MANA vs SAND
Decentraland 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
MANA scores 66 of 250 and ranks 241st of 251. SAND scores 58 and ranks 246th. MANA leads by 8 points, which is inside the range where the individual variables matter more than the total. MANA takes 10 of the 25 variables, SAND takes 3, and 12 are level.
No single variable separates MANA and SAND by as much as 3 points. They are close on the framework's terms, which makes price, liquidity and the supply position below the only grounds for choosing.
Both score 3 or below on Protocol Revenue, Revenue Trend, P/S Multiple, Buyback and Burn, Smart Money Flows, Insider Selling and 13 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.
SAND is valued at $219.2M against $197.1M for MANA, a 1.1x difference. The smaller of the two scores higher on fundamentals, which is the disagreement worth understanding before either position is taken.
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 | 2 | 1 | MANA +1 | |
| Revenue Trend | 2 | 1 | MANA +1 | |
| P/S Multiple | 2 | 2 | level | |
| Real Staking Yield | 1 | 1 | level |
Supply
| Supply Inflation | 5 | 5 | level | |
| Vesting Schedule | 5 | 6 | SAND +1 | |
| Circulating / FDV Ratio | 6 | 6 | level | |
| Buyback and Burn | 1 | 1 | level |
Ownership
| Smart Money Flows | 2 | 1 | MANA +1 | |
| Insider Selling | 3 | 1 | MANA +2 | |
| Holder Concentration | 3 | 2 | MANA +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 | 2 | 1 | MANA +1 | |
| Competitive Moat | 2 | 2 | level | |
| Institutional Adoption | 2 | 2 | level | |
| Exchange Depth | 4 | 4 | level | |
| Social Mindshare | 3 | 2 | MANA +1 |
Risk
| Regulatory Safety | 5 | 4 | MANA +1 | |
| Catalyst Calendar | 2 | 3 | SAND +1 | |
| BTC Alpha Potential | 2 | 1 | MANA +1 | |
| Team Execution | 2 | 2 | level | |
| Treasury Runway | 4 | 3 | MANA +1 |
Bars read outward from the centre: MANA 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
| MANA | SAND | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.1007 | $0.0751 |
| Market cap | $197.1M | $219.2M |
| Circulating | 89.3% | 97.9% |
| Dilution to full supply | 1.12x | 1.02x |
| Off all-time high | -98.3% | -99.11% |
| To recover the high | 58.8x | 112.4x |
| Total value locked | not published | not published |
| Network | Ethereum | 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
MANA · PASS
Decentraland Foundation events and partnerships with legacy brands
Reported concurrent user counts in the hundreds; massive gap between market cap and actual usage is unsustainable
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 MANA or SAND the better investment?
- On this framework MANA scores higher: 66 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 MANA still wins 10 of the 25 individual variables against SAND.
- What is the biggest difference between MANA and SAND?
- Nothing separates them by more than 2 points on any of the 25 variables, which is unusual and means the two are close substitutes on fundamentals.
- Which is bigger, MANA or SAND?
- MANA is valued at $197.1M and SAND at $219.2M on the latest market snapshot.
Related comparisons
Keep reading
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.