Adrian Cheng joins metaverse fad with The Sandbox investment
Summary
Adrian Cheng, CEO of Hong Kong real estate giant New World Development, has become the latest investor to join the metaverse fad by investing in blockchain-based gaming firm The Sandbox. Cheng, the scion of one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest families, announced on Thursday that he will invest in The Sandbox and acquire one of the largest land plots in the firm’s open virtual world named “Mega City,” according to a press release. The Sandbox Metaverse offers players and creators a decentralised platform to create immersive 3D worlds and game experiences and to monetise in-game items, such as digital plots of land that they bought or wearables that they made for avatars. Cheng said that The Sandbox’s virtual world will include an “innovation hub” that showcases the stories of companies in the Greater Bay Area, a government-supported economic zone that links Hong Kong and Macau with nine cities in southern China’s Guangdong province. The hub will feature 10 companies, such as logistics unicorn Lalamove, tech accessories brand CASETiFY, Alibaba-backed online cooking community DayDayCook, and COVID-19 testing laboratory Prenetics.