TL;DR
- Decentraland is a virtual world powered by Ethereum, containing digital real estate parcels, items, and other customizable assets.
- Players can develop, buy and sell plots of land, artwork, and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) with the native cryptocurrency of Decentraland – MANA.
- MANA is now listed on Coins.ph and Coins Pro, one of the first licensed and regulated cryptocurrency exchanges in the Philippines.
What is Decentraland?
Decentraland is a play-to-earn digital world, or an Open-World Metaverse, with mini-games, a virtual environment, and real-life simulation. Players can buy digital real estate (Land) that they can later build upon, run, and monetize. Players can also explore, interact and play different games within the Decentraland ecosystem. The Ethereum blockchain was used to build the 3D VR platform.
How Does Decentraland Work?
In Decentraland, all players ($MANA holders) have direct control over the rules in the ecosystem. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) represent in-game collectibles, including the game’s virtual real estate, LAND.
To purchase LAND, players will require MANA – Decentraland’s native cryptocurrency which facilitates all transactions in the virtual world. In the Decentraland Marketplace, the token may be used to buy avatars, unique identities, estates, and wearables. Decentraland provides a full marketplace where all on-chain assets may be traded and managed.
Ownership of land is tracked via the Ethereum blockchain and players are required to hold their MANA tokens in an Ethereum wallet to perform transactions in Decentraland.
In addition to digital real estate and trading in-game items, players can build upon their LAND with games and activities for others to interact with, allowing you to monetize your LAND.
What are MANA and LAND?
MANA is Decentraland’s native cryptocurrency that facilitates all transactions in the virtual world. It also provides each MANA holder with voting power in the Decentraland’s Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO).
To take part in governance, users must convert their MANA into wrapped MANA (wMANA) and lock it in the DAO. Each wMANA represents one vote in governance proposals. As a DAO member of Decentraland, you have the power to participate in its governance such as voting directly on in-game and organizational policies.
LAND, is the NFT assets you acquire in the game of Decentraland, it is the medium which you interact with in the game world. As soon as you buy a piece of land, your options are limitless. Games, apps, and even dynamic 3D scenarios may all be built on your land.
What Are The Use-Cases of Decentraland?
Popularly known for digital real estate in the metaverse, Decentraland (MANA) spotlights 3 key use cases to increase the value of a player’s LAND and its native token – MANA.
Advertising
Similar to real estate in the real world, players can also find certain areas or ‘LAND Parcels’ of Decentraland which receive more traffic. The higher virtual ‘footfall’ in these areas has led to brands buying space and setting up billboards for advertising.
Have you checked out the @dcl_plazas banner inside @decentraland yet? Maybe one day these advertising slots will be NFTs 😉https://t.co/DZZSBA8i8R pic.twitter.com/X2ikIy7VnU
— OpenSea (@opensea) February 29, 2020
NFTs and Collectibles
NFT items can be collected, created, and traded in the Decentraland Marketplace via the MANA token.
Governance
DAO members of Decentraland will propose and vote on policy updates, future LAND auctions, and whitelisting of NFT contracts to be allowed inside the virtual world.
Entering Decentraland
Since its launch, Decentraland offers a uniquely immersive experience that includes a combination of major global brands such as Coca-Cola, Samsung, Domino’s, and Dolce&Gabbana, among many others.
If you're a fan of sandbox-style games (open world map, in “sandbox” format), like Minecraft and Roblox, or Social Simulators like The Sims or Second Life, and are looking for similar games in Web3, you would have certainly heard about Decentraland, one of the most successful projects in the metaverse scenario.
Developed in 2015, Decentraland was released in 2017, becoming the first decentralized digital world and, one of the biggest games of its genre. It is a free-to-play, play-to-earn, and build-to-earn game, very similar to The Sandbox (another recognized game in the segment).
What makes the two titles different is the fact that Decentraland is more focused on the sociability between players, with a more refined graphic resolution, while in The Sandbox, the focus is on the gameplay action, making its construction, based on Voxels less attractive in aesthetics and a little more limited.
Operating on the Ethereum Blockchain, Decentraland is currently only supported by PCs and it can be downloaded or executed directly from the Browser. Although it is possible to play in any browser, the developers recommend using Brave, Chrome, or Firefox for maximum performance.
As it is a "heavy" game, it is also recommended to direct the potential of the machine fully to the browser during the game's execution.
Metaverse and Proto-Metaverses in Web2 and Web3
Web2 games like The Sims or Second Life, allow users to buy goods but do not allow users to prove ownership and originality of their possessions. Decentraland solves these issues through the use of “Smart Contracts” of the Ethereum network, allowing players to truly own their accounts and game assets.
In this way, any Land, NFT, or asset purchased by the player is their own property, which is registered on the blockchain. Within the game, it is also possible to visit the Lands of other players with different buildings. Players can visit stores, nightclubs, casinos, and even museums that display NFTs and all kinds of items created by other users.
In this new governance context, the community represents a fundamental part of the project's guidelines and rules, players banning decisions are voted on by users, who hold any land or game tokens within its eco-system.
Despite the similarity with titles like Minecraft and The Sandbox, the main focus here is the interaction between players: socializing, talking, and trading.
Yes, there are mini-games within the game and even a casino, held by Atari and where real people were hired to work as online receptionists in the metaverse, talking in real-time with the new visitors.
Decentraland is a digital world with stores, clothing, accessories, tradable items, all of which is created, traded and operated by the players themselves.
The Decentraland metaverse is called Genesis City, a geographic center subdivided into 90,000 plots called "Parcels". Of these 90,000 lands, 36,041 were dedicated to community districts and the rest were auctioned off to users.
Each “Parcel” measures 16x16m and is identified by Cartesian coordinates. A set of two or more adjacent Parcels is called an Estate, and it is possible to make more extensive constructions in these territories.
To start playing Decentraland, it is not necessary to have a wallet, however, to have the full experience, it is recommended to connect a Web3 wallet, allowing you to get daily rewards, participate in events and log in on other devices keeping your progress in the game. But, if you still just want to try the game, just log in as a Guest and start experiencing.
The $MANA token may be undoubtedly a valuable opportunity for investors who want to diversify their portfolio and also for users who want to increase their involvement within the project.
An interesting feature of Decentraland is tokenomics. Other than being a utility and in-game currency, owning MANA also gives governance rights. And holders of MANA can vote on various decisions that contribute to the development of various aspects of the game. Landowners also have this right.
The player raises a question and this is put to a vote by all holders and owners in their appropriate categories. The questions are of the most varied, such as:
- Proposals and ideas for adding or removing game content
- Citation of offensive nicknames and/or player bans
- Definition of types of items that will be accepted/allowed in the metaverse
- Proposition and selection of events and experiences to be added to the game
In the four rounds of its token launch, Decentraland raised the equivalent of $25.5 million. Among its investors are Animoca Brands and Boost VC.
Decentraland currently has one of the largest crypto gaming market capitalizations in the metaverse segment, valued at over US$1.2 billion, alongside tokens such as APE (from BAYC’s Otherside metaverse) and SAND (The Sandbox).
In November 2021, Decentraland recorded a peak of $57.64 billion in financial transactions in a 24-hour period. In the same period, the MANA token reached its ATH (All-Time High Value) of around US$ 5.15, with over US$7 billion in market capitalization.
Who invested in Decentraland?
Large groups of institutional investors and equity funds lead the investment in the project, which has already collected significant amounts in several fundraising rounds.
Other recognized partners and investors in the project are Grayscale, NBA legend Stephen Curry, Sotheby's, CoinGecko, Coinbase, Barry Bosses, J.P. Morgan, and Samsung. Brands like Nike, Adidas, Apple, and Microsoft also had their initiatives into the Decentraland Metaverse.
One of the interesting aspects of Decentraland is its focus on decentralization. The gaming community controls the land, digital assets and game developments through a DAO, a Decentralized and Autonomous Organization.
Unlike other virtual worlds, Decentraland is not controlled by a centralized entity, but by the holders of MANA tokens, Lands (LAND), and Estates (Sets of LAND), through Decentraland DAO, which was created using the DApp technology, Aragon, which is able to interact with Ethereum smart contracts.
Anyone who owns MANA or owns LAND can create and vote on proposals. Decentraland DAO runs on the DAO software solution “Aragon”.
Here are some examples of proposals that can be created to be voted on by the community:
• Add updates to LAND or Estates smart contracts.
• Add a new POI to the decentralized map.
• Add a new Catalyst server.
• Add or deny lists of names issued in the Decentraland Names contract.
• Add a street name in Decentraland.
• Execute any Ethereum smart contract transaction on behalf of the DAO.
• Create a community poll.
• Replace SAB members.
• Change the voting power of the different energy sources in the system.
The DAO allows token holders to directly vote on the game's organizational policies, allowing players to have direct control over the rules of the online digital world of Decentraland.
This mechanism affects everything from the types of items allowed to investments for the DAO treasury.
To vote on the proposed changes to the protocol, you must keep the tokens and NFTs “wrapped”. Each wMANA (wrapped mana) gives you one unit of voting power, while each parcel of Land and each Estate gives you 2,000 units of voting power.
In addition to the DAO, Decentraland has a Security Advisory Board (SAB) that oversees the security of the platform's smart contracts, reviews governance proposals, and responds to bug reports.
The SAB is made up of five members who are voted on by the gaming community and who have the ability to delay or reject governance proposals.
Decentraland is more than a video game, it is an attempt to build a new world, made in the image of decentralization and monetizing different aspects of the real world in a virtual environment.
For the first time ever, you can own the value you create in the virtual world you inhabit, and that value can be transferred directly into your tangible world. Whether you're exploring dungeons, putting together puzzles, driving race cars, building games, or crafting items and accessories in-game.
It is important to note that the Decentraland original developer team had the co-founders Ari Meilich and Esteban Ordano, who left their original positions and now only act as project consultants and advisors, through the Decentraland foundation, since the protocol already works by itself and is only directed and supervised by the DAO and the SAB boards.
Decentraland paved the way for a whole new kind of metaverse, one that has as its main protagonist the freedom of creation in the world where in which each player is involved in the ecosystem, together with a great capacity of personalization, that brings huge possibilities.
Furthermore, Decentraland is a free opportunity to live the metaverse with experiences close to real life, that are simulated or replicated in the digital world, with countless stories, stores, events, brands, and popular artists, bringing visibility and innovative experiences to a growing number of people.
Disclaimer: The information and publications in this article are not intended to be and do not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice or recommendation offered or endorsed by Coins.
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