In Brief:
- The Sandbox (official site) has opened compensation claims for SAND holders hit by the bridge exploit of August 22.
- The claim window runs from September 8 through September 22, 2026, with payouts made one-to-one in SAND on Ethereum.
- Who qualifies is determined by a fixed pre-exploit snapshot, and holders do not have to submit any paperwork.
Compensation Claims Open for SAND Holders
Every SAND holder whose assets were caught up in the August 22 bridge exploit can now formally claim compensation from The Sandbox. Anyone who was holding bridged SAND on Base or BNB Smart Chain ahead of the incident qualifies for a one-to-one payout, settled in SAND on the Ethereum network.
Claims can be filed through the official site between September 8 and September 22, 2026, closing at 4 PM UTC. According to the company, full compensation is owed to anyone who legitimately held SAND on the affected networks before the exploit took place.
Snapshot-Based Eligibility
Entitlements come from an on-chain snapshot captured moments before the attack. On Base, that snapshot landed at block 50,283,188 on August 21, 2026, at 23:42:03 UTC; on BNB Smart Chain, it was taken at block 117,322,025 at 11:42:44 UTC. Whatever a holder did afterwards — trading the tokens or shifting funds around — has no bearing on what they are owed, The Sandbox stressed.
The approach keeps the process simple: all that is needed is control of the wallet held at the time of the snapshot. There are no forms to fill in and no supporting documents to provide.
Two Claim Paths
Anyone whose SAND sat on centralized exchanges can sit tight, since The Sandbox is coordinating with those platforms to deliver compensation directly. Everyone else can claim from their own wallet via the dedicated claim page, a process that takes a single transaction.
The studio has also flagged the risk of scams while claims are live, noting that a genuine claim will never ask for token approvals, off-chain message signatures, or funds sent anywhere.
Deadline Flexibility for Late Claims
Missing the September 22 cutoff is not fatal. The Sandbox says late submissions will be reviewed individually through the end of October, and it is asking anyone in that position to reach out to the studio directly.
Details of the Exploit
All of this stems from an exploit that emerged on August 21, 2026, at 23:41 UTC. The flaw sat in the SAND deployment on Base and BNB Smart Chain, and it let the attacker act as the only validator approving incoming bridge messages. That opened the door to minting unbacked SAND: forensic work puts the amount drained at roughly 14,742,341.84 SAND, worth about $697,000, with the wider economic damage close to $1.5 million.
SAND on Ethereum and Polygon was untouched, leaving the 3 billion token supply intact. The Ethereum vault backing the bridge also escaped unharmed, and the compensation will come out of The Sandbox’s treasury rather than from any newly minted SAND.
Both the Base and BNB Smart Chain contracts have been retired for good, and bridging will run through freshly deployed contracts going forward. SAND left behind on those chains can neither be transferred nor redeemed.