Decentraland – The number of use cases for blockchain technologies has risen dramatically in recent years, resulting in the emergence of more decentralized applications. Gaming has been one of the best and most successful applications of blockchain technology.
Traditional games restricted in-game achievements and assets to the game, but with blockchain technology in games, players can now own their in-game purchases, land pieces, and characters.
The play-to-earn model allows players to earn cryptocurrency or real money by utilizing their digital assets and skills. We are witnessing an economy in which gamers and crypto enthusiasts are paying millions of dollars to own digital real estate that does not exist in the real world. Decentraland was one of the first games to break ground in the Blockchain Gaming Industry.
Decentraland is a popular metaverse game in which users can earn money by playing games and selling real estate. Players can interact with other users in the virtual world by buying and selling digital real estate, creating digital art, and playing casino games.
However, there is more to this blockchain project than just VR. But before we delve into the details, first, let’s get straight to what Decentraland is and how it works.
What Is Decentraland?
Decentraland is a three-dimensional virtual reality platform powered by Ethereum blockchain technology, where users can create, experience, and monetize content and applications. As the name suggests, Decentraland, which is an acronym for ‘decentralized land’, is a fully immersive digital world, fully controlled by its community.
In essence, it’s a virtual reality where the 3D land is permanently owned by the community, which provides members with absolute control over their creations. You can log in, create an avatar, and start exploring, buying land, and building all sorts of builds ranging from playgrounds to virtual cinemas and galleries.
Those who own land can control the content published to their portion of the land and these contents can range from interactive systems such as games to static 3D scenes such as paintings, for instance.
One thing that makes Decentraland different compared to other popular blockchain-based games is the fact that it’s not controlled by a centralized organization. Instead, there’s a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) that governs the policies created to determine how the Decentraland world would behave.
How Decentraland Works
Decentraland is best known for providing an infrastructure to support shared virtual worlds. The platform consists of a decentralized ledger for land ownership, a protocol for describing the contents of each LAND parcel, and a peer-to-peer network for user interactions. Users can propose policy updates and vote on upcoming LAND auctions through the DAO.
Decentraland’s protocol consists of three layers:
- A consensus layer that tracks LAND ownership and content through smart contracts,
- A LAND content layer that uses a decentralized distribution system to render content in the virtual world, and
- A real-time layer that provides peer-to-peer connections for users to interact with each other.
Users can claim ownership of virtual lands using a blockchain-based ledger of encoded parcels, and each piece of LAND has its own set of cartesian coordinates. Content can include anything from static 3D scenes to interactive systems like games.
Users can rent out plots such as buildings, parks, hotels, and casinos to other players in addition to selling them. Decentraland’s metaverse is divided into 90,601 individual LAND parcels that are exactly 16×16 in size and can be found in the metaverse at specific coordinates.
Decentraland Tokenomics
The game itself is made up of many parts, and its complexities are numerous. Understanding its tokenomics, on the other hand, is critical to being able to play it. LAND and MANA are the two primary tokens in Decentraland.
LAND
The land within the Decentraland metaverse is represented by non-fungible LAND tokens. In essence, these are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that track the land ownership on Ethereum’s blockchain.
LAND tokens are built on top of the ERC721 protocol standard which makes it a digital asset that can be traded with other users – just like any other NFT.
One of the main differences between LAND and other NFTs like the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, for example, is that players are able to use LAND within Decentraland to construct 3D spaces and applications.
Land parcels are 16m x 16m. The height is restricted based on these limitations as well. Moreover, LAND is a digitally scarce token, and it corresponds to the fixed total amount of MANA tokens.
Quick Interesting Facts:
- On November 24th, 2021, TokensCom paid 618,000 MANA (worth $2.4M at the time) to buy a patch of land in Decentraland. This is the most expensive virtual real estate to date (January 2022).
- In June 2021, someone bought a plot of virtual land for $1 million.
- Chinese celebrity singer JJ Lin has bought three pieces of virtual land on Decentraland.
MANA
MANA is another important token in Decentraland’s in-game economy. MANA, in contrast to LAND, is a fungible ERC20 cryptocurrency that can be burned or spent in exchange for LAND parcels. It can also be spent in the Decentraland Marketplace to purchase various items available in the game.
MANA’s ICO took place in 2017, and it raised $26 million. During the ICO, one MANA token was valued at $0.0240.
MANA token allocation:
- Crowdsale (ICO): 40%
- Decentraland foundation: 20%
- Team and early contributors: 20%
- Community and partners: 20%
Originally, the total supply of MANA tokens was set at 2.8 billion, but it gets reduced each time LAND transactions take place. During the first round of LAND auctions, 600 million MANA were burned. To further reduce the circulating token supply, 2.5% is burnt from the MANA transactions happening on the Decentraland marketplace.
MANA can be traded on most exchanges, including centralized exchanges (Binance, Coinbase, KuCoin, Kraken, and others) and Decentralized Exchanges such as Uniswap and SushiSwap.
As of Mar. 2022, MANA traded at around $2.44 per token, the total supply stands at around 2.193 billion MANA, and there is a circulating supply of 1.84 billion MANA. The token’s all-time high was reached on Nov. 25, 2021, when it peaked at $5.90 per MANA.
How To Play Decentraland
To enter the metaverse and start playing the game, there are a few requirements needed. The following are the things you need to keep in place before you start playing Decentraland:
- CPU i3 (Gen 2 or higher) or AMD equivalent.
- Updated web browser
- RAM memory: 4GB minimum (8GB recommended)
- MetaMask wallet (for Ethereum Interaction)
- Windows with updated graphics drivers (Mac OS or GU / Linux updated)
- Vulkan and WebGL support
- Graphics: NVIDIA GT 730 or better (AMD equivalent or better)
- Internet connection
When you have the above-mentioned requirements handy, you’re set to start playing the Decentraland crypto game. There are a few overall steps you need to take in order to play Decentraland:
- Create a MetaMask wallet
- Buy Ethereum and transfer it to MetaMask
- Create a Decentraland account and sync it to your MetaMask wallet
- Now you’re ready to start playing!
Once you’re done, navigate to Decentraland in your browser.
- When the website has loaded, select the left option to play with your wallet.
- You will be asked to choose your preferred wallet. To proceed, select the MetaMask wallet and click Next.
- If you are an existing Decentraland user, you will be prompted to log in. To create an account using your wallet, go to account.decentraland.org/sign-in.
- After successfully creating an account, the next step is to sign in to access your avatar in Genesis Plaza.
- You will customize your avatar in Genesis Plaza. You can customize your avatar in a variety of ways on the avatar selection screen, including collectibles, accessories, shoes, bottom, top, head, and body.
- Give your avatar a name after you’ve customized it and start exploring the metaverse.
How To Earn On Decentraland
There are various ways to make money playing the Decentraland crypto game:
Investment In LAND
Like in the real world, real estate is a viable investment where you can make a decent return on your investment. Because LAND is a limited resource, we always believe that its value will rise with time.
When you buy LAND, you can use it to host things like games, advertisements, gambling, or gaming communities. These applications will fetch you real-world money.
You can also rent or outrightly sell the LAND to content creators or developers who want to develop it for their own interests.
Investment In Estates
Owning estates in Decentraland is another great way of making money. An estate is the merging of different land parcels. You can use your estates to build things like art galleries, casinos, and games where other players can interact.
All of these activities will fetch you good real-world money too.
Playing a Variety of Games
You can also make money on Decentraland by playing a variety of games that are set up on different estates. For example, some estates have full-fledged casinos running on them. Others might have sports betting and other activities you can play to earn real money at.
Decentraland Marketplace
The Decentraland Marketplace is an integral part of the game. It allows users to buy and sell various items such as collectibles, wearables, and whatnot.
To access it, all you need to do is visit the official website and hit “marketplace” on the top. You can also access it in the game by hitting the M button and finding it on the top navigation menu where the map and the builder tool are.
You can browse for various items and buy them using the in-game currency – the MANA token.
Decentraland DAO
DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. The most important smart contracts and assets, which are the building blocks of Decentraland, are owned by the Decentraland DAO. These contracts and assets include LAND and Estate contracts, wearables, marketplace, and content servers. The Decentraland DAO also holds a good sum of MANA to subsidize various development operations and initiatives autonomously.
The game developers always envisioned making Decentraland fully decentralized by handing over the control to the people who contribute and participate in its virtual world. Through the Decentraland DAO, community members can determine how things work in Decentraland, such as content moderation, Land policy, auctions, and more. Everything is determined by voting on the Decentraland DAO’s governance interface powered by Aragon.
There is a range of issues on which the Decentraland DAO members get to vote on, including:
- Features and protocol updates for LANDs and Estates.
- Future LAND Auction Dates.
- Marketplace fees amount in MANA.
- Addition of new and replacement of existing content servers.
- Allocating funds to development.
- Addition of new assets to the Decentraland world.
- Electing and replacing members of Decentraland’s Security Council.
FAQ
Is Decentraland a pyramid scheme?
Definitely not! This project is not a pyramid scheme. It has a very large fan base and a steady growth in tokens.
Can Decentraland be hacked?
No, the game is well protected against hacking. It meets modern security standards.
Is it legal to play Decentraland in the UK?
Yes, the game is available in all countries.
Conclusion
Decentraland is an exact replica of the metaverse that we imagine in our heads. It is a completely digital alternative to our real lives in which users can create anything they want from the ground up. Decentraland differs from most other popular metaverses in the industry in that it is governed by a Decentralized Autonomous Organization(DAO).
When you visit the virtual world, you will notice that it is currently undergoing significant in-game development. Users and investors from all over the world have expressed a strong interest in the game, as evidenced by the massive galleries, museums, parks, and other structures that are being built.
