The Sandbox Lands Cube Entertainment To Bring ‘K-Culture’ to the Masses

The partnership extends the pair’s K-pop music metaverse AniCube joint venture

March 3, 2022 06:00 am

(Left) Sebastien Borget, Co-founder of The Sandbox / (Right) Ahn Woohyung, CEO of Cube Ent. Credit: The Sandbox/Cube Ent.

The two companies said they wanted to spread Korean culture through the metaverse
Cube is the world’s fifth-largest K-pop company, following behind others such as BigHit and the Big Three

Animoca Brands’ metaverse gaming subsidiary The Sandbox has partnered with South Korea’s Cube Entertainment in an ambitious bid to spread Korean culture to the rest of the world via the development of digital assets.

According to a press release on Wednesday, the companies’ announcement extends upon a joint venture last month between the pair of their music metaverse AniCube based on K-pop. Short for Korean popular music, K-pop originated in South Korea and attracts a massive following in places like China and Japan.

The partnership will focus on the collaboration for business expansion as they seek to bring in various outside companies into the metaverse and hold events to introduce them to Korean culture, the companies said.

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Cube is the world’s fifth-largest K-pop company following behind others such as BigHit and the Big Three. The company clocked net revenue exceeding 52.95 billion Korean won ($43.9 million) last year.

As an initial step, a cultural space known as the “K-Culture complex” will be established on plots of virtual land owned by Cube inside The Sandbox’s open metaverse.

The Sandbox is a decentralized Ethereum-based gaming universe that lets users create and monetize non-fungible tokens (NFTs). In January, the company committed $50 million to a new accelerator program for budding startups looking to build atop its ecosystem.

With the partnership, Cube will be charged with preparing content relating to Korean culture via multiple partnerships with Korean companies while The Sandbox will provide technical support, per the release.

“Cube is truly embracing the spirit of the open Metaverse by moving one step further into The Sandbox via its K-culture hub, where it is actively curating local brands and partners of their main K-POP label,” said The Sandbox co-founder Sebastien Borget.

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