What Is Decentraland?

There are many different ways to define Decentraland. Most definitions state that it is a virtual, augmented, or extended reality social experience or game. Realistically, and as of its state at the end of 2023, it is a three-dimensional online platform allowing users to be part of a shared digital experience where they can play games, socဣialize, and create, buy, or sell digital ♚items. You can buy a plot of virtual land and create anything you want on it. If you have virtual or augmented reality goggles, you can wear them while in Decentraland or load the program on the screen of one of your devices and play it like a game.

How Decentraland Works

Users can create unique environments, marketplaces, and applications by spending Decentraland’s native token, MANA. MANA is an ERC-20 fungible token that serves as Decentrand’s 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:digital currency. It is spent (burned) when it is used to purchase anything in Decentraland. MANA is also spent to create centralized games, apps, and other services. The blockchain allows creators to monetize their creations in that it allows them to digitally construct whatever they can think of and charge other users to look at, use, or interact with it.

The blockchain includes two non-fungible (ERC-721) tokens, LAND and Estate. Land is a 52-foot x 52-foot (16 meter x 16 meter) plot of digital real estate (scaled to the digital environment), and an Estate is two or more adjacent plots.

Creators and users can schedule and host community events, including concerts, movie screenings, casino nights, avatar dances, or anything else they can think of. Other options are to buy or sell digital art and land. Clusters of land parcels have different characteristics. Decentraland’s squares include Vegas City, District X (the red-light district), Fashion Street, Dragon City, and other themed areas.

How to Join Decentraland and Get Started

To get to Decentraland, navigate the website and click "Jump In." You can log in as a guest or by connecting your Ethereum-compatible wallet. By connecting your wallet, you can access the full Decentraland experience—as a guest, you're limited to viewing and interacting with non-monetized events or items.

Users will receive a "passport" when they choose an avatar. Passports are Decentraland's version of an identification card and all-access pass, letting you explore the metaverse at will (for a cost). Passports will reportedly be equipped with the ability to filter content.

Once you have an account set up, you're free to explore and begin interacting with anything in the land your account allows you to.

History of Decentraland

In 2017, Argentine blockchain professionals Ari Meilich and Esteban Ordano launched the beta Decentraland, for which they created the game’s smart contracts. It began as a proof of concept, which is an experiment or pilot project, in which it would assign ownership of a digital real estate plot to its users on the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:blockchain. They developed the platform as a two-dimensional (2-D) project that slowly transcended to a 3-D world.

At first, parcels of digital land sold for about $20, and MANA tokens sold for $0.02. The environment's first map, Genesis City, included 90,000 land parcels. In 2017, Decentraland raised more than $24 million in its 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:initial coin offering (ICO). In April 2021, during a surge in popularity for NFTs, Decentraland parcels sold for $6,000 to more than $100,000. Some plots still command high prices—on Dec. 31, 2023, parcel 133,-22 had an asking price of one million MANA ($525,644).

Here is the three-dimensional view of the parcel:

Because of the relatively small pool of MANA and the fact that it has a market value, the currency is volatile. One of its most notable spikes occurred following 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Facebook’s rebrand to Meta, an acknowledgment of the social media company's belief in the future success of the metaverse. The highest spike occurred shortly after the rebrand when Tokens.com purchased the “largest metaverse land acquisition in history,” peaking at $5.90 in late November 2021.

In December 2023, Decentraland's token MANA had a market capitalization of $981 million.

The Bottom Line

Decentraland is a 3-D digital gam🌼e-like social environment. It is a user-owned, Ethereum-based virtual world platform that allows users to be part of shared digital experiences. In Decentraland,💧 you can play games, exchange collectibles, buy and sell digital real estate or wearables, socialize, and interact.

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