Users will soon be able to explore historic collections at the British Museum through The Sandbox, a popular Ethereum metaverse.
The British Museum is a cultural landmark. Established in 1753, it was the first public museum in the world, opening with the motto “museum of the world, for the world”.
The museum is now foraying into a new kind of world: the metaverse.
According to a recent press release, the British Museum will be partnering with Ethereum-based metaverse The Sandbox to create a range of digital collectibles and experiences that reflect the museum’s historic collections.
The partnership will offer users a range of immersive experiences, allowing “anyone anywhere in the world” to discover some of the objects in the collections at the museum. It will be launched in conjunction with LaCollection, the British Museum’s licensing partner.
“We are very excited to collaborate with the British Museum to share its incredible collections to new audiences in the metaverse,” said Sebastien Borget, COO and Co-Founder of The Sandbox.
“This is a great opportunity for The Sandbox players, regardless of where they are, to learn about and enjoy the amazing collections of human history, art, and culture in the British Museum.”
The Sandbox is one of the most popular metaverses on Ethereum, and it’s frequented by Snoop Dogg, among other celebrities. Its native token, SAND, is one of the most popular metaverse tokens, boasting a market cap of $825 million. SAND is currently trading at $0.426, according to CoinGecko.
Related: NFT-backed $12.9M Banksy artwork will be loaned to global museums
This isn’t the British Museum’s first Web3 rodeo, having partnered with LaCollection on several NFT launches in the past. In 2021, at the peak of the NFT bull market, the museum auctioned 200 Hokusai digital postcards, followed by an auction of tokenized Joseph Mallord William Turner pieces a year later.
The intersection between Web3 art and the traditional art world inches in closer every year.
In 2021, Banksy’s iconic Love is in the Air piece was fractionalised into 10,000 NFTs by Particle – a company that enables fractionalised ownership of high-value art through tokenisation. Last month, its owners collectively voted to loan the $12.9 million piece out to major museums and galleries around the world, including the prestigious MOCO galleries of both Amsterdam and Barcelona
Luxury auction house Sotheby’s has also been active in the NFT space.
In May, Sotheby’s Metaverse unveiled a new, exclusive NFT marketplace featuring a curated selection of established artists and digital visionaries including Sebastio Salgado, Tyler Hobbs and Claire Silver, among others. It supports transactions on both Ethereum and Polygon.
Read more: Sotheby’s unveils high-end NFT marketplace championing hand-picked artists
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