Decentraland is a virtual reality platform launched on the Ethereum network to support metaverse and give complete control to users to own land for creating, building and monetising 3D structures like land plots, artwork, galleries, casinos, games, and much more.

Contents

Introduction

Decentraland was initially released on February 20 2020, by Ariel Meilich and Esteban Ordino, but the team has been working on it since 2015. At that time, people were not aware of decentralisation and crypto-assets; however, the launch of metaverse and DAO (decentralised autonomous organisations) has increased the demand for community-oriented platforms such as Decentraland.

The popularity of Decentraland can be shown from the stats: its Market cap ranged between 800 million and 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in September 2021 alone, published by Statista on January 10 2022.

Decentraland is unique and different from other proprietary social networks. Unlike Facebook, it isn’t controlled by a central authority; no single agent or entity can alter the rules of the program, land contents, or currency and block others from accessing the network. In traditional social platforms, users create, build and monetize their applications, but website owners reserve a maximum portion of revenue for themselves, whereas Decentraland provides full control to users, allowing them to capture and keep the complete value of their contributions.

Let’s discuss how Decentraland supports public-based infrastructure in detail:

Working of Decentraland

The working of Decentraland can be explained through its architecture, which is composed of three layers:

Consensus Layer: To keep an eye on land ownership and its affiliated content.

Land Content Layer: To download assets and items using a decentralised distribution system.

Real-time Layer: To provide a peer-to-peer communication system that enables users to interact with each other.

Let’s discuss each of these layers in detail:

Consensus Layer

The consensus layer is the bottom or first layer of the Decentraland protocol responsible for publishing land ownership and its content. The hash of the file’s content is used to reference the land content. Landowners use this reference file to download the content from BitTorrent or Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS).

This downloaded file contains two things:

1. Representation of assets, objects, postures, textures, tones and other related features required to generate the scene.
2. URL of a rendezvous server to coordinate links among P2P users that are examining the tile simultaneously.

Land Content Layer

Decentraland uses a distributed storage system to allocate the content required to generate the virtual world. For any parcel of land that is required to be generated, a file’s reference along with the parcel’s content description is redeemed from a smart contract. The existing storage system of Decentraland employs battle-tested BitTorrent and Kademlia DHT network. But Decentraland is planning to embed Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS) in future due to its promising benefits.

The presence of a land content distribution layer pays Decentraland’s users to interact with each other without any central entity. It’ll enable the virtual world to live as long as it has consumers delivering valuable content. The distributed storage system is vital for users as they receive rewards to run the system. Another benefit of using a distribution system is that it creates a strong censorship-resistance network to remove the regime of central sovereignty.

The description of the parcel contains the following three things:

Content Files

All the necessities required to render the parcel like references to, or blobs with, scripts, 3D meshes, surfaces, and multimedia objects are defined in content files. This helps the client to know what type of contents will be rendered in the parcel without any directives on how to position them.

Scripting Entry Point

The scripting entry point depicts how the content and its behaviour are arranged in the parcel. This allows applications and animations to reside inside the parcel. It also indicates behaviours like movement and arrangement of objects, the synchronisation and frequency of sounds played, the achievable interactions with consumers along with other features.

P2P Interactions

P2P interactions help the client to link to a server that enhances user-to-user relations, correlates positions, poses, permits voice chat and messaging.

Real-time Layer

The top or third layer of Decentraland architecture is a real-time layer. The servers arranged by landowners establish peer-to-peer communication that will permit the clients to connect. The peer-to-peer connections are an essential part of the Decentraland network since it helps the landowners to deploy or run their applications in the parcel smoothly and to establish a medium of social interactions between users.

What are the Use Cases of Decentraland?

Landowners, clients and users perform an unlimited number of tasks on the Decentraland platform:

Applications

One of the foremost important use cases of Decentraland is the deployment of applications, 3D games, casinos, art galleries, gambling and much more. A scripting language allows users to configure these applications and handle unlimited capabilities, such as the creation of objects, operating physics, managing scripts, textures, voices, transactions and outgoing calls.

Advertising

Clients or users who are the owners of brands can also promote their products and services near or close to high-traffic land parcels. Besides, brand owners may place assets and build shared experiences to capture the interest of their audience.

Content Categorization

Users of shared interest will position themselves around the neighbourhood to generate high-traffic hubs. This will enable the landowner's content to target a large audience.

Digital Collectibles

The network of Decentraland enables users to spread, accumulate and publish periodic digital assets represented on the blockchain by their creators. A scripting system of the network will be used to trade and subsidise these digital assets inside the virtual world.

Social

Decentraland platform makes it easy for message boards, chit chat groups, and centralised multiplayer games to import their assemblies into the virtual world.

Additionally, a virtual world of Decentraland could be used for training, proficient growth, teaching, therapy, digital tourism, 3D techniques and much more.

Importance of Decentraland (MANA)

No control of centralised organisations

We all know how prior large proprietary enterprises work. Let’s consider an example of Facebook, which allows millions of users to come to one place for interacting or sharing content and playing games. The interaction of such networks cultivates online communities and gaming platforms. But the major issue of these social media platforms is that they are all controlled by centralised organisations and governed by network rules. These platforms take a major portion of revenue from users and content creators who drive traffic to the network.

Decentraland develops a platform that helps its content creators to own and capture the complete value of their contributions to the platform.

Consumer-oriented platform

When Decentraland began working in 2015, the adoption of crypto assets was in its infancy stage, and people were not aware of the usage of the consumer-oriented platform. But since then, the demand for consumer-oriented platforms has increased. The massive adoption has also pushed a pool of users to drive the decentralised commerce that will be essential for virtual spaces like Decentraland.

Requirement for low-cost payment

Instant and global payment with low fees is a strong need in the cryptocurrency world. Payment transactions will require taking place off-chain to acquire short-to-medium-term scalability in the blockchain payment network.

Decentraland aims to build on a platform that performs low cost, fast payment transactions between developers, content creators and users to shift internet commerce as compared to centralised payment solutions that operate with other systems compromising privacy and standards of the network.

Tokens of Decentraland

Decentraland furnishes the digital economy and bootstraps the network utility through its two native tokens: MANA and LAND token.

What is MANA Token?

MANA is an ERC-20 cryptocurrency fungible token, meaning that they’re interchangeable with other crypto tokens. Due to its fungible nature, all the MANA tokens are identical to each other and don’t possess unique characteristics.

Users of Decentraland used to burn MANA tokens to claim LAND, buy plots of digital land and purchase goods and services.

What is the cost of a MANA Token?

As of this piece of writing, the cost of the MANA token is $2.51.

What is the total supply of MANA Token?

The total supply of MANA tokens is 2,193,706,527.

What is the circulating supply of MANA Token?

As of April 2022, the amount of MANA coins that are circulating in the market is 1.84B.

Where can I buy MANA Tokens?

MANA tokens are available on top crypto exchanges like Binance, CoinTiger, Huobi Global, Kraken exchange, Tokocrypto and OKEx.

What do I need to buy MANA Tokens?

You can buy MANA tokens by paying Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH).

What is LAND Token?

LAND is an ERC-721 cryptocurrency non-fungible token. Each LAND token has unique characteristics and is not interchangeable with other LAND tokens. Therefore, unlike MANA tokens, LAND tokens can’t circulate as currencies. However, they’re vital for creating amazing assets such as avatars, wearables, games, 3D scenes, casinos, unusual land parcels and more.

What is the utility of the LAND Token?

The utility of any LAND parcel is dependent on its adjacent nodes, hubs and the amount of traffic available on it. The identity mechanism of LAND parcels, along with its ability to run applications, describes the importance of LAND and makes it unique from adjacent parcels.

Developers and content creators used to buy LAND tokens to build and run their applications on top of it. Once you have a piece of LAND, you can build almost anything on it, whether it’s an art gallery, NFT collection, display of avatars, wearables, or collectibles. Like real-world, Decentraland also has theme parks that will entertain players and visitors to explore the virtual world just by walking, riding a bicycle or bus.

Where can I buy LAND Tokens?

You can buy LAND tokens by visiting top NFT marketplaces. The same exchange rate (1000 MANA = 1 LAND) is used to buy every unclaimed LAND, but since every land parcel is different due to adjacent nodes and traffic, their trading prices are potentially varied on a secondary market.

How does Decentraland foster its network?

Developers and content creators receive rewards to build and create applications in Decentraland. Multiple contests with prizes will be arranged to organise galleries, art, matches and applications. Allowances will be given to users who take part to foster the economy. This will help Decentraland to foster its network and attract the users until it exclusively excites them to join the future of Metaverse.

Advantages of Decentraland

1. Provides an opportunity to buy in-world land.
2. The presence of high-traffic hubs & neighbouring nodes drives the price of MANA tokens.
3. Developers and content creators build, create or sell applications, 3D gaming scenes, art galleries, and casinos.
4. By acquiring a low-trust hub-and-spoke payment channel, Decentraland will offer fast and low-cost transactions.
5. The presence of a decentralised identity system enables an ownership layer over in-world items. With this system, users can verify the permission of an author by relating general keys and signatures with human-readable names.
6. Crypto traders and experts consider the MANA token as a great asset to grow passive income.
7. Decentraland’s MANA token is held by well-established enterprises. Such financial investments will boost the price of tokens.
8. Decentraland’s community governance is controlled by the SAB (Security Advisory Board).
9. The several use cases of Decentraland attract a global audience.
10. The project has an extraordinary team to ensure that new features are constantly being added to the network.

Disadvantages of Decentraland

1. The Decentraland platform is still in its infancy stage.
2. The majority of people don’t know the importance of digital assets, cryptocurrency and the NFT marketplace.
3. There exists a lack of vertical and horizontal dimensions of the land surface in Decentraland.
4. Users do not stumble onto adjacent nodes, and when they do, no social interaction occurs.
5. Decentraland is not alone in the space of the NFT marketplace. Axie Infinity (AXS), Algorand (ALGO), Bakery Token (BAKE), and The Sandbox (SAND) give strong competition to Decentraland (MANA).

How to start Decentraland?

If you’re familiar with the basics of Decentraland, the first thing you’ll need to begin your virtual journey is to explore it.

If you’re ready to break into the fastest-growing virtual world, follow these parts:

Part 1: Connect your digital wallet

Step 1: Go to the official website of Decentraland.

Step 2: Head over to the ‘‘START EXPLORING’’ option.

Step 3: If you want to play Decentraland on Windows, select the first option ‘‘Download for Windows’’. Choose ‘‘Explore on Web’’ if you want to play on the browser. Decentraland is not available on mobile devices; therefore, you can’t play this application on your smartphone.

Step 4: After selecting play on the web, a new window will appear in front of your screen. To access all features of Decentraland, connect your digital wallet (MetaMask, Fortmatic, WalletConnect). You can also play as a guest, but this will give you limited features.

Step 5: Once you’ve connected your digital wallet, you’ll enter into a virtual world.

Part 2: Choose your Avatar

Step 1: Choose your Avatar by selecting the appropriate body, head, top, bottom, shoes, accessories, skins and collectibles.

Step 2: Click on the “Done” option after completing all the features of your avatar.

Step 3: Enter the name of your avatar and go to the next option.

Step 4: Click on the “I Agree” option.

Step 5: Genesis Plaza will appear in front of your screen. Explore it!

Part 3: How to explore the Decentraland?

Step 1: Click anywhere on the screen to control and monitor your avatar’s movement.

Step 2: Press C to understand all the keyboard shortcut keys.

Step 3: Walk around the streets to experience a virtual world.

Part 4: How to switch between virtual places of Decentraland

Step 1: In order to explore more places in Decentraland, move your cursor to the avatar’s icon.

Step 2: Go to the “Places” tab, select your preferred place and click on the “JUMP IN” option as shown below.

Step 3: In a similar fashion, you can explore more virtual places, games and other locations.

Step 4: If you want to know the name of a realm or server, go to the Decentraland icon at the top-left corner. This action will open the list of realms, including yours. You can also change your realm and determine how many players exist in a specific realm as represented below.

Part 5: How to buy wearables in Decentraland?

Step 1: If you want to buy collectibles, go to the official Decentraland website and select the “MARKETPLACE” tab. Head over to the “START BROWSING” option as shown below.

Step 2: A list of common and rare collectibles will appear.

Step 3: Select an item to determine its features and price. Click on the “BUY” option.

Step 4: Complete your login details and purchase your desired wearables.

Part 6: How to build anything in Decentraland?

Step 1: If you’re a developer, content creator or any person who wishes to build projects, lands, or scenes, go to the “BUILDER” tab and move your cursor to the new project option.

Step 2: Enter the name of your project and description.

Step 3: Select the size of the project and press the create button.

Step 4: A new window will open where you can find different categories, crypto assets and much more.

Step 5: Use the drag and drop feature to put elements into the main screen. After completing your project, press the “PUBLISH” button to distribute it.

Final thoughts

Decentraland is a decentralised distribution system for a connected virtual world that allows developers and content creators to build, create or monetise applications. Land in Decentraland is entirely owned by landowners, providing them full control over their creations and assets. The availability of gaming applications, art galleries, and casinos across different streets of the virtual world attracts a global audience that causes revenue to content creators. The two native tokens of Decentraland: LAND and MANA tokens, incentivise the utility of the first decentralised platform. Explore lands in Decentraland to experience incredible scenes, attend events, view top NFT collections and much more.