Howdy, everybody. Welcome. Welcome. I didn't
think we'd be doing a podcast episode this soon,
but today I'm reacting to the DAO pause that
was just recently announced, and we have a bit
more information now on what that means. So,
today's going to be a reaction and a commentary
about that. I didn't think I'd be doing this
episode. I'm surprised to see all this happening.
Nonetheless, here we are. It's time to talk about
it. Disclaimer is that I do not represent the
Sandbox Game or the Dow Foundation. I am not
your financial or legal advisor. Nothing I say
is to be taken as financial or legal advice.
When I say the word SIP, I mean Sandbox Improvement
Proposal. When I say Dow, I mean Decentralized
Autonomous Organization. And when I use the word
SandFam, I'm talking about the Sandbox community,
those who participate in the people, product,
and purpose of the Sandbox ecosystem. That ecosystem
looks a little bit like this. We're in the people
side. You have everything from the gamers to
the team. Product is everything from the game
client to inclusive of the DAO tech stack. Purpose
goes over the white paper and then all the things
expounded upon by the founders, CEOs, and leadership.
I need probably now to add the new CEO to it,
which is no longer Arthur Motherdid, but it's
also now Robbie Young. So I'll probably end up
changing that. Although with this new today's
episode, this all might be coming to an end rather
soon. So might not even need to update it. Today's
episode is about the DAO. Reminder, if you want
to learn more about the DAO, there is a dow education
hub within the sandbox it's located at coordinate
2 comma 154 negative 154 excuse me it's in the
bottom left of the map right next to jurassic
park so if you just navigate down to the bottom
left you'll see jurassic park there the sandbox
style is to the the top right of it and that's
where you'll find the dow education hub It's
where you can go to learn about the DAO, its
process. And it was a big hit when we put it
together. We had over 60 people playtesting and
watching and being involved in that. That was
a lot of fun to make and provide to the DAO.
So check it out if you want to learn more about
the DAO in a more gamified way. My name is Lancer.
I'm your host. And I've been a landowner, avatar
owner. since 2021 and been in Alpha Season 6
or 5, I think it was, our floor droppers. And
then more recently, we delivered on a SIP to
provide a DAO education, gamified DAO education
experience. So for this particular episode, I'm
going to make a disclosure. And that disclosure
is that I am a Mocha. So I own Mocha. I'm Mocha
fam. Also, I've been participating in their more
recent Mocha portfolio. They call it Mocha Proof.
And so I have a Mocha cat. A lot of Mochas in
that sentence. But anyways, I've been participating
in that and trying to believe it's part of their
AIR initiative where they're trying to build,
they are building a blockchain layered around
reputation. But in any case, an important disclosure
for this episode is that I am a Mocha. In addition
to being a world of women, Bulls on the block,
I'm an ape. But for this episode, Mocha, that
way you can all know that I'm part of the ecosystem
there, as well as being in the sandbox. So let's
get into it. We actually need to take a step
back to December. A couple months ago now, as
it's February 3rd, and there was an AMA by the
new CEO, Robbie Young. Now, all this came about
because back in August, this is something I was
going to show with my interview with Yatsu. As
I mentioned on X, that that's been rescheduled.
We've been trying to reschedule it, just haven't
been able to make the schedule align. I really
hope we get to interview Yatsu. However, back
in August, that's the wrong slide. Excuse me.
Here we go. This is what I was going to show
during my talk with Yat. If the conversation
went that way, if not, then this is as good a
time as any, really. Back in August, there was
a report that came out by the big whale and then
confirmed by different people after that that
the leadership at Sandbox was removed. Then that
was... Sebastian Bourget and Arthur, and that
there's a takeover happening, all that sort of
stuff. Anyways, the wording is way off, in my
opinion, as Animoca always had an investment
in the Sandbox and owned it as of 2018. So there
was no takeover because they had already owned
it. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Animoca
Brands. through Bacasable. We went over that
in another episode, episode 34, in The Birth
of the Tao. Anyways, but there was a leadership
change. So Robbie Young came in as the CEO, who
was investment in Animoca, or CEO of investments
in Animoca. I'll go over that later on. Anyways.
This happens. There's a big shuffle. And it started
in August of last year. And now I just started,
I kept track of like what statements were made
and all that sort of stuff here. Who was saying
what, you know, Arthur confirming that, yes,
there were some layoffs. They were consolidating.
And then there was an article there about how
Animoca was increasing its involvement. And the
funny thing is, is that like the day before all
this happened, all this broke, Yat was on the
stage with Seb. So it clearly wasn't as negative
as it was portrayed back by the big whale. However,
there were layoffs. There was a restructuring
of sorts. Arthur and Seb took on different roles,
although they are still like Seb is still very
much a part of the sandbox, as is Arthur. And
there's just a new CEO who wanted to restructure
and bring Sandbox into what they're now calling
version 3. So all of these folks here in this
order are the things that I noted relevant to
the realignment, as I called it. It was a realigning
of the Sandbox. And so that's what we're going
to go over today, some things that are relevant
to that. So it started back in December when
Robbie Young, the new CEO for Sandbox, came on
and did an AMA with the Masari report. And speakers
were Panapops, Robbie, Masari, and Rick. And
then also the Sandbox handle. That's not what
I was looking for. Not that either. It's not
really working out very well like I want it to.
There we go. So down there in the bottom right,
you can see here's the actual recording itself.
And then, yeah, so it was December 15th is when
they had it. And instead of going through all
of it, it was about 30 minutes. So it was a pretty
quick one. Instead of, you know, playbacking
and recording through it, what I'm going to do
instead is I... What I'm going to do instead
is just... I have some bite -sized things I took
out of there, and we'll just go through that.
If you'd like to watch it yourself, you can go
to the Sandbox game handle, and it'll be there
from December, and... Yep, it's there for you
to listen to. But here is what I took away from
it. It introduced Robbie Young as the new CEO
of Sandbox Company. He wasn't a new figure to
the Sandbox. However, he was new in that role.
And this was his first introduction in the role
to the Sandbox community. So he had been... He
was... New CEO and... What was interesting is
when you looked at his LinkedIn, which anyone
can really look at, you'll see that here it is,
Robbie Young. He is based out of the UK. But
when you look down at his experience, he's been
CEO of Animoca Brands, excuse me, CEO of Investments
for Animoca Brands for the past 11 years. So
like I said, he's not new to the ecosystem at
all. And even down there in the sandbox, he's...
Chief Executive Officer since August 2025. Not
surprised to see that date because that's when
everything kicked off. However, he's been in
a director role since October of 2019. So most
certainly not new to the sandbox operations,
but new to the community, I would say, newly
introduced to the community in the Chief Executive
Officer capacity. So, yeah. So the first thought
was, Robbie Young is not new to the Sandbox ecosystem.
You know, director role since 2019. All right.
And part of Animoca Brands for 11 years, as is
mentioned up here. So here's LinkedIn. You have
to be logged in in order to see everything. But
yeah, it'll be right there. So about 10 minutes
in was my first takeaway, was that when Robbie
mentioned that the ambition was to merge the
Sandbox idea with the blockchain and to enable
creators to create, own, and monetize. So this
was, they're talking about the ambition when
they originally acquired the Sandbox. And again,
I'm referring to the December 2025 AMA with Robbie
Young. And that one is here. Oh, I remember now
why I brought that open. So if you go to this
tweet here, you'll see in the comments when I
XPGPT'd it. It's basically a transcript summary
that you can do. I use it all the time. It's
a great tool. But anyways, it tells you who's
speaking and gives you some highlights here that
you can go over. But you can reference this pretty
easily if you'd like. However, I pulled it over
here on this slide, some highlights. So about
10 minutes in, the ambition was to merge a sandbox
with blockchain. And that would enable creators
to create, own, and monetize. So what I'm going
to do is I'm going to play that for you all.
We're just going to play some sections. And here
is the XBase GPT of that. So what I'm going to
do is I'm going to find that here in the transcript.
And then I'm going to play it. There it is. Okay.
And so I think one of the things about Sandbox
was from the time that we brought them into the
Animoca Brands family, our ambition with Sandbox
was to see how we could merge what they had created
in terms of a platform focusing on user -generated
content, which was a Web2 game at the time, and
merge that idea with... the incredible blockchain
rails that we had discovered, you know, not too
long before and figure out how we could really
enable creators in a new sort of digital asset
enabled world to be able to create and own and
monetize their stuff. And so that was really
where the, where the idea came from. So there
you have it. That was the first takeaway had
the second takeaway was about 13 minutes in.
When he really started to reveal what the restructuring
was all about. See if I can make the area make
a little bigger. He was able to start to reveal
why this realignment was happening. And here
it is. But I think one of the things that we,
we. we didn't focus on enough from day one was
we were concentrating on using sand as the utility
token for the sandbox universe, when actually,
you know, one of the things we've learned now
that we've been in the blockchain space, you
know, going on eight years, nine years, is that
actually it's possible to have a utility token
that can be the foundation of Lots and lots of
different things and not necessarily just one
core product focus. So I think one of the things
that we've been spending a lot of time on this
year is building the foundation for how can we
support creators both within the sandbox 3D metaverse
interactive space, but also outside of it as
well. So that kind of gives you your first tip
off of what's really happening here. Um, it's
clear at this point that the sandbox is expanding
beyond the sandbox. All right. So we're talking
about, uh, we're talking about later on a spoiler
sand chain and corners, but also more, a more
generic utility for the sand token. So you're
already starting to see the writing on the wall
for how we got to where we are now, which is
a pausing of the DAO. But it started back here
when Robbie became CEO, needed to make a change
based on the results and the performance of the
sandbox. And part of that now is reimagining
what the sand token is used for. And that's why
you're seeing things like SandChain and... and
corners okay so the next thing was about 16 minutes
in so about a minute later he starts talking
about what it is that they're actually thinking
uh of doing because it was not just sand and
corners but also um some ai stuff as well so
we're really thinking a lot now of how technology
has changed and evolved and how we can start
adopting, for example, new AI -based content
creation tools that we can leverage to help make
that process for our creators not just easier,
but potentially more sophisticated to give them
more powerful tools to allow them to create much
more complex experiences. Okay, and that's probably
a nod to how easy it is to create in the sandbox,
but how... While there are creations being made,
many thousands of experiences, player retention
is not that great. And it's been a problem for
the sandbox for a really long time. A lot of
the community has known it. We've been trying
to fix it. We've been trying to use the DAO also
to do that. We didn't get very far. And unfortunately,
the pause really cuts that short in a way that
I think is unfair. However, as you can hear what
Robbie's saying, he's clearly... He's clearly
researched this. He's clearly has a handle on
what is happening in the sandbox and why this
change is needed. And I can't fault him at all
for wanting to pivot or redirect and restructure
or realign whatever word you'd like to use. You
can start to understand why that's happening
and that he's coming across as someone who didn't
just plop into the middle of all this. He's been
following along and has come with a plan. So
seems to be a very well -spoken individual. And,
yeah. So let's keep going. Let's go to, so not
just expanding beyond the sandbox and generic
utility, but also leveraging new technology to,
in his words, create more complex experiences.
That might be a nod to Roblox, I'm not sure,
but in our case, maybe they've done an assessment
where the simplicity is too much, and it's not
as engaging, and that might be why player retention
is so low. Maybe that's something internal that
they've discovered, so that might be the whole
complex experiences reference. I'm not sure.
Okay, next is about 18 minutes in. He starts
talking about the initiatives that they've launched,
Sandchain and Corners. So I think there are a
couple of initiatives that we've launched recently.
One is Sandchain, which is being done in partnership.
And Sandchain is essentially an infrastructure
layer. for creators who create Web2 content who
are interested in how they can essentially bridge
their content into the digital asset world. Because
as we know, in Web2, you're often restricted
and siloed to the platforms in which you create
your content, and you don't actually get any
ownership of that content. And so one of the
things we're trying to do is create an infrastructure
layer that leverages the power of sand to allow
them to engage with their communities, but in
a digital asset venue where they can actually
have, you know, the majority of the ownership
as opposed to the ownership presiding with the
platform. So I think that's kind of the view
from the sand chain point of view. And then we
also launched another product actually just last
week called Corners. And Corners is again powered
by sand. and part of the sand ecosystem. And
Corners is actually specifically focused on the
idea of curation. So there are two products right
there that he mentioned, Sandchain and Corners,
and it kind of explains what that expanding beyond
the sandbox is to make it more of a generic utility.
So they mentioned the word AI, complex experiences.
And that to me is more about leveraging new technology
so they can stay ahead of the curve and remain
competitive in the market. Saying all the right
things, certainly as someone who would come in
as a new CEO to realign and focus efforts. So
you're starting to see a picture even before
we get to yesterday's AMA on SIP39. Yeah. Next
up was one small reference about Sandbox and
its placement. So I think, you know, obviously
I hope Sandbox continues to be a key. of the
creator economy in Web3. I mean, I'm really proud
of what the team have built over the last five
years and the success they've achieved. You know,
Sandbox is, I think you can pretty inarguably
say, the home for brands in Web3. Most traditional,
you know, Web2 or consumer brands that have a
presence in Web3 often have it through, you know,
their holdings of land and experiences they've
created in Sandbox. I'm really glad that he gave
props and respect to the team. This is normal
to hear when realignments are pending, when new
leadership comes in to rearrange, realign, change
things up, or refocus efforts, is, you know,
paying respect to the efforts of the team so
as not to demoralize. what's about to happen,
which is all the restructuring in the layoffs
and to kind of reassure and give more confidence
about the future. So that to me is pretty, that's
to be expected. And I appreciate that he did
do that. And I think the main thing I want to
point out there is that yet mentioned not long
ago that it was on a podcast with Anna Solana,
I believe. Can't recall the podcast name at the
moment. But he mentioned that Sandbox continued
to be a strategic initiative. And he mentioned
the brand recognition. He also mentioned it was
a home for brands. And so here you see Robbie.
Here you see Robbie repeating that. And the thing
I noted there was that he said hope. He hopes
that it continues to be. And to me, that is one
of the reasons why he's there. is because there
was Sandbox, as we all know, if you've been in
this community, you know that the player retention
has been a big problem. It just hasn't really
caught like Roblox has. We get tons of new people,
they just don't stay. So while Animoca would
love for it to continue to be a strategic initiative,
there was a realignment that needed to happen
in order for that to stay a reality. So here
I see that word. as a pretty important tip -off
that Robbie is attempting to ensure that it continues
to be a strategic initiative, a player, a factor,
and it remains the home for brands. So his realignment
is to make that happen, and the word hope there
is to note that they're in the process of doing
that, and as it stands right now, it's uncertain.
It will continue to be. But that's why he's here,
to ensure that it does. To refocus and realign.
And our last thing was, he was about to get into
it, is what their ambition is. It kind of is
similar to what we've just went over, but it
does drive home, I think, a good point about
what we could expect back in December and what
we are now seeing. Fantastic. But I think...
Our ambition is to try to grow, you know, the
community of both Sandbox, but also Sand even
bigger. And so part of how we're trying to do
that this year is really to focus on other aspects
of the creator economy that we can help add that,
you know, underpinning of liquidity, as you mentioned,
with the Sand token. So doing that both through
corners and through... and through the sound
chain. But I think also continuing to figure
out how we can support creators, because at the
end of the day, the major difference between
Web 2 and Web 3 is ownership. And that's something
you hear, yeah, Ravi, everyone, and Seb say the
same thing, the difference between Web 2 and
Web 3 is ownership. But I wanted to really highlight
there what exactly stuck out to me was Right
after he says, I hope sandbox continues to be
a key cornerstone. He then says, our ambition
is to try and grow the community of both. So
adding the sandbox and sand even bigger. So there
is, again, if it wasn't obvious is now they're
looking to expand beyond what the sandbox has
been offering thus far, which is a metaverse
within a game client, that game. uh the game
maker and box edit all the things that we already
went over here in the ecosystem so the product
of the sandbox he's saying that it's not um i'm
not gonna put words in his mouth but from what
i intuit my opinion is that they've assessed
that the product needs to be expanded because
it's currently not doing what they expect it
to do and they're not seeing the results that
they would expect to see which If you've been
in the community, you know that that's true.
You know that the sandbox has been struggling,
like I mentioned with player retention. So a
change needs to happen. You adapt or die. And
Robbie seems to be here to ensure that we adapt.
So that's what I'm reading out of this. The new
CEO is here to focus and realign the sandbox's
efforts. To adapt. How do I say this? To adapt.
To. I don't want to say disappoint. Because Sandbox
has done some really cool things. To recover.
Now. To. Maybe recover is a fine word. There
we go. To improve. To improve. The Sandbox's.
Performance. I think that's probably a fair word.
So my opinion of why he's here, and it seems
to me true, that the new CEO, Robbie, is here
to focus and realign the Sandbox's efforts to
improve its performance. And maybe Robbie himself
might disagree with those two words, to improve
the Sandbox's performance. But I think I'm close
enough. I think I'm in the ballpark. The sandbox
performance just hasn't been what most of us
wanted. I was going to do an episode as a studio
myself, as MetaWorld Studio, how we weren't able
to make a living. And my experience wasn't the
only one. Some of the biggest studios had to
bow out from the sandbox because the play -to
-earn model didn't work within the sandbox to
where they could have a self -sustaining income.
I saw that myself. having jumped in and in 2021
gotten the game maker in 2022 and 2023 i received
a game maker grant but even then the monetization
just wasn't there we ran some big difficulties
by getting buy -in from the sandbox team on on
the nft collection we were able to push that
out but that's when they transitioned to catalyst
you then had to buy catalyst we weren't funded
for that so i had then had to buy them myself
and then even then The NFT collection didn't
sell and there was no other monetization that
we could get out of that. So ever since then,
just been kind of limping along. And that's when
the DAO came out in 2023, excuse me, 2024 in
May, and where I was going to exit the community
myself because we had come to the end of our
rope on what was possible for MetaWorld's funding
itself. not having a sustainable income. But
then the DAO came. And because I have an entrepreneurial
background, business, I'm a gamer, I love governance
and leadership. The DAO was exactly what I needed.
It was right up my alley. So I jumped into the
DAO. And eventually, eventually, we were able
to earn a grant from the DAO when we won the
Request for Proposal competition. And then we
produced the DAO Education Hub. And we earned
the $30 ,000 that was the grant. And that was
the first time, and that was a year later. So
just earlier last year, we did that. And without
that, MetaWorlds would still have not had any
business as it had for the past year before that.
So the business of Sandbox as a studio is tough.
It is self -sustaining. It is not self -sustaining.
There was no sustainable income. And that I think
is part and parcel as to what we're talking about,
what I'm talking about when I say improve the
sandbox performance. Part of it is, I think most
of it's player retention. We get a lot of new
wallets. They just don't stay. And there's many
reasons for that. And I think that's one of the
reasons why Robbie is here to address. the part
that needs to be improved. So there is December
2025. And the reason why I spent so much time
on December 2025 is when yesterday the AMA was
hosted, the playback bug struck. And so there
was no way to review the recording from yesterday.
I mistakenly did not record it. So that was my
fault. And I did not see that anyone else had
recorded it either. Unfortunately for all of
us, most especially for me, there was no way
to see the recording. So what I did and what
others did was we posted what notes that we did
have. And I'll be going over soon in the forums
what that was. So you can see the reactions are
varied. I tried to post my calculations of what
I had seen for the sips and how much money was
left. Cyril rightly points out that he had a
better method, so he gave about $800 ,000 left,
whereas I had calculated anywhere from $4 million
if you don't take in relativity and exchange
rates. But when I calculated that the $0 .10
that sand is worth now, I got $400 ,000. But
Cyril, who probably has a more accurate method,
calculated about 800 ,000. So anyways, we're
going to go over now some of the things that
stuck out to me and others in yesterday's AMA.
And then that might be about where we ended.
So yesterday's AMA, it was about 30 minutes long,
similar to the December one. And the speakers
were Sebastian Bourget, Cyril Forte, and Robbie
Young. So Robbie being the CEO of Animoca, Sebastian
Bourget. who was the COO of, is now a global
brand ambassador for the Sandbox, and Cyril Forte,
who is the current Sandbox DAO administrator.
So he oversees the team that implements the tech
stack and processes SIPs. Okay, so they announced
this the day before, saying that they were going
to walk through the rationale scope of the DAO
pause and the transition and what it means for
the existing SIPs in the community. So this is
in reference to the recent announcement of SIP
39, which is to pause the Sandbox DAO. I'm going
to do an episode on that all by itself, like
I normally do for other SIPs, where I do a read
-through. This one in particular, I'm going to
save for another episode, because there's some
things I wanted to note out of that. So today
we're just going to go over the reaction to the
AMA and all of the summaries of that, which is
why we went over December 2025. To me, that was
a big part of why we're seeing what we're seeing
right now. The SIP39 DAO pause is really a byproduct
of that. So here were some of my notes. I also
included the Sandbox Accounts notes as well as
Shanti, who did a really good note section on
it. But Panda Pops was the host. Seb, Robbie,
Cyril are speakers. And Shanti... One of his
notes, I'll open up here on the forum. Shanti
summarized that the core objective, as he saw
from the AMA, was a pause of the DAO operations
to relocate resources toward core product development
and AI -driven innovation. Some subcomponents
of that were resource optimization, operational
shift, AI and creator tools, and existing SIPs.
Also some next steps. So in the resource optimization,
Shanti noted that shifting focus from administrative
DAO overhead to enhanced platform user experience
and sandbox 3 .0 features. Then under the operational
shift, it would be transitioning the DAO to a
dormant state. That's what they mean when they
say pause. Effective April 1st, which is coming
up pretty soon at the end of this month, or I
guess two months from now. And then minimizing
costs while maintaining the record of the sandbox
DAO. Then AI creation tools, which is prioritizing
the development of AI -driven tools and the sand
chain to empower creator economy. That part remains
unchanged except the introduction of AI as it's
become an emergent technology within the industry.
And then existing SIPs. Most approved SIPs will
be honored through Q1, which was cool. I was
really happy to hear that. However, three unstarted
SIPs will be discontinued. One of which, so SIPs
26, 33, and 36. Let's take a look at what those
are. So here on the Sandbox DAO website, you
can see the proposals. Let's take a look. So
it was SIPs 26, 33, and 36. 26 is... The NFT
collection management for Sandbox DAO, that was
by Orthmart, Josephine, and the rest of his team,
where they took the multi -million dollar collection
that was endowed to the Sandbox DAO. They had
been successfully refocusing that and curating
it to a Sandbox -centric theme, had to liquidate
some of that. um in order to do so they were
meeting all their metrics all their milestones
they recently did a a um they recently did go
to the discussion they recently released their
their latest report and oh there's the flipbook
right there nice so this was their latest report
that they've been doing i've been following along
and going to their x spaces It's really, really
cool. I highly recommend looking at this. If
you don't know anything about NFT management
or curation, I highly recommend it. This was
a lot of fun to follow, and they clearly know
what they're doing. So they have been reducing
the assets from over $1 ,300 to $700 and had
been giving the DAO back quite a bit of money.
Let's look at how much it was. They had earned
$400 ,000, so almost half a million dollars.
that they had earned in their refocusing in order
to acquire more sandbox -specific things that
are more related to our culture. So, for instance,
less apes, more sandbox voxel things. That's
some of the liquidations that would have been
happening. So they were hitting all their targets.
They were doing very well. But it looks like
for whatever reason, I'm not quite sure, this
was part of what was mentioned. And discontinuing.
So that made me sad because SIP 26 was clearly
a success in implementing a refocusing of the
NFT collection. So what else? Let's take a look
at what else. So also SIP 33 and 36. 33 was the
Sandbox Metaversity campus. That one was in the
Philippines. And then SEP 36 is the land estate
sales. This one makes me a little bit frustrated
because it would have been valuable regardless
of whether the DAO was closed or not. The Sandbox
land estate sale would have been a plugin through
GBM, which if you know what GBM is, it's now
the Sandbox internal method for... auctioning
off land so what that effectively means is it's
now it will remain extremely difficult to sell
land in anything greater than a one by one so
all of you that have estates the three by three
six by six is 12 by 12 24 by 24 you will continue
to have to jump through several hoops in order
to sell your land estate gbm was pre -approved
and was already working on a way in order to
make add that to their in -house capability for
people like myself that have estates this was
going to be a big help a big boon and would have
been valuable regardless of the dow because it
would have been part of the sandbox games website
and it just makes me really really sad that that's
the that's not going to happen so let me show
you what i mean here's the website gbm auctions
so this was it So you could have auctioned off
an entire estate rather than privately listing
dozens of one -by -one lands on OpenSea or risking
unsafe OTC, other transaction, or over -the -counter
websites, most of them are gone. I tried to do
that recently for an estate sale where I tried
to buy someone's estate, and it was really difficult.
We had to use a very convoluted method in OpenSea.
And in some cases, had to do an OTC, kind of
like a trust -based thing, which I do not recommend.
I could only do that because I was sure of the
recipient. They had been in the organization,
excuse me, they had been in the ecosystem for
a really long time. So I knew of their authenticity.
But that is not something I recommend, and we
should not have to rely only on that. So you
really... This would have been a great tool.
I don't know why they stopped it. It was. This
is something the sandbox needed, not the DAO,
but it looks like it's being caught up in all
of this. So that'll be one of my comments back
is to please exclude that from from it because
we need that tool. And anyways, and then Shanti
also mentioned the next steps here. in his notes
was following the one week discussion a two week
voting period and then a sandbox team will vote
in favor to support this transition um minor
nitpick is that it needed two weeks per the the
sandbox sip rules i'm not sure maybe that might
be an oversight i thought i had heard it would
just go through the discussion period i didn't
hear that it'll only be one week so hopefully
it goes through a two week like it's supposed
to in this in the sip process And then it will
go through a two week voting period. Cool. All
right. So that was Shanti's summary of what what
he had heard. So then the sandbox replies a little
bit later on down about how. Here, no, that's
me. Here, the sandbox then talks about. sandbox
account i'm not sure if it's panda behind this
or who is speaking here but they said we hope
today's ama helps shed more light on the road
ahead for sandbox it did a little bit um but
there were still a lot of questions that i think
needed to be answered i'm not sure when panda
was referencing the the q a part where she got
her questions from I didn't see anything in the
Discord or on the forums, so I would have loved
to have submitted a few questions to help clarify
what's happening and why we're seeing that. But
the response from the Sandbox account here is
that SIP39 is intended to be both operational
and strategic. It pauses the SIP intake, programs,
and operations to preserve the DAO's assets and
ensure it is best positioned once it's determined
how the DAO should contribute in the context
of the Sandbox's evolving ecosystem and what
the best future model should be. Okay. Got it.
So I mentioned here that the playback bug strikes
again. And then here were my thoughts on it.
I already went over the first two, but the Robbie
to me, what I heard Robbie say was that the point
of the pause is to conserve resources while focusing
our efforts on Sandbox 3 .0. He specifically
mentioned Sandchain and Corners. I also heard
him say that the Sandbox wallet will be voting
with its 27 million voting power, which effectively
means it's going to be extremely difficult to
outvote that. I was disappointed to hear him
say this. I think out of everything, I was disappointed
to hear the Sandbox say that we're going to be
voting. I think that doesn't make this a community
vote anymore. It just makes it kind of, you know,
they put it out for the community to vote on,
but okay, got it. The vote is going to be massively
swung in the direction of pausing the DAO. There
really isn't much, I don't see much discussion
happening. Myself, Shanti, Hishmad, and I believe
Ixtura. I believe I also saw, well, there's Yule,
Kami, Victor, Victorin, Sebga. Okay, Daddy Mufasa,
and then Intern, who is known as the Tao, but
it's the Intern, Sanctum. So there is some discussion
about it. However, I'm not... one -week, two
-week discussion period is supposed to be where
the author takes in that input and then modifies,
adjusts, and improves their SIP before it goes
to vote. I'm not sure that's happening here.
It just seems like they're following the process,
but they're going to put their thumb on the scale
to make it stick. And that, by Verson also, that
is really unfortunate to me. That doesn't seem
like a community vote, and it seems like a continuance
of... of relying on internal deliberations that
have, I don't think that's working. I think you
should give the special counsel the chance to
nominate its own community -based members and
then do special counsel and advisory board things.
There are a lot of things that we've seen in
other DAOs that are working when you build in
public. The special counsel and the advisory
board that was nominated for its first term were
nominated as a result of internal corporate deliberations.
And they were not nominated by the community.
And as a result, we had kind of absent leadership
from the sandbox, the special counsel advisory
board. They weren't involved in the community.
There were some things, they did some AMAs here
and there. But they did not have any force shaping
role that I think a special counsel and advisory
board could have had. They could have been drumming
up more momentum. They could have been hosting
public meetings, similar to how Star Atlas DAO
and Illuvium DAO, how they do things. And I think
that's really unfortunate because we had a lot
of community members, including myself, who wanted
to run for the special counsel. in order to start
building in public and generating momentum. A
lot of us know what buttons to press and what
levers to pull in order to increase the participation.
Most of us agreed on some of the fixes and the
problems, but the slip intake had been slowed
for a while now, and a lot of those changes didn't
have a chance to take at all. The retention problem
is something we intended on addressing by building
more features into the system and more tools.
We also intended to make more working groups
and do more X -Spaces, I guess you could say,
live streams, building more in public, similar
to what the Sandbox was doing some years ago
in their live streams. they encountered enormous
success at that time. So while I can't, while
we can't impact the product itself, because that's
under the Sandbox's development team, there are
so many more enabling things that we could have
been doing that have not been done because the
special counsel and advisory board had full -time
people doing, they had their own lives. Like
Yatsu, could you really expect Yatsu to be...
in grain or nuance and detailed the day -to -day
of the sandbox DAO? No. So in my opinion, that
should have been, they should have transitioned
the sandbox council a while ago, maybe six months
worth of setting the expectation and the vision
of the DAO, and then nominating a new special
counsel and an advisory board, because it became
clear that that role was under, those roles were
underutilized to a great, to a great extent.
And all you have to do is look at other DAOs
and their special counsels to know that that's
true. So that's my opinion on the matter. That's
why I listed out these reasons, B, A, B, and
C, to continue the DAO. The governance body does
not have to be attached to the new funding SIPs.
I don't know why they're saying that those two
things have to be put together. I don't think
they need to be. I think the governance bodies
can continue without funding SIPs. So I'm not
quite sure what is happening there because the
community is not being included. They're just
being like, hey, here's what we're doing. Here
it is. There were no speakers other than the
sandbox personnel. I didn't even have a chance
to go up there to ask a question or two. It was
a closed system. And in my opinion and in many
people's opinion, this closed system is how we
got here. The continuance of the closed system,
to me, will continue to keep us here. I think
you need to involve the collective brainpower
of the community through leadership roles that
have impact. And that's how we can get ourselves
out of these holes that we're in. It doesn't
have to be only the sandbox company that is trying
to get us out. The community can. And restricting
the DAO to... SIPs that were heavily curated
was a good tool. It helped, especially when we
did the Sandbox DAO grants program, but it's
insufficient to move the needle. We need to be
freed to perform our roles as they're specified
in the DAO, and we weren't. We weren't. The progressive
decentralization was extremely centralized, and
it still is very centralized. with the DAO admin
team and the Sandbox DAO game controlling the
vast majority of it. I get it. I understand the
reasons why. I interviewed Cyril and Seb, and
I understand it. And I think if we're going to
be considering a pausing of the DAO, then we
should unlock the community to fulfill its larger
role. rather than piecemealing it little by little
and then not giving it a chance to fully realize
its potential and then kill it before that happens.
That's what's happening with the pausing of the
DAO is the piecemealing potential is being killed
before we've hit a threshold where the community
is fully leveraging its collective brainpower
to overcome the obstacles of the sandbox ecosystem.
This over -reliance on internal corporate deliberations.
The exclusion of community -nominated bodies.
The Sandbox DAO grants program was one of the
best things, I think, that happened to the DAO.
I am so happy that that happened. When I was
one of the elected allocators, as were three
others, when we were given the power to approve
grants, to bring people in, Oh my gosh, man.
Do you know how many people are still here because
of that? Six months later? It was a hugely enabling
moment. To me, that was the shining example of
what happens when you empower the DAO to fulfill
its leadership role and community -nominated,
community -elected bodies. But the special counsel...
and advisory board terms expired December 31st,
so two months ago. Elections did not happen on
time, and now they won't if the Dow pauses. So
my opinion, we should not be pausing the Dow's
governing bodies. You can do so in a very affordable
means. It doesn't even have to be $120 ,000 per
person, $120 ,000 sand per person. Which is a
rounding error, almost, to what remains. Not
in USDC, mind you, but in terms of sand. And
if you're being paid in sand, then I don't see
how there is a great loss here in continuing
the governing bodies. It is very affordable.
And a lot of people want to continue. They want
to try and help this. Problem out. When internal
corporate deliberations happen in the sandbox,
they get projected onto the community who would
like to do something different, and then they
apply their voting power to ensure that it goes
through. But I don't think that that is the right
course here. I think that the governing body
should continue. Special counsel and advisory
board elections should happen. I understand.
That Robbie doesn't seem like he shares that
point of view. But he seems like a very reasonable
person. Robbie seems like he's got his stuff
together. He seems like he is ready to take the
bull by the horns. He is taking the bull by the
horns and trying to right the ship. I can't blame
him. I can't blame him at all for what he's doing.
I just... I wish that there were other people
in the room to advise him of information I don't
think he's getting. So this podcast episode is
an attempt to do that. It's an attempt to convey
another point of view, which is based in rational
mathematics. I can demonstrate a lot of the stuff
that I'm saying. I can prove it. And this podcast,
Sandow podcast, I went to great lengths to prove
a lot of the stuff that I'm saying. with numbers.
And I think that the governing body should continue
and that we can demonstrate performance if we
did have special council elections, if we did
have advisory board elections. Not every seat's
going to be filled, by the way, so just manage
expectations right up front. Maybe not five members
will nominate themselves, but three is enough.
Two is enough. If it were just me nominating
myself, I know for a fact two other people who
want to nominate themselves. That's three members
right there. Myself and the two other people.
Three people who are charged to make a difference
in the ecosystem. We can start with the authority
granted by the DAO. We can start really moving
the numbers on participation and involvement.
And sip, sip stuff that... Matters to the ecosystem
that addresses player retention, that gives features
and tool sets that people will use. So that's
my plea. I'm not sure anyone will hear me. I'm
not sure the Sandbox team will hear me. I hope
they will at least, you know, hear out the community
before you pause something that so many of us
put blood, sweat, and tears into. So there it
is. I'll end here with something that Seb posted.
Seb posted a follow -up to the AMA yesterday,
and he wrote... Actually, I think I linked it.
I sure did. Let's look at it. So, Seb, who's
a global brand ambassador now for the Sandbox,
used to be COO. chief operating officer of the
sandbox beloved throughout the community seb
posted this after the fact and i'm going to read
through some of it as we discussed and as we
discussed sip39 now up for vote on pausing the
sandbox style after 1 .5 years of operations
i want to take a moment to recognize the incredible
contributions of the sanfam community thank you
sub Creators, special counsel, advisory board,
delegates, and of course, the SandboxDAO team.
Which, by the way, the delegates are not paid,
and they participate a lot. Anyways, let's keep
going. Building a decentralized governance framework
for a creator -first digital nation has been
a bold experiment. That it has. Rich in learnings,
collaboration, and collective effort. Absolutely.
Over the past months, we've also shared the vision
for Sandbox Game 3 .0, which I'm supportive of.
So many of us are supportive of that. Introduced
Corners Internet, an on -chain, incentive -driven
approach to content discovery. I looked at it.
I'll try and involve myself in it. And launched
Sandchain, which most of us are trying to figure
out how to involve ourselves in. So that would
be helpful. On Testnet, to expand participation
beyond gaming and unlock new economic surfaces
for creators, communities, and curators. By the
way, that surface is just like expanding the
generic part of the sandbox to be more utilitarian,
to give more utility on what we were talking
about earlier. Creator tools, especially AI mobile,
remain a top priority with more to come. This
was in response to the Sandbox DAO publishing
that they published a discussion port of SIF39.
In the sandbox forms. So. Yeah. I'm sad. I'm
disappointed. I understand how we got here. I'm
not at all opposed. To trying something new.
Yep makes sense. And being in Robbie's position.
I can understand. He seems like a very level
headed person. I hope that he hears this. I hope
that. the sandbox team tells him about this stuff
that it doesn't have to be all or nothing and
pausing the now. So this realignment discussion
here will, uh, I'll, I think I went over the
highlights of it. Um, where it started in August,
2025, the big whales article, gaming dailies
article, Kate Irwin's tweet, uh, wrath blocks
tweet. And then, uh, yes. article and Cointelegraph
and Sandbox statements, Arthur statements, Robbie
statements. I think we went over that to the
degree. I don't need to go over it again here.
So I'll just scroll through it. Go ahead and
pause it if on the playback, if that's something
that you'd like to read into. I didn't see any
community questions. I'll check the chat. No
community questions. I don't have any open topics.
So let's go ahead and outro. We just finished
episode 67. Episode 68 will happen very soon.
Actually, episode 68 is going to be an interview
with Sebastian Bourget. So I need to go and fix
that part here. And then that means episode 69
will be a read -through of SIP 39. When it goes
to snapshot. Because that's when the real vote
happens. And all the changes. Would have been
made to it. So what I really hope though. If
you're watching Sandbox Team. Is please consider.
Removing. Sip 36. From the. From the pausing.
Right. Sip 36. Let the GBA. Land estate one,
go through, please, because we want that. A lot
of us need that. We still have estates that we
want to trade. I would love to buy more, ironically
enough, because I don't believe the sandbox is
over. I am a true believer of it. So there are
some estates that I might want to grab, and this
is a safe way to do that. Please, please let
SIP36 land estate sales go through. It is a tool
outside of the DAO. It functions within the Sandbox
Game website. So, please. And also let the Governing
Body continue. Anyways. So, episode 68, which
is going to happen this Friday on the 6th, will
be a return of Seb Bourget, global brand ambassador
of the Sandbox. It's going to be a pretty, it'd
be great. I'm literally looking forward to it.
It's not, it won't really be confrontational.
That's not my style in these interviews to begin
with. Seb has earned enormous respect. He's earned
his place in the community. He's beloved by most,
almost everybody in the community because he's
just an advocate. He is a believer. He had. He
travels probably once a week to a different country.
It almost seems like he's at every conference
and he does interviews and he represents the
sandbox all the time. So I'm looking forward
to that. I really, it's going to be, I'll try
to make it lighthearted, but given what's going
on right now, you know, there'll be some discussions
about like, Hey, what are your, what are your
thoughts on this or that? And, but I don't expect
it to be confrontational at all. He's, he's a
friend. of the community and he'll be treated
as such. So yeah, I mean, and I would love to,
to, to interview Robbie. Um, I'm still trying
to interview yet. Uh, but if Robbie you're watching,
I would love to host you on the show. I would
love to interview you. It won't be confrontational.
You'll be treated, um, just like everybody else
does. You can look at all of the, how many interviews
have we done? 30 interviews, I think on this
podcast. And, um, I respect. how you're approaching
things. You seem like you genuinely care about
the Sandbox ecosystem. And now you have a vision
for what it should be. And as CEO, you're imbued
with the authority to refocus resources to that
end. I don't want to stand in the way of that.
That's not why I would want to interview you.
I want to interview you to understand so the
community can understand what's happening. And
there'll be a few questions about what was behind
the approach? Why pause the whole DAO? Why not
continue just the governing bodies, even in a
reduced capacity? I know that there's good answers
for it. There's rationale. You didn't arrive
at this spot just by randomly deciding I want
to go this route or that route. I know you have
reasoning for it. I've listened to a number of
your interviews. Most recently was the one I
just watched last night. It was the one where
you were in. the london cafe um eating with the
the other individual uh give me a second let
me yeah it was one of your restaurants not far
from your office and that was your words by the
way i'm not saying that because i um growing
podcast it was growing podcast oh no it was off
script off script with uh ton So, um, were you,
were you eating together in London? So I just
watched that and, and just, it seems like a well
-spoken individual. It seems like someone who
cares about the sandbox ecosystem and, um, yeah,
I would love to interview Robbie and just understand
what's happening because right now, um, Hearing
these X -spaces for 30 minutes with questions
that are prepared, I think, by people other than
the community is not really hitting the nail
on the head. It is somewhat addressing the need
for transparency, but it doesn't really get us
there to the extent that we're looking for. There's
obvious questions that need to be asked, in my
opinion. That would help illuminate what's really
going on here. And that's not to say that there's
something nefarious going on. Not at all. Like
I said, this sounds like there's some good rationale
for it. But it's not obvious why these tradeoffs
are being made at this time in this manner. When
there are other less intense solutions that are
immediately... that are immediate to a lot of
us in the community that have been here for a
while. Something like special council elections.
So yeah, I'd like to do that if possible. And
if not, then I'll just work with the information
I have and review SIP 39. Then we'll do a review
of Sandbox DAO here in 2026. Because by that
point, I'll probably wait until two weeks are
done with the voting. And if the DAO is paused,
then I'll just do a closing review of the Sandbox
DAO, all the SIPs that we did. I just finished
preparing that model. I put it in the, I put
it actually in the chat here for the forum post.
But, you know, oh, I put like here, I prepared
this very big spreadsheet about all the SIPs.
and did quite a bit of research and data crunching
on yes, no, the no vote, how much the SIP was
worth at the time for the exchange rate that
day of. So that's how I came up with a lot of
these numbers. So I'm going to do kind of like
a review of the sandbox DAO at the end of it
all. And then I'll do a review of this podcast
after 60 plus episodes. Yeah, I'm going to do
a review. And then... If the DAO decides to pause,
I think Sandow podcast will likely pause with
it. Because this podcast is dedicated to the
Sandbox DAO. Like I mentioned, I'm not going
to probably get to the accidental sniping of
a fellow ape when you last broke the Guinness
World Record that I broke 10 years ago. I went
over that last episode a little bit. But in the
review of the Sandbox DAO podcast, maybe I'll
touch on it briefly. I don't think I'll get to
interviewing Mo at this point. It might be overcome
by events. And I don't think I'm going to get
to the Sandbox ecosystem and the DAO or the business
of being in the Sandbox ecosystem, although I
touched on it a little bit in this episode. So
I think that's where I'll end it. I'm sad. I'm
bummed. I'm disappointed. And anyone who's been
in the Sandbox DAO, A lot of us feel the same
way. So for sandbox spaces, where do we congregate?
We're in the sandbox DAO forums. We're in the
sandbox game discord under the DAO discussion
channel. Hashtag SanFam, hashtag sandbox DAO,
hashtag sandbox game. Arash Selective and Metaverse
Editor push out content for the sandbox DAO.
Metaverse Editor does some awesome, awesome newsreels
type stuff. And Arrest Selective does some summary
tweets about things that are happening in the
Sandbox DAO. Also, at the Sandbox DAO, YouTube,
which has been a little bit silent recently,
so Digging the Sand podcast hasn't had an episode
in a while. And then Sandow podcast, which is
the thing you're listening to right now. Also,
there's Bulls on the Block on Saturday. They
continue to keep cooking. They have an estate.
within the Sandbox DAO, and also a number of
Sandbox people have overlap in that community.
Also on Tuesdays, Whale Members. Whale Members,
Whale DAO, is one of the largest landowners in
the Sandbox. We interviewed them in episode 61,
whereas we interviewed the Bulls on the Block
in episode 7. And check them out on Tuesdays
on X, and then Bulls on the Block is Saturdays
on X. Check them out. And last but not least,
we will find someone to raid on Twitch so that
we can pay it forward to someone else. Who do
we have on? Is there anyone from the Sandbox
on right now? No, there's not. It's unfortunate.
There used to be a lot of other streamers for
the Sandbox, but it's been gone down a lot lately.
It's just been a drawdown. Which is a bummer.
So let's raid a friend of ours. Here we go. Raid
has started. This was episode 67. A reaction
of the Dao Pa's sip. and all the things that
led up to it. From August 2025, when Robbie came
on as the new CEO, the realignment, and then
the X -Base in December explaining the way forward,
and now the X -Base from yesterday explaining
what's to come for the Sandbox DAO vote. Thank
you for your time, Sam Fam.