If you still doubt that the metaverse is real, you should look into Decentraland (open-world metaverse). You can do whatever you want with the land you buy on Decentraland, tapping into the imaginations of gamers and business people everywhere. This is a one-of-a-kind endeavor in an untested market.
Decentraland is an Ethereum-based metaverse game that encourages a global network of users to operate a shared virtual world. Ari Meilich and Esteban Ordano, two blockchain professionals, create Decentraland's smart contracts. The project was created in 2020 by both creators, and it is governed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
Users of Decentraland can explore, engage and play games in this virtual environment while buying and selling digital real estate. Users may now use interactive apps, in-world payments and peer-to-peer communication, thanks to the platform's evolution.
Additionally, Decentraland is a fully immersive virtual realm, similar to Skyrim and Fallout. However, instead of playing on a two-dimensional screen, you'll be immersed in a three-dimensional environment. The virtual world promotes creative digital ownership concepts and includes online places such as museums where users can exhibit nonfungible pieces of digital art called NFTs.
Decentraland appears to be the next logical step before producing full-fledged artificial intelligence-based games in the real world.
Three native tokens of Decentraland
ESTATE, an ERC-721 token representing merging pieces of digital land; LAND, an ERC-721 nonfungible token representing parcels of digital land; and MANA, an ERC-20 token that is the official currency of Decentraland, are the platform's native tokens.
Let's go over the differences between ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens before looking at how Decentraland's tokens power its digital economy.
MANA and other ERC-20 tokens are known as fungible tokens because they may be swapped for other ERC-20 tokens. Similarly, each MANA token is identical and without any distinguishing characteristics. These characteristics contribute to MANA's suitability as a Decentraland in-world currency.
ERC-721 tokens like LAND and ESTATE, on the other hand, have properties that distinguish them from one another. As a result, they're referred to as NFTs because they're not interchangeable. This means they can't be used as currency, but they can be used to make one-of-a-kind in-world products like avatars, wearables and unique land parcels.
Three smart contracts define the attributes of MANA, LAND, and ESTATE: the MANAtoken, the LANDregistry and the EstateRegistry contracts. Individual parcels of LAND, which you can purchase with MANA in Decentraland's Marketplace, make up all virtual space in Decentraland.
You can also purchase wearables for your avatar at the Marketplace, such as clothing, shoes and accessories. The Ethereum blockchain records every transaction, effectively turning it into a registry for all of the digital property you gain in Decentraland.
You can construct digital environments and applications on LAND, such as games and themed communities, that can be monetized if you own virtual land. Estates can be formed by combining LAND parcels that are physically adjacent to one another. Rarible, a cryptocurrency company, has set up virtual offices and art galleries in Decentraland. In addition, several virtual conferences and virtual real estate investing have also taken place in Decentraland.
Technology architecture of Decentraland
Many layered components of Decentraland are constructed using Ethereum smart contracts.
The consensus layer keeps track of land parcel ownership through a ledger. Each LAND parcel contains a virtual world coordinate, an owner, and a link to a description file that describes the information within the parcel.
Finally, using user avatars and voice chat and messaging, the real-time layer supports social interactions within Decentraland.
How does Decentraland work?
Decentraland is a virtual environment like any other metaverse project. You can explore Decentraland's map and participate in one of the many community events taking place. Across the crypto sector, communities do everything from concerts to gambling nights to movie screenings where people gather in one spot and have a good time.
You can also participate in the in-game economy by purchasing digital art and/or exchanging it with other players on the platform. Players can engage with the platform and track LAND parcels, which are real estate parcels. These tokens can be bought and sold by users.
Unlike other virtual reality games, however, participants in Decentraland have some direct control over the rules of the platform. As a result, users can vote directly on the game and the organization's policy through the DAO.
Each small square on the Decentraland map represents a piece of LAND. A district is a cluster of LAND parcels. A district is a group of LANDs with common interests, styles or communities. There's Vegas City, District X (formerly known as the Redlight District), Fashion Street, Dragon City and much more. Decentraland has it all, whether you want to debate about startups, play casino games, watch Minecraft streaming, look at virtual real estate or even analyze the latest Southeby NFT drop.
How to buy Decentraland (MANA)?
MANA is available on many crypto trading platforms like Coinbase, Kraken. Steps to buying MANA on Coinbase are explained in the sections below:
Steps to buying MANA on Coinbase
Follow the below steps to buy MANA on Coinbase:
Create a Coinbase account: Start by downloading the Coinbase app and filling out the registration form. To transact, you'll need a valid ID and maybe proof of address, so make sure you have these on hand. Depending on where you reside, verifying your ID may take longer than a few minutes.
Add a payment method: Connect a payment method by tapping on the payment method box. For example, you can pay with a bank account, a debit card or a wire transfer.
Start trade by selecting Decentraland from the list of assets: Choose "Buy" from the drop-down menu. Type "Decentraland" into the search bar to find Decentraland. When Decentraland appears in the search results, tap it to get to the purchase page.
Enter the amount you want to buy: Input the amount you want to spend in your native currency using the number pad. This will be immediately converted to a Decentraland amount by the app.
Finalize your purchase: When you're ready, tap "Preview buy." The specifics of your purchase will be displayed. After you've double-checked that everything seems good, you can finalize your order. That's it; Decentraland is a part of your portfolio now.
How do I buy property in Decentraland?
The areas you interact within Decentraland are LAND, non-fungible digital assets that you purchase in the game. Once you possess a piece of LAND, you can do whatever you want with it. Games, applications, gambling services and even dynamic 3D scenes are possible.
But why should it end there? Although not its primary goal, LAND-based services can be built in the areas of education, professional development, tourism and so forth. So, if you want to know how you buy things in Decentraland, please follow the steps below:
Sign up
The first step is to go to Decentraland's Marketplace and sign in or create an account if you haven't previously. Once you've signed in, go to “Parcels and Estates,” then “View All.”
Select a parcel of LAND
The next step is to look through the available parcels of land and pick your favorite one. You may see the nearby places and the proximity to famous areas by purchasing land in Decentraland directly from the marketplace.
After you've chosen your virtual piece of property, click on it to learn more about it. The price of the land in MANA, its availability and the name of the owner may all be found here. To make a purchase, tap “Buy.”
Connect your wallet to the Decentraland Marketplace
To make the purchase, make sure your wallet is linked to your account, as the land will be transferred to your wallet as an NFT after the transaction is completed and successful.
You can download wallets like MetaMask and Trust Wallet if you don't have one already. Remember that you'll need enough MANA or ETH in your selected wallet to complete the transaction. Additionally, you'll need some extra tokens to cover the gas cost.
Confirm your virtual LAND
You may confirm your LAND on your wallet once the transaction is complete. If you're using a Trust Wallet, you can validate this in the MetaMask wallet's “Collectibles” and “NFTs” tabs. Each NFT on Decentraland is 16 meters by 16 meters and represents a piece of LAND. The amount of land plots on Decentraland is regulated at 90,000, which contributes to the feeling of scarcity.
But, how much does it cost to buy LAND in Decentraland? Currently, the most affordable LAND plots in Decentraland sell for roughly 4,000 MANA or 3.7 ETH. However, once a user buys LAND, they own it until someone else wants to buy it—the tokens, after all, are nonfungible.
On the other hand, MANA is fungible (as explained previously), which means that if a user has a large amount of it, they can sell it to anyone who needs it, even any new users who may have arrived to buy LAND.
The future
Decentraland is still in development. It has progressed through several stages, aptly titled “Stone Age” and “Bronze Age”, with more to come in its road map. In each of these stages, new features are added, such as the ability to create apps, chat applications and more.
The ultimate goal is for Decentraland to have its own economy, where people can rent land to others, put up advertising billboards for products and services and create gathering places inside the game for users to spend time in.
Decentraland's great promise is that blockchain can be fun and engaging, just like regular gaming, but also help people gain access to property ownership in ways only blockchain could enable.
Will it succeed? Time will tell.
