Lunar New Year 2023: The Sandbox celebrates the year of the rabbit in the metaverse

As much as we look forward to seeing loved ones and indulging in a festive spread over the Lunar New Year, there can also be a sense of looming dread at the thought of meeting nosy relatives who, for just one time a year, take a bit too much interest in your personal lives, setting off the annual trigger of self-consciousness and rumination.

If you’re looking to escape Lunar New Year stress, the metaverse might just be the right place for you.

To ring in the Year of the Rabbit, the world’s third-largest metaverse platform and subsidiary of Animoca Brands, The Sandbox, announced on Monday it will be running a month-long Lunar New Year Event that offers a series of new virtual experiences developed by partners and studios in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China.

According to their official statement, creators and well known brands from across the region have come together in The Sandbox to build experiences for the Lunar New Year Event around their popular IPs.

Participants of the events will stand a chance to win attractive prizes, including 200,000 SAND (Sandbox’s own tokens), in-game NFT prizes, as well as “mystery boxes” which includes limited PFPs and land prizes.

These experiences are available free of charge and can all be accessed via the map on The Sandbox website.

The students and teachers of music school Chord Hero will present 80 NFTs at their virtual music gallery, created by more than 40 students who digitized their personalized ukuleles as NFTs. Hong Kong’s beloved anthropomorphic pig cartoon McDull and his friends, are set to explore the city’s urban landscape and its fascinating food culture at their very own “McDull Land".

Hong Kong’s own subway operator, MTR, will make an appearance as the world’s first transport operator in The Sandbox, with a time-traveling journey between the futuristic MTR Metaverse Railway Station and  Choi Hung Station in the 1980s.

The Lunar New Year event builds on The Sandbox Alpha Season 3, which became the platform’s biggest ever event where users could play, create and earn in the decentralized metaverse.