Singapore’s Largest Bank Makes Pivot to Metaverse With Sandbox Partnership

Singapore’s DBS bank partners with Sandbox to create a community-focused metaverse to promote a more sustainable world.

The bank’s technologists will develop a 3×3 plot of LAND with immersive elements to explore new ways of interacting with clients. LAND is a portion of digital real estate in the Sandbox metaverse, represented by a nonfungible token, which players can customize with assets and immersive experiences.

According to DBS CEO Piyush Gupta, learn-by-doing is the best approach in a rapidly-shifting digital landscape.

DBS bank recently announced that it would expand cryptocurrency services to 300,000 wealthy Asians, following approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore to offer institutional and high net-worth individuals access to crypto through the DBS Digital Exchange.

Preparing for the future of banking

According to the CEO of DBS Hong Kong, the partnership will help create a “compelling” use case for Sandbox while at the same time preparing a new generation of technologically-savvy staff to lead future endeavors.

The co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca brands, of which Sandbox is a subsidiary, said that he is “thrilled” to create an open metaverse through the partnership with DBS.

Sandbox COO and co-founder welcomed DBS into the SingaporeVerse, an online neighborhood geared towards bringing the life and culture of Singapore to everyone in a sustainable way.

Sandbox enables users to profit from their own creations using VoxEdit, the Sandbox marketplace, and Game Maker. VoxEdit allows users to create and animate 3-D objects, which can be exported to the Sandbox marketplace, where they appear as NFT game assets. NFTs are uploaded onto the Interplanetary File System, a decentralized storage facility. After that, the NFTs are registered on the blockchain to verify ownership. The Game Maker enables anyone to create 3-D games and experiences without any software coding experience.

Singapore authorities faced with balancing act

DBS is Singapore’s largest bank, with $686 billion in assets as of Dec. 2021. Gupta is a proponent of established institutions offering cryptocurrency products as opposed to startups since institutional players often have “guardrails” that could paint the crypto industry in a better light.

His perspective comes as Singapore’s regulators tussle with how to promote innovation while protecting investors. This balancing act has come into sharper focus, after at least three major crypto companies with ties to Singapore, are either undergoing liquidation or have requested protection from creditors, including defunct hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. In response, authorities have put regulations governing the marketing of crypto products to retail investors, issuing guidelines limiting the public advertisement of certain crypto services in public places like shopping malls or on social media sites.

This restriction will play out vividly over the weekend of Sep. 30, 2022. Crypto.com, which has paid millions to sponsor F1, will have to reduce advertising signage during the Singapore Grand Prix. Specifically, it will not be allowed to line the track with signage since the city-state perceives that such marketing is targeted at locals, unlike signage on the teams’ cars and apparel, which are geared toward a more global audience.

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