You might have seen virtual worlds in games like Minecraft. But, enter Decentraland and you’re up for a whole new experience with a decentralized community, real-life events, and marketplaces!
Decentraland is a 3D virtual world built on the Ethereum blockchain. You can own real estate just like you do in the real world and build on it. MANA is the digital currency of this decentralized virtual world.
You can buy land in Decentraland in small blocks called parcels. A collection of parcels is called LAND on Decentraland. LAND is an NFT built on Ethereum, meaning each LAND is unique. When you buy your land, whether it’s your dream mansion near the beach or a cabin in the woods, you’ll get your proof of ownership in the form of a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain. You can own your LAND NFTs the same way you own land in the real world.
You can build an art gallery of your own, a concert hall or even a farmhouse on your property. The buildings, parks, or anything you create on your parcels is called a “Scene”. The best part? You don’t need any coding skills for this. The Builder tool lets you drag and drop to create scenes in your parcel. If you like to write code to create custom scenes, Decentraland offers Software Development Kits (SDKs) too.
You can understand the philosophical motivation behind this virtual world from the Decentraland whitepaper.
The most attractive location in Decentraland is Genesis Plaza, situated at the center of this virtual world. At Genesis plaza, you’ll find other humans hanging out at the underground bar, checking billboards for upcoming events, or just having fun sliding from the lobby to the main lounge. You can teleport to the event location just by clicking on the location next to the event on the billboard. You can meet someone and together visit an NFT exhibition, play digital blackjack at a casino operated by real people, or even join a Live DJ! From weekly club nights to concerts, there’s a long list of events for you to choose from. You can always check here to see if your favourite band is playing at an upcoming event.
If you like to host parties at your own place, you can do so on your parcels. You can buy parcels using your MANA tokens and invite your friends to your place. You can even create an Estate by joining the parcels. You can also name your estate with a unique name from marketplaces.
Marketplaces here sell digital assets such as wearables, names, accessories, and other NFTs. You might have seen a human with a cat-head passing by at Genesis plaza. You can also customize your avatar with wearables like head-types, hair, clothes, and more. All marketplaces here accept MANA tokens. Since these items are NFTs, once you buy them, you have complete ownership over them.
When it comes to governance, a DAO or Decentralized Autonomous Organization is deployed to make the system decentralized. The DAO decides the dos and don’ts in this world through voting using MANA tokens. For example, what kind of wearables they can buy, what land they can auction and how, what content they can share, and more. You can also be a part of this decentralized community by holding your MANA tokens. Community members—those who own LAND or MANA tokens—can submit and vote on proposals on the governance page.
Once you enter Decentraland, you’ll soon realize it is a virtual country where you and I can just go out, explore, and maybe have a virtual drink in the Genesis plaza bar. But, I hope you bring your own MANA tokens to pay for the drink. When it comes to the token, it has a maximum supply of 2.19 billion and 1.3 billion in circulation. You can now get your own MANA tokens on ZebPay!
