The metaverse market is expected to reportedly reach $800 billion (roughly Rs. 59,58,700 crore) by 2024.
“We want to build a diverse and inclusive world with no borders, bringing different regions of the world together, and with that vision in mind, a year ago, we started out in India to establish a joint venture,” Borget noted.
