Animoca Brands, the company behind The Sandbox (official site), is getting a new chief executive. Co-founder Yat Siu becomes CEO from 1 December 2026 and keeps his role as executive chairman. Group president Evan Auyang, who joined in 2021, moves to the position of senior advisor to the board.
The change puts Siu in charge of daily operations at a time when Animoca is reorganising its business around AI agents and institutional finance. In gaming, Animoca is best known for its investments and for owning businesses such as The Sandbox, so that focus is a notable turn.
What changes at Animoca
In a shareholder letter published with the announcement, Siu describes a future with billions of autonomous agents, with Animoca supplying the products and infrastructure they run on. The strategy brings together three businesses. The goal is to connect agents that can take action with the financial infrastructure and verifiable authority they need to transact.
Siu argues that agents could fix one of blockchain’s long-running problems: it is hard to use. Instead of dealing with wallets, gas fees and bridges themselves, users would say what they want and software would carry it out. For anyone who has bounced off a blockchain game at the wallet setup screen, that is the part of the pitch aimed at them.
Robby Yung stays on the senior executive team as CEO of investments and CEO of The Sandbox SAND $0.04271 ▼ -5.8%. The rest of the team is:
- Shaun Kraft, chief financial officer
- Minh Do, chief operating officer
- Brian Chan, chief development officer
- Jamii Quoc, general counsel
The relisting timetable
The letter also covers Animoca’s long-awaited return to public markets. Siu confirms the company completed its audited financial statements for 2022 and 2023 during 2026. It is working to clear its remaining backlog of historical reports during 2027 to support a future relisting.
That is a timetable for finishing the preparatory work. It is not a commitment to list in 2027, and the process could run well into next year, with no listing date set.
The previous plan was more specific. Animoca’s proposed reverse merger with Nasdaq-listed Currenc Group was aimed at completion in the third quarter of 2026. The two companies suspended talks in September, citing projected closing timelines and changing market conditions.
What it means for games
Animoca’s portfolio includes more than 600 companies, which gives it connections and possible distribution. Turning that reach into steady revenue and on-time financial reporting is still unfinished work, and as CEO, Siu is now directly accountable for it. His stated priorities are operational efficiency, disciplined capital allocation and shareholder value, alongside product development.
Games are still part of Animoca’s ecosystem, including The Sandbox. The company’s main pitch, though, is now about ownership and finance across an internet run by agents. Whether that wider plan produces a more focused business that makes money is still unproven.
