IOTA vs SAND
IOTA and The Sandbox scored on the same 25 variables, ranked against the same 251 tokens, with every gap between them shown.
Scoring pass 18 Sept 2026. Market snapshot 7 Oct 2026.
What separates them
IOTA scores 78 of 250 and ranks 221st of 251. SAND scores 58 and ranks 246th. IOTA leads by 20 points, which is a real gap, though small enough that one variable moving would close much of it. IOTA takes 10 of the 25 variables, SAND takes 1, and 14 are level.
4 variables separate them by 3 points or more. IOTA is clear on Circulating / FDV Ratio (10 against 6), Insider Selling (5 against 1) and Supply Inflation (8 against 5).
Both score 3 or below on Protocol Revenue, Revenue Trend, P/S Multiple, Buyback and Burn, Smart Money Flows, Holder Concentration and 12 more. A weakness both sides share is not a reason to prefer either. It is a reason to check whether the category itself carries the problem.
IOTA is valued at $248.2M against $219.2M for SAND, a 1.1x difference. The larger of the two also scores higher, so the market and the framework agree on the ordering here.
All 25 variables, head to head
Both tokens were scored by the same framework in the same pass, so the numbers are directly comparable. What a comparison adds over two separate pages is the gap: a 6 against a 6 is a non-event, a 9 against a 3 is the reason to hold one and not the other.
Cash flow
| Protocol Revenue | 1 | 1 | level | |
| Revenue Trend | 1 | 1 | level | |
| P/S Multiple | 2 | 2 | level | |
| Real Staking Yield | 1 | 1 | level |
Supply
| Supply Inflation | 8 | 5 | IOTA +3 | |
| Vesting Schedule | 8 | 6 | IOTA +2 | |
| Circulating / FDV Ratio | 10 | 6 | IOTA +4 | |
| Buyback and Burn | 1 | 1 | level |
Ownership
| Smart Money Flows | 2 | 1 | IOTA +1 | |
| Insider Selling | 5 | 1 | IOTA +4 | |
| Holder Concentration | 3 | 2 | IOTA +1 |
Traction
| TVL Trend | 1 | 1 | level | |
| Active Users | 1 | 1 | level | |
| Developer Activity | 3 | 3 | level | |
| Network Growth | 1 | 2 | SAND +1 |
Position
| Market Share | 1 | 1 | level | |
| Competitive Moat | 2 | 2 | level | |
| Institutional Adoption | 2 | 2 | level | |
| Exchange Depth | 5 | 4 | IOTA +1 | |
| Social Mindshare | 2 | 2 | level |
Risk
| Regulatory Safety | 7 | 4 | IOTA +3 | |
| Catalyst Calendar | 3 | 3 | level | |
| BTC Alpha Potential | 1 | 1 | level | |
| Team Execution | 3 | 2 | IOTA +1 | |
| Treasury Runway | 4 | 3 | IOTA +1 |
Bars read outward from the centre: IOTA to the left, SAND to the right. The side that leads a variable is filled. Each score is 1 to 10 against the same definition applied to all 251 rated tokens.
Market and supply
| IOTA | SAND | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.0531 | $0.0751 |
| Market cap | $248.2M | $219.2M |
| Circulating | 93.6% | 97.9% |
| Dilution to full supply | 1.07x | 1.02x |
| Off all-time high | -99% | -99.11% |
| To recover the high | 100x | 112.4x |
| Total value locked | $2.5M | not published |
| Network | IOTA | Ethereum |
Price, market cap and all-time high from the CoinGecko snapshot fetched 7 Oct 2026. Supply shares are derived from circulating and eventual supply counts, which do not move with price. The 25 scores come from the research pass dated 18 Sept 2026.
Catalyst and risk on each side
IOTA · PASS
IOTA 2.0 decentralized protocol (no coordinator) finally live; Assembly smart contract layer in development
Zero smart contract activity, no DeFi TVL, IoT machine-economy thesis never materialized, fully diluted supply already in circulation
SAND · PASS
Sandbox NEXT mobile (UE5) full launch + SANDchain mainnet + Animoca Nasdaq Q3 2026
Animoca confirmed selling SAND pre-Nasdaq. Zero revenue. Zero burn. Zero staking. 333M SAND in insider wallets.
Common questions
- Is IOTA or SAND the better investment?
- On this framework IOTA scores higher: 78 against 58 of 250, and it is rated PASS against PASS. That is a ranking of fundamentals as recorded at the last scoring pass, not a price forecast, and IOTA still wins 10 of the 25 individual variables against SAND.
- What is the biggest difference between IOTA and SAND?
- Circulating / FDV Ratio. IOTA scores 10 of 10 there and SAND scores 6, a gap of 4 points on a single variable.
- Which is bigger, IOTA or SAND?
- IOTA is valued at $248.2M and SAND at $219.2M on the latest market snapshot.
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Research and analysis, not investment advice. A higher score is one framework applied consistently to 251 tokens, not a prediction that one asset will outperform the other.