01.08.2022
Have you ever had to play Second Life, as well as trade crypto? If yes, then the Decentraland platform, in our opinion, should interest you. This project, from its release in 2016 to today, has grown from a conventional experiment in 2D format to a huge 3D world.
Decentraland is a virtual world based on the blockchain. Users create and own land plots, works of art, characters and buildings. Decentraland members can also participate in the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). Decentraland, being a DAO, provides its community with the opportunity to participate in project management.
History of Decentraland (MANA). Who are the founders of Decentraland?
Decentraland was founded in 2016 by Ariel Meilich and Esteban Ordano. At the moment, both co-founders have resigned from their main positions in the company and continue their work with the platform as key advisors.
Ariel Meilich at Decentraland held the position of project manager from 2017 to 2020. Ariel is a great entrepreneur who has managed to found more than one startup, for example, an online translation agency or a large CRM. In addition, Meilich worked as an analyst at a very well-known Silicon Valley venture fund — Charles River Ventures.
As for Esteban Ordano, he was the CTO at Decentraland.In the past of his career, many projects related to cryptocurrencies, for example, work as a programmer at BitPay Inc., an adviser at the Matic Network (MATIC), as well as the head of his personal Smart Contract Solutions firm dealing with smart contracts.
Returning to the history of Decentraland's creation, an ICO was held in August 2017, as a result of which they were able to attract 24 million US dollars. In December 2017, the first «LAND» auction was held, at which developers chose the top places for virtual property.
March 2018 — The Decentraland land market opens. A few months later, in June of the same year, LAND sales increased by 2 times.
April 2019 — avatars with passports were presented to the public, a closed beta version of the project is being launched soon. February 2020 — entry into the world of the Decentraland virtual world for the general public. Everything was included here: LAND plots, interactive games, three-dimensional scenes and other interactive features.
How does Decentraland work?
It has already been said above that Decentraland is an online platform that has managed to combine virtual reality and blockchain technology. Its distinguishing feature from many online games is that the participants have control over the rules of the online world themselves, that is, in Decentraland you can take part in voting for organizational and internal rules of the game.
Decentraland is designed for both companies and individuals, gamers, content developers and people who are looking for new business opportunities.
Explore lands, scenes, buildings, play interesting games, etc. — all this is possible in the virtual world of Decentraland.
Digital Land LAND
The game world of Decentraland is divided into approximately 97,619 LANDs, each of which is represented by separate NFTs (a non-fungible token, that is, a unit of data on the blockchain that represents a unique digital object, in this case virtual real estate).
LAND plots have dimensions of 16 by 16 meters (33 by 33 virtual feet). But in height there are no restrictions here. Similar areas are combined into districts. A neighborhood is a defined community that has the same views. For example, the platform has separate areas for crypto owners or fans of a certain genre of music, etc. If you want to solve some internal issue in your area, you can take part in making the decision. To do this, you can use an application created specifically for such voting, called Agora.
The more LAND you own, the more significant your vote is. Once you get a LAND, you can do whatever you want with it. Here you can create your games, applications, any services for gambling or 3D scenes. In addition, you can take a step more globally and develop educational, travel services or any other resources for professional development, for example.
LAND can be purchased with MANA, Decentraland's official cryptocurrency. MANA can be bought and exchanged on the most famous cryptocurrency exchanges and exchangers. As of July 5, 2022, one MANA costs $0.85.
To date, on average, one LAND lot in Decentraland has sold for approximately 6,500 MANA, which equates to approximately $5,525.
The LAND plots themselves can be purchased on the in-game market and on third-party resources such as OpenSea.
The total number of parcels in Decentraland is limited to 97,619.
What is LAND and MANA?
As already mentioned, 2 tokens — LAND and MANA — are very important components in the work of Decentraland.MANA is a token created to perform management roles within the platform, as well as to buy/sell land on the same platform. MANA holders can take part in protocol control and buy LAND digital lands.This token was created according to the ERC-20 Ethereum standard, so it can be very easily implemented into decentralized platforms, DEXs and other Ethereum applications.
In Decentraland, it was decided that the number of MANA tokens will be limited to 2,193,629,627 tokens.Limited emission allows the token not to lose value and be a very valuable asset.
LAND is the second token of the platform, which was created according to the ERC-721 standard.Each of the tokens is a certain identifier of a particular piece of land that is owned by the Decentraland user.As a result, we can say that each of these pieces is endowed with its own characteristics, and LAND tokens transmit these properties.To purchase these tokens, you must first exchange the MANA token for LAND.Thus, MANA tokens are burned, and this reduces the number and increases their value.
Since LAND is directly dependent on MANA, the number of such tokens is similarly limited. In addition, the creation of these tokens takes place with the participation of smart contracts applicable in the internal exchange of MANA for LAND.
How many Decentraland (MANA) coins are in circulation? MANA course
As of July 2022, there are 1,849,216,541 MANA in circulation, with a total supply of 2,193,629,627 MANA tokens.
Initially, this number was supposed to be 2,800,000,000 tokens, but soon the volume decreased, as about 600,000,000 MANA were burned due to LAND auctions.
There are also various mechanisms for further burning and reducing the supply of MANA in order to further increase the price. Trading on the Decentraland marketplace, about 2.5% of MANA can be burned.
Speaking about the distribution of the total number of MANA tokens, we can say the following:
- 40% — were sold at the initial placement in 2017;
- 20% — a certain reserve amount of tokens that allows to encourage the community;
- 20% — transferred to the project developers;
- 20% is in use by the Decentraland platform itself.
As of today (July 5, 2022), the MANA rate is $0.8589, and the daily trading volume is $227,297,478.
Pros and cons of Decentraland
After analyzing the above information, you can determine its key positive and negative sides, in fact, which each cryptocurrency has.
Positive characteristics of Decentraland:
- platform developers for the first time managed to apply the blockchain for the virtual world;
- the virtual reality market is gaining great popularity, which will soon become one of the significant areas for entertainment;
- users can earn money by playing;
- instant payments around the world;
- buying/selling is controlled by smart contracts.
Negative characteristics:
- there are no analogues among projects, so developers can make more mistakes;
- the absence of a financial strategy as such, that is, there is no clear understanding of how you can spend or earn money in the virtual world.
Examples of using Decentraland
The Dacentraland White Paper describes 5 options for using the platform:
- Applications. Anyone can develop their own applications and 3D scenes using the Decentraland programming language.
- Content. The platform has areas that attract like-minded users, allowing the community to grow naturally.
- Advertising. Given the great popularity of the site, many advertisers began to buy space for advertising boards in this virtual world.
- NFT collections. Users can create and sell their NFT collections on the Decentraland Marketplace.
- Social aspect. Decentraland is a new place and alternative to social networks for communication with friends and like-minded people.
Where to buy and how to store MANA and LAND tokens?
You can buy MANA on the most famous crypto exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, Exmo, Yobit, OKEx, etc. You can also exchange fiat money and other crypto coins on online exchangers, for example, Buycoin.online.
To fully interact with the site, you will need to have a crypto wallet. Due to the fact that the MANA token was developed according to the Ethereum ERC-20 standard, many wallets are available for storing crypto, for example, Trezor, Ledger Nano S or MyEtherWallet. The developers of the Decentraland platform themselves recommend using the MetaMask wallet integrated into the browser for storage.
Decentraland Development Forecast
Today, the MANA cryptocurrency is at the peak of popularity, since the GameFi sphere (these are blockchain projects that allow you to monetize the gaming process) is widespread. Therefore, in the next few years, MANA can become a good part of your crypto portfolio.
Analysts from Gov Capital predict that by the end of 2022, the coin will be trading at the rate of $ 6.0, and the movement will not be sharp, but smoother.
As for other experts in the cryptosphere, they are less optimistic and by the end of 2022 they predict the exchange rate at around 1.1 US dollars. In 2023, the price for MANA should rise to the level of $1.68 per coin and by 2025 there will be an increase to the level of $3.55.
We will be able to observe the truthfulness of these forecasts in the near future, so it's worth continuing to monitor the development of the Decentraland platform and remember all the possible risks that exist on the cryptocurrency market.
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