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The Sandbox Metaverse hits 2M users, begins K-Pop partnership

There are 200 quests in which players can complete to earn a chance of getting an Alpha Pass NFT, which will reward the owners up to 1,000 SAND worth roughly $3,000 at current prices.

The Sandbox metaverse game owned by NFT investment giant Animoca Brands has surpassed 2 million registered users amid its play-to-earn season 2 alpha launch.

The crypto game backed by NFTs and its native SAND token has been in the works for roughly four years, and the latest preview into the game comes just a couple of months after its long-awaited season 1 alpha launch in late November.

Season 2 officially went live earlier today and any user is able to freely explore 35 different virtual experiences including a sneak peek of the “Snoopverse” in partnership with popular rapper and new-found NFT proponent Snoop Dogg.

There are 200 quests that players can complete to earn a chance of getting an Alpha Pass NFT, which will reward the owners up to 1,000 SAND worth roughly $3,000 at current prices.

The Sandbox is aiming to roll out the project in phased stages moving forward, and according to the platform’s roadmap for 2022, a DAO that will give voting powers to SAND, virtual land, and avatars holders will be launched next quarter.

A key factor behind The Sandbox already having a strong user base in its alpha, maybe due to the firm’s long list of partnerships with mainstream names such as Warner Music, The Walking Dead, Snoop Dogg, and Deadmau5 to name a few.

It appears that anticipation for the season 2 alpha launch hasn’t impacted and surging price action as yet, with the price of SAND down 5% over the past 24 hours to trade at $3.05. While it is also down more than 24% over the past 30 days and around 64% down from its all-time high from three months ago.

Related: The Sandbox announces $50M fund for its startup accelerator program

In terms of NFTs, the floor price of The Sandbox’s virtual land plots are also down 8% over the past week to sit at 2.97 Ether (ETH) worth roughly $8,100 at the time of writing.

On March 2, The Sandbox also announced a partnership with Cube Entertainment to develop tokenized assets for the game featuring Korean culture such as K-Pop.

"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 and offering them presence into The Sandbox through its own lands" said The Sandbox COO and Co-Founder Sebastien Borget as part of the announcement.

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Singapore suspends Bitget exchange license over K-Pop coin promotion

The Singapore-based Bitget exchange has reportedly lost its license after a legal tussle with the agency for K-Pop boy band BTS.

Singapore-headquartered digital asset platform, Bitget, has reportedly been suspended by the Monetary Authority of Singapore after getting into a dispute with an agency for the popular K-Pop boy band BTS.

As reported by the Financial Times on Dec. 5, Bitget lost the Singapore license following the controversial listing of a new K-Pop-related cryptocurrency called Army Coin. However, the crypto exchange still claims to have licenses in other jurisdictions such as Australia, Canada, and the United States.

The issue arose on Oct. 25, when the Bitget exchange shared a tweet promoting Army Coin, which is named after the South Korean boyband's followers.

It allegedly used misleading information such as, “This coin exists for the benefit of BTS” and “ARMY coin aims to take care of BTS members for life”.

The exchange reportedly violated the band agency’s portrait rights by showcasing the new cryptocurrency on their website using the “ARMY” ticker and BTS's name and images without permission.

Once the agency, Hybe, received information that the cryptocurrency had been listed on the Singapore-based exchange, they announced:

“We are currently looking into the legal violations in this case, including the cryptocurrency’s infringement on our artists’ portrait rights without permission from or discussion with the agency. We will take legal action against all infringements and violations.”

It added that the coin had “no affiliation” with BTS and urged those that had lost money on it to contact the police.

Bitget responded to the statement according to reports, by clarifying that as a trading platform, they did not create the coin itself and will take no responsibility for it. However, the ARMY token was delisted by the exchange on Dec. 3. The FT reported that the coin was available for trading in other jurisdictions on Bitget, including in South Korea.

Founded in Singapore in 2018, Bitget claims to have over 1.5 million registered users worldwide, and after their most recent Series B funding is valued at US$1 Billion.

Related: Singaporean crypto exchange enters India amid regulatory uncertainty

Bitget was cast into the industry spotlight after securing a sponsorship deal with Italian soccer giants Juventus in September and becoming an official partner of PGL Major Stockholm 2021 in October.

In June, Bitget also inked a partnership with stablecoin issuer Circle to become one of the first exchanges to list USD Coin (USDC) as collateral for trading crypto derivatives.

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