Ledgerplex in the Sandbox

In this special episode of The Ledger Podcast, Mo El-Sayed sits down with the creative minds behind Ledger’s groundbreaking educational gaming experience in The Sandbox, Ledgerverse. Max Vedel and Fabrice Starzinskas from Swipeback share how they’ve revolutionized crypto education by merging storytelling, gaming mechanics, and Web3 technology to create something unprecedented: a learning environment where education becomes adventure.

“We’re not trying to do a one-time thing. This can become a new way of learning, a new way of educating, and it actually solves a problem.” – Max Vedel

Key Highlights:

Beyond Traditional Advertising: The Evolution of Brand Engagement

Max and Fabrice dive into the fundamental shift in how brands can engage with audiences. Traditional advertising focuses on selling with limited pre-purchase value, while gaming environments enable brands to provide substantial educational value before any transaction occurs. This approach recognizes that educated people naturally become Ledger customers, making education itself a powerful business strategy.

Swipeback, the creative studio behind the Ledgerverse, represents this new paradigm with a team of 20-25 specialists, including art directors, quest writers, and level designers—roles that didn’t exist in traditional advertising. 

“We love finding the new mediums and ways that a brand can tell its story.” – Max Vedel

The School of Block Foundation: Proving the Concept

The first Ledgerverse episode, School of Block, established the framework with over 300,000 players, 100,000 graduates, and numerous industry awards. The experience successfully transformed Ledger Academy’s educational content from passive consumption into interactive storytelling, where players actively participate in learning about crypto security fundamentals.

Fabrice, drawing on his background as an educator, emphasizes that effective teaching involves creating contexts where people experiment and learn independently: “You don’t tell people, you put the context in which people will experiment by themselves and learn by themselves.”

“People don’t necessarily remember the education you give them, but more like the song they like or the movie they like. When we brought in the gaming factor, it was really connecting the dots between storytelling, gaming, education, and Web3.” – Mo El-Sayed

Building Living Worlds: The System-First Approach

The development philosophy behind the Ledgerverse prioritized creating adaptable systems over fixed narratives. Fabrice explains this approach using a similar methodology to Lord of The Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien: before writing The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien created The Silmarillion—establishing the complete history, wars, and systems of Middle-earth. Only after building these foundational systems could stories emerge organically.

This systems-thinking approach allows characters to evolve naturally. For example, the large machines in School of Block were initially designed as obstacles but evolved into guardians and companions. The headmaster, Cassie, was originally conceived as a shop owner but developed into the school’s authoritative figure. This flexibility creates “living worlds” where community input can reshape the experience.

NFTs as Proof of Knowledge: Revolutionizing Educational Credentials

The Ledgerverse introduces “proof of knowledge” NFTs that function as on-chain diplomas. Players who complete educational quests receive pieces of the Ledger Shield, which combine into a complete shield upon map completion. These aren’t just collectibles—they’re verifiable credentials that prove educational achievement and unlock future experiences.

This created powerful CRM possibilities, allowing Ledger to identify users who’ve completed specific curricula and offer tailored experiences, products, or privileges based on their demonstrated knowledge. It’s a Web3-native approach to customer journey mapping that goes far beyond traditional loyalty programs.

Into the Factory: Bridging Digital and Physical Realities

The second Ledgerverse episode, “Into the Factory,” recreates Ledger’s actual manufacturing facility in Vierzon, France, within The Sandbox metaverse. The attention to detail extends to recreating the exact diagonal architecture of the real building (despite The Sandbox’s preference for grid-aligned structures) and even modeling local animal species that populate the Vierzon area. This creates an emotional connection between the digital and physical worlds.

“It was necessary for us to show the true nature of what’s being built, because being security for immaterial things is super abstract, but we’ve seen the artwork that’s been made that is real.” – Fabrice Starzinskas

Educational Storytelling: From Theory to Adventure

The Factory experience guides players through Ledger’s complete story, from Nicolas Bacca’s early Bitcoin conference experiences to the company’s evolution into a global leader. Players meet key Ledger figures, including engineers, designers, and factory workers, learning about hardware security through interactive challenges rather than passive consumption.

The narrative seamlessly blends education with entertainment, taking players “down the rabbit hole quite literally” where they encounter a giant robot rabbit that provides armor upgrades. This approach transforms potentially dry technical content into memorable adventures while maintaining educational integrity.

Community-Driven Content: From Players to Creators

The Ledgerverse actively incorporates community contributions. In School of Block, players could create NPCs using VoxEdit that were then integrated into the official map. This participatory approach recognizes that engaged communities want to contribute to the worlds they love, creating deeper investment in the educational experience.

The Golden Armor easter egg exemplifies this philosophy. Hidden within School of Block was a complex puzzle requiring players to decipher a seed phrase through architectural clues, special glasses, and encoded text. The challenge took over a month to solve and generated substantial community content around the hunt itself.

“We knew that for us to elevate to the rank of not just an activation but an actual game—a game that actually respects the players—we needed to trust players to be clever and curious enough to discover things on their own.” – Fabrice Starzinskas

Partner Integration: Expanding the Ecosystem

Into the Factory features collaborations with established Web3 communities, including Clay Nation, Agoria, and Deadeye Fellas. Rather than simple co-marketing, these partnerships create meaningful quest integration where players interact with multiple brand ecosystems within a single gaming environment.

This approach demonstrates how the metaverse can facilitate authentic brand collaboration rather than competing for attention. When communities have built complementary experiences on the same platform, cross-pollination becomes natural and valuable for all participants.

Character Development: Creating Cultural Assets

The Ledgerverse characters are designed to transcend individual experiences, creating what Max calls “cultural elements that people can refer to.” Characters like Archal the robot rabbit aren’t just game assets—they’re potential intellectual property that can appear across multiple touchpoints, from social media content to future gaming experiences.

This character-centric approach builds emotional connections that traditional marketing struggles to achieve. Players develop relationships with these digital personas, creating lasting brand affinity that extends far beyond individual campaigns.

Looking Forward: The Future of Educational Gaming

The Ledgerverse represents more than creative marketing—it’s a proof of concept for how education can evolve in the digital age. By combining the engagement of gaming with the verification of blockchain technology and the creativity of immersive storytelling, it creates a template for knowledge transfer that other industries can adapt.

As Fabrice notes, the goal isn’t just creating games but “producing something we love and we wish we had access to when we were gaming.” This passion-driven approach, combined with technical innovation and educational rigor, suggests a future where learning becomes as engaging as entertainment. The success metrics—300,000+ players for School of Block alone—prove that audiences hunger for this type of educational experience.

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