Hello, everybody. Sandow68. This is a return
of a guest we had back in Sandow8. Sandow8. That
was, feels like a lifetime ago, Seb, since we
last did this back in July of 2024. Now here
we are 60 episodes later, and I've learned a
lot. I've interviewed a lot of people and had
a lot of community discussions. about the Dow.
And today, today we're talking about, it's just
a discussion. It's kind of a learning session
to learn about the things that have been happening
recently and to put them into the proper context
so that we can all be armed with, educated with
the right information going forward and just
staying, staying up to date as part of community
members. So my normal disclaimer is that I, Lancer,
do not represent the Sandbox game or the Sandbox
Foundation. Seb, what would you say for you?
Do you represent either? I'm an ambassador for
both. So I'm a voice that's been sharing all
the updates around what's happening within Sandbox
and the broader Sandbox ecosystem. And on the
downside, I've been a member of the advisory
council. helping behind the scenes to review
the values sandbox improvement proposal give
feedback and helping this to be pushed for the
voting to other communities yeah so in either
case neither of us are anyone's financial or
legal advisors and nothing we say is to be taken
as financial and legal advice all right And when
we say the word SIP, we mean Sandbox Improvement
Proposal. If we say the word DAO, we mean Decentralized
Autonomous Organization. And when we use the
word SanFam, we're talking about the Sandbox
community, those who participate in the people,
product, and purpose. This slide I didn't have
last time we talked in 2024. This one I put together.
I've been saying it for quite a while, though.
So the people is everywhere from the gamer to
the Sandbox team. Product is everything from
the game client to the DAO. The purpose includes
the white paper and all the things that you and
Arthur and now Robbie and Yatsu have expanded
upon in terms of what it is that the Sandbox
is about, what we're doing. All those things
come together in the ecosystem. Today, we're
talking about the DAO. If you'd like to learn
more about the DAO, please go to the DAO Education
Hub and the Sandbox game. It's located at 2 -154.
It was RFP where we created a gamified... learn
and how to for the dao it's down in the left
hand corner of the map right next to jurassic
park you'll see a big the sandbox dao logo and
in there is this dao education hub please take
a look um you can learn everything about how
sips work how the dao is structured and and all
the particulars of how we dao as a community
and my guest is a returning guest sebastian bourget
who's the co -founder of the sandbox and now
global brand ambassador. Seb, welcome back. Thank
you very much for coming. Of course. I'm glad
to be back. And like, wow, I'm so impressed how
prolific you've been. You've produced over 60
episodes since I was there in 2024. That's the
energy, that's the spirit of the community. Thank
you. I really appreciate that. It's been a learning
lesson. It's been a learning journey. That's
mostly what we've been trying to figure out is
How do we think about the DAO? How do we interact
with it? And all the particular surrounding what
it means to be good SanFam community members.
And this is part of that is learning from you
and as in a position of leadership in the DAO
and now global brand ambassador. Can you, what
does that, what is a day in the life of a global
ambassador for the Sandbox? So it's still like
keeping a regular communication with the teams
who are in charge of the sandbox of the marketing,
your product, and being up to date on what we're
going to launch and what date and what is the
show. How can I better explain what's going to
happen? How can I share the different updates
regarding the roadmap, regarding what... will
be doing in the new 3 .0 strategy. And how I
can keep emphasizing and sharing and promoting
everything that's being done by the community
itself, as well as the Sandbox team, and everything
happening within the Sandbox ecosystem, which
now consists not only of the Sandbox, Alpha Season,
Game Maker, Game Client, VoxEdit, but also Corners,
a new product that we actually launched earlier
this year in January. or SunShade, our own layer
2 blockchain that we introduced in October last
year, which is in test set now. So there's public
speaking, there's answering interviews, there's
participating in Twitter spaces, IMA live, and
a lot as well of meeting people across various
events. I'm in Paris, so I travel around the
world and keep sharing with them what's happening,
where we're going to launch in terms of AI, in
terms of mobile, in terms of content and brand
partnerships, for example. I think there's a
lot of demystifying around the fact that we,
as co -founders, Archer and myself, are not involved
anymore. That's not the case at all. Actually,
yesterday, I was meeting with a team in France.
Archer was in Paris. We've been discussing some
aspects of the strategy of this year. I met with
the team who is in charge of corners and certain
products. We're preparing in the next couple
of weeks or months a big announcement for something
that the team has been long awaiting. We've been
also... very active on the social media channels
like X and replying back to any comments. Some
of them regarding Sun token, regarding what's
happening in the market, some suggestions from
the community around why not burning Sun and
so on. Taking those into account, bringing them
back to those teams, that way they... from proposing
ideas and solutions and awaiting them to be discussed
as well and see how they can be fitted and in
which timeline. Yeah, when you described what
you've been doing as the Global Brand Ambassador,
all I can think of, that's exactly what you've
been doing this whole time. That's like the perfect
fit for you. It seemed like you were in a different
country every single week. Yeah, well, I guess
like a little bit less this year, but I counted
days, and it's true, I've been more than six
months a year on the road. Yeah. And if I have
a chance to speak publicly, if I have a chance
to meet people who contribute at any level to
the sandbox ecosystem, their own land, their
own avatar, their own sun, their creators, they
use VoxEdit, they are... interacting with the
DAO, active on the DAO, they have an education
related program for creators and so on. I want
to hear their feedback, I want to be aware of
what they are doing and I want to see how I can
help them maybe reach the right person at sandbox
and so on. So, as you said, I also have the chance
to be on the ground, to be closer to the user
wherever they are and bring back their energy,
their ideas. to the main team as well yeah and
then we'll definitely get the corners in sand
chain a little bit later because that was one
of the open topics that i had for for before
global ambassador you just were part of the special
council which was elected in the first few sips
back in may of 2024 and now the term expired
in december of just a couple months ago december
2025 can When we first talked back in Sandow
8, you gave me an understanding of what the special
counsel did and also some of the things that
you discussed and the ratings or the recommendations.
Since then, I've learned a lot about what happens
in a foundation company when I interviewed a
director, a couple of lawyers. We did the miniseries
in the foundation company. Since all that time's
passed, almost a year and a half now, What has
been your experience like on the special council?
So being part of a special council together,
for example, with Cyril from Nadal and Yatsu
and Shannon as well. I've had the chance and
Jean -Michel Payon as well. We have been active
and from time to time not. every day, but whenever
there was a new SIP or set of SIPs, they came
by free. We review them, we give some feedback
in terms of their impact, their feasibility,
how the budget seems realistic or not, based
on our various experiences as entrepreneurs,
builders, or business people. Actually, reviewing
them took a bit of time because you don't just
read the top TLGR summary. You go through all
the details, you try to understand who's the
team. So it's like doing a diligence while you've
not seen it. So I really treated it as almost
like a pitch at the startup competition and like
reviewing if that business model or proposal
made sense and how it actually... generated value
for the community first, but also for the Sandbox,
the DAO and the Foundation as well. Because as
you know, the Sandbox Foundation and the DAO
was not supposed to be a non -profit entity,
but still was also supposed to generate its own
revenue to reinvest it back into the ecosystem.
So we raised some questions, we discussed it,
we gave feedback, sometimes in real time, sometimes
asynchronously, based on the time zones and availability
of each one of us. And that gets pushed back
for some iteration from whoever submitted that
SIP for an improvement. And overall, I think
that helped the SIP usually raise a higher quality
standard before they get seen by the... the community
and people for the vote for the public vote it
also helped us to get a sense of like what people
would like to have to actually improve the sandbox
ecosystem either in terms of products in terms
of ecosystem of content of ability to decide
and manage some budget as well and we've encouraged
trying a lot of things so we've been generally
very supportive of the ideas of like the different
delegates of people having more ability to vote
for small budget results going through the whole
process we also had many learnings and we realized
that sometimes we need to accelerate the things
and make action faster for people not to get
as well to Not discouraged, but I would say like
when things get too lengthy, your energy tends
to drop at some point. So we want people to feel
the passion and the excitement after they spend
some time submitting. And the other thing that
you don't see is like usually we also got a lot
of inbound messages from different channels like
Twitter and social media or email from people
who had ideas and that we were. and drag me through
the process of the DAO to say, look, I love that
idea, I'd love to see it come to life. You should
turn it into a SIP, Sandbox Improvement Proposal,
and here's how you do it. You go on the Sandbox
DAO, you create your profile, you go into the
forum, you start explaining it, and you go through
that process, and of course we want to vote on
it, but I also need to be realistic that because
the decision is not ultimately just on us. there's
a change that maybe will not you you have to
convince the community to support you and here's
some um recommendation to make it successful
in order on getting those votes those positive
votes the other thing that we were doing is we
were sharing some of the updates regarding some
tools or activities that happen remember the
promoting keeping calling the magic palette and
uh by the sunrush team which has been magic block
and magic bat which has been one of the open
not not open but tools have been developed by
the community to offer new creation experience
from the browser and now with ai sometimes we
met those team in person as well because there
was like really physical contact presentation
iteration with them to see where they're going
what they wanted to do and the part that we were
not in charge of the team of the town did and
sometimes it gets forgotten but it's a lot of
work but he's also the following of all those
uh once they get voted positively how the different
milestones are being reached so that they can
contribute the proper payment and all the conditions
that they should be eligible to in case they
reach certain KPI or deliver certain milestones.
That's quite a bit. It sounds like you were an
ambassador for the DAO as special counsel. You
met with everyone from SIP authors to the DAO
admin team to the other special counsel members.
It sounds like behind the scenes, y 'all were
just advocating for the DAO and just pushing
it forward and trying to encourage participation.
Yes, that's basically the idea. I think sometimes,
I don't know if I've been stepping up part of
my role, visually or whatever, like the job description
might have been, but putting in place the decentralization
through the DAO is something that... we had envisioned
from the beginning of the Sandbox whitepaper
and in our roadmap. We first decentralized the
ownership of the creation from the player with
NFTs, then we decentralized the map with land,
then the token, the percent, the economy of the
platform. And finally, when we implemented the
DAO and we launched it a year and a half, actually
we started to work on it two years and a half
ago and we launched it one year and a half. because
it took some time. I was really excited and I'm
still very excited about the potential of bringing
power in the hands of people, the people who
contribute to the game, to the platform, to make
their decision to vote with their tokens on what
they want to see first and what should benefit
them. And so that's something I've been talking
a lot publicly. I've been encouraging people
to say, look, Just one company where we have
to follow certain process, things are slow and
the decision is not only depending on me. I don't
know if it will happen because we cannot fund
and launch so many projects. We have to be focused.
And so partnership, everybody wants to partner
in a way, but partnership with Sandbox sometimes
was not as efficient as like working with the
DAO, getting the support of the community. that
by voting for you and using your tool or benefiting
from what you're proposing, actually would get
you to the same goal. And I've been very supportive
of the idea, like, you know, take Plan B, take
the DAO, go through it. And all the time, the
proof is like, I think we had 38 proposals that
have been voted upon. We had about 60 proposals
in total that went through review and so on.
and those have been really amazing like in terms
of like the scope the range the fact that we
were able to run educational programs who delegates
to africa and nigeria that we had certain problems
that allows new tools to be developed by external
teams as well or certain features should be prioritized
in the roadmap at the demand of the community
This, for me, has been great validation and rewards
for putting the DAO in place. Yeah, I think it
was obvious when you went to these conferences
how many people you spoke with and how much you
spoke about the sandbox. I didn't realize that
that was also an opportunity where you were talking
with potential partners and educating them about
the DAO and SIP process and how they can partner
directly with the DAO. You're going through the
process. I guess I suspected that was happening,
but I hadn't been able to attend any of the conferences
yet to see that. But I'm not at all surprised
to see that you've been doing that because everyone
knows you are the ambassador. You are the face
of the DAO, let's call it, whenever you go to
these conferences all the time. It seems like
you're at a new conference every single week.
I try. The team of the DAO, they were present
at some events, for example, in Singapore last
year and twice in Lisbon, if I remember correctly.
And they were here to meet with the committee.
But it's true that no other team member had this
chance to go as often globally in all those different
cities. So that's my role as like co -founder
of Sandbox to push that vision that we have around
decentralization and encourage people. to go
and test and experiment with it. I never said
that everything will be successful and guaranteed
100 % success, obviously. But the fact that I'm
able to convince and share and recommend to like,
you know, there's many ways to achieve your goal
and you should try like this or like that. For
me, it's already a great feeling. And so I was
very frustrated when... I knew that we didn't
have the bandwidth within the main sandbox to
handle all those things. While at the same time,
I meet with so many people on the ground that
want to do certain things. So the DAO has been
the perfect way to approach how the community
can self -report itself. And the best proof is
today, I didn't hire you. You just came out,
joined that ecosystem to be active and to produce.
68 interviews already. You've done all of that
in full autonomy. You decided how and you built
that documentation for the DAO as well. Thank
you for that and thank you for everyone who contributed
over the life of Sandbox for making it the success
it has been and making it this amazing ecosystem
that it still is today. I think I don't say it
enough. That's very important, and I want to
recognize all the contributors from wherever
they are, to the DAO, the sandbox, to the ecosystem,
and the creators as well. Yeah, and in the Twitch
chat right now, there's a lot of familiar faces
like PlayGameForFun, Wicked, OG Shakespeare.
He just raided, by the way, with 10 people. So
thank you very much, Shakespeare. I'm really
happy you're here. Thank you for that. So for
the special counsel and advisory board, one of
the things that I noticed and a lot of people
noticed is that it maintained a low profile in
terms of posting on the DAO forums or hosting
X -Spaces or really engaging with the DAO community
itself. And I wanted to understand what was the
strategy behind that approach. Who was maintaining
a low profile? The special counsel and advisory
board. I didn't really hear a lot from them.
I heard the most from you. Shannon did an interview
maybe six months ago. And then I, so I tried
to interview every single one of the special
counsel and advisory board. And I was able to
speak with Mia Bao and also Loretta. And so I
was able to speak with them, but by and large,
I'd say the community felt that the special counsel
and advisory board maintained a low profile.
when it came to this DAO community. And I'd like
to know what was the strategy behind that? I
don't think there was a specific strategy, to
be honest. When we formed those consoles originally,
we picked members that were active by then in
the community in one way or another, and they
were represented. We tried to pick people who
also represented the different phases of an ecosystem,
whether they were builders, or they were... present
in certain geographic zones. And their participation,
like we propose them, like, are you interested
in the DAO? And so on. These are like some of
the commitments that we would ideally require
from you. But there's no punishment for not participating.
And we are not forcing people, paying people
either to do. So they were all doing it on their
free time and goodwill and contribution. and
so it might have happened that certain of those
people for various reasons their own project
had to face the reality of like the market conditions
maybe they were less interested in metaverse
and so on some of them became more distant apparently
it's true that i haven't met them either in person
for quite some time at various conference or
events so i would say like life condition made
them less involved and then less vocal about
what they've been doing or sandbox. We were aware
about that. I think there's been some discussion
around also allowing or trying to replace the
council and rotate them with members who were
more active in the community and the forums.
I think that's been discussed quite a lot. And
I think there was some idea to put that in place
to the vote. But at least we had to start somewhere
when we begin the DAO. And I felt like it had
to be somehow a representation again of like
who's a builder, who's a landowner, who is in
Asia, who is in America, who is in Europe, who
is a woman, who is a man, et cetera. Try to make
almost like a government with people who could
sufficiently representative of the different
aspects of the ecosystem. and it's a learning
like we were saying as part of the sip 39 like
after a year and a half operating the dow and
38 sips um you want to we wanted to pose and
take the time to learn like what went right went
wrong or what we could have done maybe differently
on like ensuring like the full engagement and
participation of people The benefit of all the
hindsight, you're talking about rotating the
members. I very nearly put up a sip to try and
nominate myself to the special council or something
to try and rotate, but I never got to it because
I didn't think it was allowed pretty much. At
the time, it was a little difficult. We had to
choose which sips we wanted to put in. And that's
when I did the $0 feature sips where the searching
your inventory and then the resizing and all
that sort of stuff. So I did that instead. But
with the benefit of all that hindsight, were
there any decisions that you would have done
different on the special counsel? I think, like,
keep in mind, the special counsel was not operating
on the day -to -day as the actual sandbox DAO
team. So we were only taking the input that...
In terms of like reviewing what's happening in
the DAO and the suggestions from the member,
most of, even the most available people like
myself or as well, we were browsing briefly the
forums, but we were essentially just taking the
SIP that were asked to be reviewed by us, you
know, because we have all other agendas and things
to do. And so... It's more like the sandbox DAO
team that should have been answering and interacting
with you. I think the constitution was made in
a way not to be immutable forever, but it could
be changed and adjusted based on that. It started
with a proposal that it could be constitution
one, constitution two, constitution three, or
like how you would evolve and evolve the member.
What we wanted to avoid is to have every two
months to change. that's for sure don't have
like instability uh okay but i i guess like i'm
personally and i can only speak for myself in
this case not for the rest i always love working
with people who are passionate and engaged with
the community and the product so yeah i'd love
to have more council member or special advisory
to the doll that that we can like you know, like,
discuss rapidly on different topics, get quick
feedback, and all of that. Okay. And the reality
is also, I'm thinking, you know, like, those
are special titles, advisory, special council
advisory members. They are just titles. They
are just labels, in a way. they don't come with
superpower you know like we don't have much more
superpower anyone who don't get more voting power
than anyone actually so at the end of the day
like quite naturally like the people who are
more out speaking within the community uh who
are like you running podcasts interviews giving
voice to other they are quite they would be naturally
recognized by the other community members as
the most active and engaged so i'm sure you get
a lot of interaction yourself a lot of feedback
on your own message as well all the time i love
that exactly yes see so it doesn't need to be
called special something when you're in a forum
when you're in a community you know who are the
active people there and who to talk to in general
like people recognize that by the participation
of the different members yeah that I appreciate
that answer. I think it's a little bit more clear.
For a lot of us, we were trying to figure out
what could we do to help grow the DAO. And some
of us felt like the authority, the superpowers,
rested with the special counsel and the advisory
board, whereas most of us were not that. So we
were on the receiving end of what the DAO admin
team. was doing for the SIP review and the threshold
or the standard it took to have a SIP from a
SIP idea. So we largely felt kind of powerless,
I think, to make any change or improvements.
And that's where I was asking about the Special
Counsel and Advisory Board because it felt like
they were the advocates to make those changes.
And so... Yeah, I just wanted to understand a
little bit better about what the approach was
for the low profile. I think it's good to know
that there was no specific strategy and that
they didn't come with superpowers like maybe
some, like I imagined they would. I don't like
everything. I just know like they were not even
interacting in the chat within the order. council
members so like mostly the one i mentioned i've
been the most active and that's it so no um how
you say there was no hidden plot or even plan
or great strategy behind honestly just like life
true life some people get less engaged into some
topics and that's it Got it. Yeah, I think I
can understand that, especially where you want
to start out with a diverse governance body so
that it would set the example, set the stage
for what would come later to where we would have
community -nominated members. And then they would
look at the first special council and advisory
board and say, oh, there's where my model is,
and now we can improve upon there. I get it.
I get it. Okay, so now we can get into the tougher
part, let's call it, of the interviews, which
was the Tuesday AMA. It experienced a recording
bug, so I covered it in my last episode a few
days ago where I covered that and I reacted to
it. So could you restate what prompted SIP39
to pause the DAO? Right, so on the Tuesday AMA
we also had like Broby Young, the CEO of Animoca
Brand and the Sandbox and we had Cyril as well
present and myself. We were essentially highlighting
like the SCP -39 came out from the Sandbox, first
of all, with this idea to pause the operation
of the DAO and its budget in order to first um
look out for like what has been the results and
the impact of the sandbox now after about a year
and a half of operation been 38 proposal 38 project
ongoing so it's a lot of things that actually
that team had to review to realign with a new
vision of the sandbox 3 .0 that's been published
i think by robbie around october So after we
announced the sunshade, so the Sandbox 3 .0 is
focusing a lot more around the launch of new
products, who are like the Sandbox ecosystem.
More importantly, things that connect with AI.
So there's been some experiments with vibe coding
and Rosebud, for example, but there will be bigger
things that are on the roadmap. The launch of
corners and sandbox and sand token expanding
on base as a blockchain older ecosystem than
polygon or ethereum uh the launch of the sunshade
that's also like an expansion of sandbox beyond
gaming and virtual worlds who are like the creator
economy and open it up to more to different creation
tools than just game maker so you could now interact
with unity with javascript unreal etc And the
mobile version of Sandbox. I know a lot of people
are expecting it, and we hope they will be pleased
to hear what we'll have to announce. Yeah, okay.
That's pretty much it. I guess that's what we
were saying on that date. Yeah, thank you. I
appreciate that. And again, mostly that was because
if you try and access the recording right now,
it won't let you. So, and I didn't think to record
it myself. I was listening and participating
in the chat. So, thank you. So, something I want
to go back to was the Special Counsel and Advisory
Board, their term expired December 31st, a couple
months ago. Can you provide some insight into
what led to postponing that election? I think,
like, the CP39 didn't come out. so well the term
expired on 31st of december but the 639 didn't
came out just in january it was probably already
in the making several weeks or months ahead on
the sandbox side and so the sandbox side was
discussing with the sandbox dow who's in the
foundation around like what's the best approach
and we were not in the fall i was not personally
like what was the the best course of action here,
but I guess this is my interpretation here. It
wouldn't make sense to organize a public vote
and put in place new people to be in function
and right after months later to put in place
a seat for vote where the sandbox would essentially
ask to the community to vote the dollar. It would
be both a massive waste of energy and time for
people to put up an application and create even
more deception right after to hear, like, within
a few months or a week, if IP39 is voting yes,
obviously, that their role will not be in effect
at all a few days later. So I don't like to compare
it. I can compare it a little bit to how France
has been. operating and delaying voting its budget
and changing its ministries all the time. It's
such a mess that everyone is mocking France around
the world because we are not able to agree on
the budget for our government. Or in the US when
they were not able to agree and it froze the
public ministers. We don't want that. For a matter
of weeks or months in January, December, end
of December to January, people could have. That
was not a long enough time for people to wander.
Okay. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I get
that. Thank you. And what about the Dow pause
made? I realized you said you weren't directly
involved in the decision making. So what was
your interpretation of? The Dow pause focusing
on discontinuing the special counsel and advisory
board as being the preferred path for the Dow
pause. I think part of like the proposal within
the SIP 39 Dow thought is also like reducing
its operating budget down to the very minimum.
So having just like what is legally required
for the foundation to exist as it is based in
Diamond Island. ensuring that previously approved
budget that's been deployed will continue as
they were engaged so people who were working
on delivering their milestone will still be able
to receive the due payments that were agreed
upon in the past but they felt like it didn't
seem there would be no new sip to be reviewed
to be approved there would be no necessarily
at least as it is frozen if it comes or when
it comes into a new form maybe we will not be
needed so we call a new form so there's no reason
to maintain like we were saying government shutdowns
of these governments in the way in place or longer
than need be so that's also basically closing
the involvement of like this advisory council
special advisory members and special counsels
right so it so it might be in the new form that
the special counsel and advisory board might
not be needed i i actually don't i think like
right now people have to vote in cp39 and there
will be probably uh from that post for the period
of post there will be a matter of weeks or months
and seeing like what could be a better form of
governance for the sandbox now outside of the
sandbox probably looking around i mean not looking
around looking back do we need the did the council
and advisory board like played such an important
role should that role be more distributed to
our like the community itself and be something
that's not attached to special one person for
a term, but maybe it's really different. It's
another kind of takeaway as well, I think, that
people want to do after the Darwinist post to
imagine a better governance, kind of like governance
3 .0 as part of the sandbox 3 .0 vision that
was discussed on this IMA as well. Okay. One
of the observations I had personally is that
For this new round of special council members,
I myself was going to run. A number of others
declared that they wanted to run too, like really
well -known community members. And it felt like
we didn't really fully get a chance to be in
that leadership. It felt like that the sandbox
nominated through its internal deliberations
to form an example government or a government
body. But now that we're at the place where the
community can do it, now it gets paused. And
that makes me really sad. It feels like we didn't
really get a chance to be in DAO leadership.
I don't know. I wanted to share that because
that was part of what I think frustrated the
community a lot in May of 2024 when it was launched.
And I know you were aware of that. So was Cyril,
where the big announcement happened. I think
it was Portugal, right? Not NFT Paris, but it
was a really big conference. Yes, thank you.
And when it was announced, it was a great big
announcement. And then the sips were voted on.
And I know that was part of the release strategy.
And the community reception wasn't as great as
Cyril expected it would be. And I think one of
the things that it felt like was that the community
wasn't as involved. And now that the DAO is on
pause, it feels like I, the community member,
didn't get a chance to involve in DAO leadership.
Can you give a little bit of insight into that?
I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?
Do you feel that's a fair thing for me to say?
I can appreciate what you're saying and what
you're feeling. I recognize your feelings. It
is true that... Like the people who contributed
the most on the forums didn't get a position
in leadership or whatever title, label you can
put on the name. Superpowers. Superpowers, if
you want. And it's one of the learning and takeaways.
So I guess like doing things differently. Start
straight from like, let's work with the most
engaged people in the community firsthand, not
just try to put the idealistic representation
of our ecosystem. Let's just cope with the ecosystem
and hope that it will evolve into a better big
picture of how rich it is, right? Yeah. There's
one thing I've been saying. I love one day Sandbox
to have this full exit to community where the
whole community runs this, the code is open source,
Sand is there fully distributed, and the tools
to engage and vote and create those, maybe not
just one DAO, but multiple DAOs and circles.
center of discussion and decision will not be
dependent on the single centralized team because
that single centralized team cannot appreciate
the strengths and the diversity of that ecosystem
as much as I was doing and probably as anyone
who's deep down in the trench of sandbox on the
other side of the product was. Thank you for
saying that. I think... That was the cry out,
the frustration of the community where we were
really looking for an opportunity. And I know
I screamed the loudest. I was certainly vocal
about it. I care. There are so many people who
care. All the delegates who are doing this for
free. There's a lot of well -known community
members who were just involved in the community
and the DAO. trying to vote on every single proposal,
advocating for SIPs in other DAOs. Like myself,
I was pretty involved in advocating for the Sandbox
and Whaledao, the whale members. They own a lot
of land, something like a thousand pieces of
land. And just trying to advocate for the Sandbox
DAO and just waiting for my opportunity, let's
call it. Thank you for recognizing that. And
like you said, it's a learning, one of the learning
takeaways. And I'm hopeful that the new form
of governance will take that into consideration,
that I'm still a Sandbox believer. So are many
others. Thank you. I believe, again, Sandbox
exists more in the hearts of the people who are
part and involved in it than just a single company.
It does become a sort of... To me, it materialized
through the people and the connection we've made.
At the down level, I know that the delegates
were able to get a bit of autonomy around managing
certain budgets. That was the first one. That
was really the first one to give a chance for
people to do more things and decide more for
them. I'm dreaming a day again, like Sandbox
evolved so that it's... It lives on its own.
It outlives us, the founders, the initial team
that created it. And it's wholly run by the community.
So almost like a child one day becomes an adult
and don't need to be fed by his parents and ask
money to his parents to go out, etc. But it has
studies. You have to stay home. yeah i would
miss the party when there was a fun party but
the parents were a little bit too much of the
guardians etc i don't know if you've been good
parents i have not said they were good parents
but that's discipline that's learning it's only
only five years so it's still a toddler yeah
except if we count in crypto years uh yeah i
want to say definitely appreciate what you and
everybody have done and the Sand Farm level.
Maybe the Sandbox has not said it enough out
loud. Maybe people who were representing Sandbox
through their job had missed the opportunity
to connect more closely to the community and
appreciate and recognize the work from the community.
But to me, it's clear. Sandbox will not be where
it is today, will not exist, be so big without...
everybody's contribution and I recognize that
every day I never and that's for me one of my
best personal I wouldn't say achievement but
thing that makes it vibrant to continue every
day thank you Seb thank you since we spoke I
think in May or July of 2024 I myself became
a father so Now I have a little, I have a little
Lancer now running around. And I appreciate what
you said about how, you know, sometimes there's
no manual for this. Sometimes it's just learning
the best you can and, and doing the best you
can and then learning from your mistakes and
listening to feedback and, and trying to do better
the next time. And that's what I'm, that's what
I'm hearing right now from, from the sandbox
3 .0, the reassessment, the realignment. and
the pausing in order to figure out what should
you do next time. And I don't know. I feel more
encouraged now because of that. Thank you for
there you go. Being the global brand ambassador.
Indeed. So the next one was Robbie mentioned
during the AMA that the sandbox was going to
use its voting power. Can you share some insight
about that? Well, that's something that I felt
like normally we should never have used. Because
if we want to have true decentralization, we
shouldn't intervene in the vote. But apparently
the sandbox, the new sandbox 3 .0... a different
approach to this and so why to pose you have
to create you only need like extraordinary forces
to create something i guess to pose you need
as well some extraordinary forces to put a hard
stop on something not a hard stop like forever
hard pose on something so that's what they are
going to do probably and that's probably will
mean yes But I want to remain positive that Sandbox
will continue to exist and will work as a committee
to find ways to make Sandbox exist forever through
maybe other structures and other ways. Or if
a new DAO emerges, we'll need to make sure that
the people there need to be the ones that have
been contributing and will continue to contribute.
Okay. You've been really consistent about that.
I remember the last time, so... The sandbox voted
in maybe three or four proposals of the 34, 39.
And the last one, you accidentally voted and
you made it. So I recommend, I say, oops, I voted
with the sandbox instead of mine. I made public
and I explained and then I changed. And I appreciate
that. I think that was cool. So you've been really
consistent about that. And I've always appreciated
that. And yes, Robbie is the CEO now, so he's
decided to vote with the Sandbox voting power,
which is something close to like 27 million,
if I recall last. It's a lot. I'm not sure the
community is going to be able to outvote that
just by virtue of we'd have to have everybody
on board. But yeah, it seems like the vote's
rather decided now that if they vote that way,
there is a chance that the community can rally
the voting power to express its desire to continue.
But it's going to be really difficult. A massive
difficulty. And that makes me sad. What's the
message there? Is it that... is following the
the rules and put by the dow in order to pause
it correctly or is there something else so now
that's a hundred percent of the sun is in circulation
by the way there's no more so those 27 million
cents even though it's still a big number is
not as big as it was you know Yeah, I guess that's
true. I didn't think about that. By then, I think
we had like $300 million in voting power. Yeah.
So it's still hard to rally everybody. I don't
know how many holdings some of the various committee
members have, but it's possible to balance $27
million after. If the credit doesn't have money,
it would make no sense economically to have to
buy the equivalent of 27 billion cents, obviously.
But again, in a way, it's still democratic because
it's not a huge impossible amount to reach within
the 3 billion cents that are in circulation.
But it would be a massive effort to finance big,
sufficient amount of... set holder to have a
big amount so i guess i wouldn't be but still
it's not because you know that the battle is
lost in advance that you should do nothing like
if it's voted yes by 27 million but you get to
rally 10 million 15 million or say no it's still
such for me that would be a meaningful number
as well to put in front right and if you get
everybody else can rally around that represents
whatever amount, 1 million, 5 million, 10 million,
20 million, it's still a history that will be
written on blockchain. And maybe one day that
moment will be memorized as how the first decentralized
governance of sandbox didn't succeed, but led
to a better second one in some way. I remember
hearing the founder of Evil Online Game from
CCP Studio, actually sharing a moment where players
were in a little bit in a rebellion mode against
some decision that had been made by the developer
and the team had to reverse that decision and
to celebrate and commemorate that they created
a statue that actually was put into the game.
A little bit like in the physical world. Those
moments can exist as well. And if you care and
if other people care and everybody else, for
example, know, still some of those know is meaningful.
So that's what I would take as a takeaway. Maybe
I'm too optimistic or positive, but that's for
me important. So you heard me say, I didn't say
vote no, I say like, if you collectively do something,
it's still something that's meaningful. I think
that's probably the, that's very encouraging.
I think that's a good answer. Thank you. I didn't
realize that 100 % of sand is in circulation.
So if I recall, I have a slide here about that.
Let's take a look. So here's my interesting fact
slide. There is 3 billion sand that's max supply.
And there are 166 ,000 lands. So that's 3 .74
billion voting power out there. If I count 750
million voting power for lands and 3 billion
voting power for sand. Yeah. So I see what you're
saying now, that it's not impossible. And for
anyone watching who's not involved in the DAO,
you might think... 3 billion voting power potential
to counter or balance 27 million voting power
of the sandbox company. Yes, that's true. But
also we have struggled to make quorum in the
past. And now the delegate system, since the
delegate system was introduced, we've met quorum,
but it's neck and neck. It's like we make 30
million, a little bit over 30 million every single
sip. So we already know that 30 million community
participation against 30 million, sandbox, it's
going to be close. We'd have to rally the entire
voting DAO right now to do that. And I guess
that's just a challenge then. It's a challenge
to the community to rally more votes, more community
participation, so that it can balance the $27
million if we're able to persuade the community
to vote against the proposal to continue the
DAO, let's call it. I think, okay, I get it.
If you collectively do something, it's meaningful
and it's not impossible. Right. And I don't want
to compare it with like non -democratic regime
of what's happening in Iran or other, but some
of the smallest movement became contagious and
grew into like the largest over. shaft of power.
And so it would be interesting to witness that
happen to a virtual nation as well one day. That
would be interesting. I think the closest example
maybe is in Star Wars. The smallest flame can
ignite the community and rally it. Alright, thank
you. So one of the things I wanted to end with
in terms of our questioning here for the DAO
and the pause is there's a lot of, it's natural
to feel fear or uncertainty about what's happening.
The announcement of a pausing of the DAO. What
can you share to alleviate people's concern?
And thank you for doing that for me because I
feel a lot better now since we first started
this conversation. What can you do to share?
to alleviate some of the concern that this is
the beginning of the end of the sandbox DAO,
maybe even the sandbox game, because of our struggle
for player retention. And maybe we're not doing
as well as we want to. We're not the Roblox of
Web3 that we wanted to be, but we are trying
desperately to grow the community. But what can
you do to... What are your thoughts there? So
more recently, I've been quite vocal about like
what have been the main challenge for most gaming,
blockchain games and Web3 gaming in general.
And I can summarize it. It's been mostly a problem
of distribution. Like Web3 games didn't get the
long and sustainable distribution outside of
like token incentive and play to earn, which
we know are not sustainable. other platforms
have got such as like the app store the play
store etc launching on mobile brought your game
to millions of new devices being sold every year
for about 10 years on the on the smartphone and
same with console but not like here the blockchain
ecosystem such as like the blockchain themselves
or the wallets they were not actively bringing
new players to the different platforms and so
it's been the thing that i realized it's like
how hard it's been to acquire new users outside
of like the trader strategy and the brand strategy
using traditional like user acquisition means
and the retention of those users once you're
able to acquire convert them and make sure they
stay um that's However, so that led us to think
of like, what can we do? Like, what should be
the other? And the other approach is part of
the Sandbox 3 .0 strategy we're proposing, which
is essentially let's focus and double down more
on the creator side. We like bringing almost
two thirds of the content made by creator next
season, winners of Game Jam and Contest. So you
will see that with the season seven coming this
month. We're doing that as well by, I don't know
if you saw the new community created avatar collection
that went live. We picked, there was a contest
a few months earlier and we picked 10 winners
and the design from those 10 winners became official
avatars that are now on sale for everyone to
use. They are super cool. And with potentially
the new creation tools that will come. using
ai as well that will drive a new hopefully even
more and different creators to you and to make
different kind of games uh with it so that's
on the creators and then obviously if we think
like mobile is a great way to require audience
very simply we'll uh we'll look at that channel
and deliver something that we were not able to
deliver before not because we didn't try very
few people know the thing that we didn't mobile
but actually it's been two years we've been building
mobile products we've been play testing them
and we've not been satisfied with um like the
experience or the quality of those games we we
killed that we shut down that product we didn't
want to launch product we were not happy with
it essentially and and that's something that's
very common in the game industry i think like
less than 60 of the game in development are actually
going live their full first launch and out of
those less than one third will be still active
after two years so very hard industry to make
good games but we didn't give up we've been working
for over two years with a new engine to deliver
an experience that's much better on mobile and
closer to what we wanted to do as our vision
of the metaverse and i think 2026 will be the
year for us to announce and start doing more
playtests with users from our community and use
that product as a way to drive a new audience
to the sandbox that hopefully, because it came
for the game first, for the creation tools first,
will then explore the rest of the content on
our map and so on and be that distribution that
we needed. That's the approach, the plan. I'm
starting to share a little bit too much. More
to come in the official announcement. But I'm
very excited. We're still here. We're still building
different products that we're building. I'm also
excited about Corners. It has good results since
it has launched early in January. Even myself,
I was surprised. I don't know if you saw that
tweet, but actually I earned a cent with my own
curated post of selfies. Yes, I saw that. So
I earned a hundred cents. I think you earned.
It's still good. You know, I posted some of the
best time over the years and people start to
contribute too. So, you know, like we want to
stay humble. We want to launch things, see if
they work. Once we're happy with like already
in a level of quality. Corner was one example.
Sunshine is another. And what's coming to mobile
will be an open one. And maybe people will regain
the trust or the passion that they might have
lost along the way and come back to sandbox through
that. Yeah, I was just showing everyone the tweet
where you earned 113 sand from corners. Yeah,
I see. I see what you're talking about. I don't
think you were sharing... Anything you weren't
supposed to, because what you said so far is
very consistent with what I've heard so far.
The coroner's announcement by Robbie and others
and the sand chain. Many of us signed the manifesto,
by the way, myself included. I'm looking forward
to interacting on the sand chain. I'm still trying
to figure out what it is I need to be doing there.
So anything that can help point us in the right
direction, I think, will. It would be very helpful,
too, so that we can continue to be a part of
the community. And hearing about Sandbox Mobile,
yes, we've heard that for quite a while. Looking
forward to that. And the one new thing that I
didn't really know much about was the AI integration.
So I had heard some details how you're trying
to incorporate AI tools into, was it the Sandbox
or was it in Sandchain and Corners? That's something
even not yet announced. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's
quite cool. All right. I've seen a lot of names
popping into the chat right now. A lot of names
you'd recognize, I think. Pickaxe Master, Play
Game for Fun, Escape Room Artist, Wicked, where
else? Go West, also. Where else? Shakespeare.
A lot of folks that I recognize as well as being
longtime SanFam community members saying hello.
Also just talking about what their opinions are
and what they're looking into for the sandbox.
Man, it's great to see all y 'all in the chat
again. Good. I guess we were getting close. They're
joining, but they might be able to see the replay,
right? Yeah. It was recorded properly this time.
Right. They'll be able to watch it. If you all
have any community questions, now would be the
time to ask because we're nearing. I just finished
one of my last questions. And the one thing I
want to talk about, not related to anything,
is that background you've got. I saw a tweet
that you put out just the other day. where you
went to Marlene Corbin, one of the artists that
you went to recently. I've seen for a while now
that you're an art aficionado. You are an art
enthusiast. So you've got a CryptoPunks in the
background. What is that piece of art on your
right, my left? Yes, so one of the fashion projects.
I have is like, I have this, I operate this physical
space in Paris. The Artverse, right? It's a digital
art gallery called Artverse. Yeah. We're very
open. We're also hosting events there that connect
with gaming, AI, tech, movie, film. Actually,
on Wednesday, we were doing a mini event in remembrance
of NFT Paris, the conference that didn't happen
this year, unfortunately, after five years. And
we... I also collect art, digital art. And so
some, whether I'm one of the sandbox Paris offices
or here, I always had like art in the background,
random checks, books, toys, figurines, and so
on. So here is my crypto park. Here is actually
a Korean art, Minhwa, from the end of the 19th
century. Tiger, mackeys, those animals. They
became popular again, I think, with K -pop Demon
Hunter last year. And, you know, we're hosting
today in the space, the downstairs. We have an
art exhibition in partnership with Bonk's community.
They do some solar art. We have different artists
and it works. So it's always great. And the thing
I've been saying is we need to be, um inspired
by art and culture you need to be surrounded
by art and culture in the metaverse that's how
we started like on the day putting digital art
and fts within those games and experiences but
in physical world as well to open ourselves to
different ways of thinking and perspective so
even though i'm an engineer in background i turn
out entrepreneur still a geek and the tech person
mostly i have art around And Marlene, as we were
saying, has been a friend. She was working for
a company called La Collection before, which
was like an NFT marketplace, working with art,
working with museums and collectors and artists.
And recently she joined an art gallery, digital
art gallery in Paris. So I was happy for them
and the owner. And I came to their very side.
Yeah. And I see those tweets all the time. Thank
you. I try to be present for everybody in the
community. If you have the chance to meet me,
have a selfie with me, post on Seb on Corner.
And you know that I love to connect and help
others. It's not just all about sandbox or what
I do. It's more and always like, what can we
do to help you in your project and your idea?
Yeah, I think that's... obvious not just from
from you being a co -founder of the sandbox but
also just your appreciation for art and culture
you you've always consistently said that that
culture you want to be the cultural capital of
the metaverse that was one of the sandbox's vision
and i've always resonated with that i can't say
that i myself am quite an art aficionado as you
are i think i went to my first art gallery uh
for the peoples Yeah, I went there not long ago.
Actually, I have my little thing here. I want
to show you something. Sorry. I went to this
not too long ago. It's the Charleston Art Night.
He's at the full level of the organized. So you
might have crossroads of like same circles of
people there. Right, yeah. Yeah, it was my first
experience being in an art gallery. And I was
kind of inspired by you and also Arthmort. You're
familiar with Arthmort. So he was the one who
really, when I did my interview with him way
back, closer to when I interviewed you first,
just our, I had to ask him like, What does a
curator do? What is provenance? Like, I didn't
know anything, anything at all about the art
world. So I asked Arthmore in the interview,
and he kind of educated me on what provenance
was. What did curation mean? What were we curating?
Like, so I had to learn all of those things.
And recently when I was in town, I went to the
Beeple studio. And just kind of looked at all
of the art and the NFTs that he created. And
it was a surreal experience. So I'm learning.
I'm growing. I wouldn't have imagined that I
would have ever done that had I not listened
to you talk about culture and art and seen your
tweets, but also talking to Arthmort and learning
about the art community. And also being a part
of Whaledow, where they host their weekly whale
talk. I go there quite often. Just listen, they're
huge art aficionados. So they're always talking
about art and all the things that are happening
in the community. So I just want to say, I guess,
thank you for continuing to fight, to continuing
to advocate for the community and for all the
things that you believe will move us forward.
Thanks. Merci beaucoup. well there's one last
note about that you know how the mall was right
downstairs one hour ago so i was catching up
with him and you know he's been also in charge
of like managing the sandbox dow nfc collections
like curating it selling some acquiring a new
one but they did two rounds and it was a scene
that actually generated revenue for the doubts
we were discussing about like a great job What
you've done, you've cleaned it up and been able
to even make some revenue. And what next? We
have some ideas on what next in art in general
and how hopefully we'll see even more around.
Yeah, I'm showing right now the flipbook that
they just prepared, Josephine and his team. And
I covered this in the last episode, but they
sold 600 assets. To realign the collection. And
they made. See the flip book number was. They
made $400 ,000. Of revenue. For the DAO. And
to me it's one of the things. That I highlighted
as. This is success. We hired Arth Morton's team.
To curate the NFT collection. That I think you.
And Jean -Michel Payon. There was a gift. An
endowment. to the DAO from the Sandbox and your
collections. So first of all, thank you for that.
And second, I've been learning from this and
just kind of reading the reports because I love
the DAO, but this is part of a SIP. So I've been
reading what's been happening here and I've been
learning about art in the process. Amazing. One
person we introduced to a new perspective and
I'm happy about that. Nice. Thank you. Even if
it's only one person or one voice for it, that
means that it was meaningful. Yeah, thank you.
And I know I wasn't the only one because I would
share some things with other people like, hey,
did you know that the Arthmore has been curating
and he's earned the DAO $400 ,000? And just like
that's a conversation between like... business
people and entrepreneurs, but it, it intersects
with art in a way that, um, to me was inspiring
to where I wanted to visit an art gallery. So,
so there, there it is. I just wanted to share
that connection that I'm learning myself from
being a business person, an entrepreneur, a creator
to now a little bit, a little bit of an art enthusiast,
little by little. Amazing. So, That's what I
had for you and the topics I wanted to go over.
I really appreciated your time. Thank you once
again for making yourself available to me, a
lowly community member. We do have about 12 to
13 people watching. So that right there tells
me already there's still a lot of interest in
this. Just having above 5 or 10 viewers puts
you at... the top 10 % of Twitch streamers already.
And just that's Sandbox, the Sandbox community,
still in chat talking about all the things that
they're seeing. But thank you for making yourself
available. And thank you for continually fighting
for the DAO, fighting for the Sandbox, and being
that global ambassador that you've always been.
You've always been just a force for good. So
thank you. Merci beaucoup. It's my little French
that I know. Thank you. Merci, everyone. We'll
speak soon again. We'll look at the next 100
-something episode. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I have
to myself think about where would I take a podcast
about the Tao if the Tao is paused. So I have
to make a decision there myself. But I've been
thinking pretty hard about it. And I didn't want
this moment to go by without talking with you.
about yeah thank you very much for your time
and for everyone who's watching uh i'm gonna
have to find someone new to raid now because
shakespeare raided me when i was gonna raid him
and so now now we need to find someone new but
um that that's the end of it seb thank you and
have a great day thank you take care bye see
you in a bit or See y 'all in the metaverse.