A top exec at the largest metaverse platform ‘never’ wants to sell to Meta

During a live interview with CoinDesk Thursday morning, Sébastien Borget, COO of the Sandbox, shot down rumors circulating on Twitter that the social media giant was thinking of acquiring his metaverse platform.

“I hope it will never be happening,” Borget said of Meta potentially acquiring the Sandbox, one of the most popular metaverse platforms, which is owned by Animoca Brands. 

“I don’t see any compatibility here with what we are doing,” he told CoinDesk.

While Borget said the Sandbox has been focusing on giving players true ownership of items like land within its game through non-fungible tokens, Meta has taken a different approach.

“They are keeping a mindset where they want as a platform to control the ownership of the user identities, the data of their users, and digital content produced by the users,” Borget told CoinDesk on Thursday.

Meta lost $10.2 billion in 2021 at Reality Labs, its metaverse division, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on an earnings call. On Thursday, Meta’s stock dropped nearly 25%, shaving almost $230 billion from its market capitalization. 

Borget also said an acquisition would pose a logistical problem for Meta because many of the assets on the platform are owned by individuals through NFTs. He said to acquire the Sandbox, Meta would have to buy out all the individuals who own land on the platform. 

Apart from ownership of in-game items, Borget said, the Sandbox is meant to be fun. It’s an open world where users can play games, build avatars or structures, and earn revenue through the play-to-earn model that rewards players with cryptocurrency.

On the other hand, what Meta is building in the metaverse is a world apart, Borget said.

“It seems pretty boring,” he said.