The Sandbox, an upcoming decentralized gaming platform, officially launched the first round of its highly-anticipated LAND presale on Thursday and demand was substantial.

According to the launch announcement, the first round of the sale featured 2.5% of the total map (3,096 LANDS). While the first round was supposed to end on December 20, the LAND sold out in 4 hours.

Over the course of the multi-round presale, The Sandbox plans to sell 123,840 LANDS, which represents 74% of the total metaverse’s 166,464 LANDS.

25,920 (~16%) of the remaining LANDS will form the Reserve, which will be distributed to partners and gamers as rewards while 16,704 (~10%) will remain in possession of the management team for special events, feature exclusive games and ASSETS.

There will be five rounds in total, each with decreasing discounts on purchases. Public LAND is pegged to cost $48 in Ethereum (ETH) and the first round of the presale featured a 40% discount.

“LAND is your ticket to a creative world you can customize, populate with ASSETS, and bring to life as a space to play in, explore, or just host friends for social experiences,” states The Sandbox team. “You’ll be able to create game experiences that can be monetized, place your ASSETS (NFTs) that you buy from our marketplace, and combine it with more LANDS in order to create ESTATES.”

An ASSET is a voxel model made by artists for The Sandbox using Voxedit and is a user-generated NFT, which can be incorporated into LAND. ESTATES are formed when users combine multiple LANDS, with specific quad sizes such as 3×3, 6×6, 12×12 and 24×24.

The Sandbox plans to launch an early build of its Game Maker in the first quarter of next year, which will allow LAND holders to begin building unique experiences with ASSETS on their piece of the metaverse.

For those who missed out on the first round of the LAND sale, the next round is planned for Q1, 2020. Additionally, the five limited-edition ASSETS from Creator Fund artists that were offered as part of the presale are still available for purchase in the Marketplace until December 20.

Disclaimer: This article’s author has cryptocurrency holdings that can be tracked here. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Always conduct your own due diligence before making investments.