Decentraland is one of the most recognized NFT platforms, not only for its resemblance to Second Life or Habbo in terms of the social interaction you can have within its virtual world, but also for its profitability.
As of January 2021, they have two million users from different countries and more than 183 million transactions in their marketplace.
Likewise, it is based on an interesting premise: you can earn money while you explore, create and experiment in other areas of the game.
Want to know how Decentraland manages to be so special in the eyes of many users? Get ready!
Let’s take a small but complete tour of Decentraland, the virtual land that promises thousands of dollars for gamer communities.
What is Decentraland?
Decentraland is a virtual reality platform based on the Ethereum blockchain.
In it, its users can buy and sell digital real estate, while playing and exploring all the metaverse that Decentraland has to offer.
It was launched in 2017 by the Decentraland Foundation, an organization founded by Argentines Esteban Ordano and Ari Meillich, after managing to raise more than 80 thousand ether ($26 million by then).
As its name suggests, it is a decentralized land. Therefore, its platform was launched as a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) to make it easier for its users to manage projects and other aspects of Decentraland.
Indeed, it functions as a software whose objective is to promote the existence of a network of users who share different experiences within a virtual world.
For this purpose, Decentraland’s virtual universe is divided into 90,601 individual LAND parcels, which can be purchased via MANA.
Here we start with slightly different terms, so let’s go step by step.
What is LAND and MANA?
There are two types of tokens that govern Decentraland’s operations and, therefore, two ways to earn money:
LAND
It is a non-fungible token (NFT) of type ERC-721 that represents the “parcels” or land within Decentraland.
It’s like if in Minecraft, instead of searching for hours for a good area where to build your hut, immediately before you buy a portion of cubes in which you will live, like real real real estate.
If you are worried about getting lost when buying your space, you can rest assured that Decentraland can track the specific coordinate through a smart contract. Subsequently, you can develop whatever you want on it.
Each of these “LANDS” measure approximately 10 square meters, which you can see for sale on the Decentraland marketplace or on other platforms such as OpenSea.
For example, you can buy more LAND and make your own districts, create games, applications, services or events with the Decentraland SDK, as well as lease or resell them to other users. Honestly, it’s a world of possibilities where anything goes.
As of January 2021, one of Descentraland’s districts, called Aetheria has become the largest and most eye-catching for its cyberpunk theme and its possession of 8 thousand lands.
However, in order to purchase these LAND tokens or other in-game items, you will need MANA.
MANA
MANA is Decentraland’s native ERC-20 token that enables purchases of LAND and other goods and services that are offered by players within Decentraland.
However, also MANA tokens have an essential role, since, by means of a smart contract, Decentraland allows its holders to vote on Decentraland governance aspects such as:
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- Grants for new metaverse projects.
- Game policy updates where rule changes are necessary.
- Increase and replacement of content servers.
- Size of market rates.
- Primary sales rates.
- Replacement of security council members.
How does Decentraland work?
In order to function, it uses different layers using the smart contracts of Ethereum’s blockchain technology. These layers are used to extend the capabilities of the software and thus control what happens.
Layer 1: Consensus
Remember I mentioned that there is no way for you to lose your LAND?
It is because of this layer, whose purpose is to track the properties, their owner and has a file with a description of the contents within that parcel.
Basically, it’s like a real estate company doing a check of your apartments, but automated.
Layer 2: Content
In this layer, the contents of the plot are specified in more detail, since it includes all the audiovisual elements of the plot.
It also allows interactions between other players to be displayed, such as gestures, voice chat or messaging to react to plot material.
Layer 3: Real time
Hand in hand with all the layers, this is where social interactions are managed, such as user avatars, the quality of voice chat and the way messages are sent during the game.
So much for our journey.
If you are interested in reading more articles associated with the news of the crypto universe, blockchain gaming and the world of NFT, you can click on the topics below.
We also have our own website where you can buy Ethereum and get started in Decentraland easily, quickly and securely.
See you next time!
