What is Decentraland (MANA)?

Decentraland is a platform of virtual reality or virtual world operated by the Ethereum blockchain. Users investigate the metaverse of the project and fill it with content. In Decentraland, users create different interactive objects and artifacts. Items and land are non-fungible tokens in this virtual world. They are traded on the internal marketplace.

The platform uses MANA and LAND coins. Non-fungible LAND tokens are plots of land, and MANA is used for settlement and management. The Decentraland Metaverse is run by a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO).

What are LAND and MANA?

As already mentioned, MANA is an internal digital coin on the Decentraland platform. However, this cryptocurrency does not just work as a digital currency. MANA also grants each of its owners the right to vote in the DAO of the Decentraland platform.

To participate in the governance of the DAO, users convert their MANA tokens into packaged MANA tokens (wMANA) and commit them to the DAO. Each wMANA token represents one vote in governance proposals. You can purchase MANA on the exchanges or re-sell collectibles on the Decentraland Marketplace. The DAO also has its own MANA treasury for funding its own decisions and operations.

LAND is a non-fungible token representing pieces of land owned by community players. Like MANA, it is part of the Decentraland governance protocol and provides voting rights.

However, LAND does not need to be fixed in the DAO. In addition, each LAND token provides two thousand votes. Players holding multiple parcels of land can link them together into a single Estate token with voting rights equal to the value of the parcels linked to it.

History of Decentraland (MANA)

Decentraland was launched after the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) which was held in 2017. The team project could attract investments of $24 million. The virtual world was released as a closed beta in 2019 and released to the public eye in February 2020, including LAND sections, interactive games, extensive 3D scenes, and many other interactive features.

The platform has its own coins – MANA and LAND. LAND are non-fungible tokens that represent land. These tokens can be purchased or sold on the Decentraland Marketplace trading platform. In turn, MANA is used to pay for internal platform services such as avatars, wearables, names, etc.

Who are the founders of Decentraland?

Decentraland was founded by Ari Meilich and Esteban Ordano who have retired from their core positions in the project but still operate together with Decentraland as advisors.

Ari Meilich previously served as Project Manager at Decentraland between 2017 and 2020 and is an entrepreneur who has launched several other projects such as an online translation agency and a CRM platform. He also operated as an analyst at Charles River Ventures, a renowned venture capital firm in Silicon Valley.

On the other side, Esteban Ordano is the former CTO of Decentraland, a software engineer at BitPay, Inc., who had worked in the cryptocurrency area for a long time. Besides, he was an advisor to the Matic Network (MATIC), and for a while managed his own smart contract development company, Smart Contract Solutions.

Esteban is credited as the co-founder of Zeppelin Solutions, a blockchain technology infrastructure company.

What does Decentraland make unique?

Decentraland is designed for individuals, content creators, and businesses, searching for a new artistic environment, business opportunity, or source of entertainment.

In total, the Decentraland game world, referred to as the “Metaverse”, is divided into 90,601 separate parcels of land (LAND), each of which is represented by a non-fungible ERC-721 token. Each LAND is 16m x 16m (100 square meters) in size and can be found by the determination of coordinates in the Metaverse.

While LAND owners are free to develop their parcels of land how they want, most of the Metaverse as a whole is divided into several districts, each of different sizes and themes. These districts were created through individual MANA tokens crowdsales, and LAND parcels in these districts can’t be sold.

As of January 2021, cyberpunk-themed Aetheria is the largest area with a total of 8008 LANDs.

Decentraland is also one of a growing number of projects using the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) structure to make management decisions. As a result, MANA token holders control the behavior of the Decentraland world by suggesting and voting on policy updates, the peculiarities of upcoming LAND auctions, and the content types allowed in the Metaverse. In addition to being creative, many Decentraland users are currently monetizing their LAND through rentals, advertising, and paid services. Similarly, other users earn money by making and selling items for MANA tokens on the Decentraland marketplace.

How many Decentraland (MANA) tokens are in circulation?

As of August 2022, there are 1,852,422,297 MANA tokens in circulation.

The initial total offer was identified at 2.8 billion MANA, but this has since declined as more than 600 million MANA tokens burned as a consequence of LAND auctions.

There are also a number of additional burn mechanisms for further reductions in the circulating MANA supply, including burning 2.5% of MANA in transactions on the Decentraland marketplace.

Initially, MANA was designed for 8 percent inflation in the first year, which contributed to reducing inflation. But inflation is currently disabled. According to Decentraland’s glossary, there are no plans to initiate this inflation “before it is necessary.”

A total of 40% of the MANA was sold during the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in 2017. Additionally, 20% was got for community incentives, 20% went to the development team and other early contributors, and the remaining 20% ​​is owned by Decentraland. Lead Project Tokens are no longer transferable.

Decentraland Network Security

Developers of Decentraland use code TypeScript to create scenes in a registry called metaverse2. The protocol secures the system that hosts the VR ecosystem and is being built to support a growing number of participants. Additional security is provided through the support of Ethereum.

User ownership of LAND is secured at the first level of the system as the system monitors and records purchases of LAND and ownership of virtual reality plots on the Decentraland platform.

Users and community members can test the network for bugs and critical risks as well as report any suspicious failures to the team in exchange for a reward.

Where to buy Decentraland (MANA)?

The MANA token currently has excellent liquidity and can be bought or traded on approximately 100 different exchange platforms. As of January 2022, Binance, OKX, and Coinbase Pro are considered the most liquid exchanges for MANA coins. At the same time, MANA can be traded with Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT), and Ethereum (ETH) as well as can be purchased with various fiat currencies, including KRW and USD.

Conclusion

Decentraland is the first Ethereum-based decentralized virtual reality platform that allows users to buy and own virtual property. The ecosystem of Decentraland can be a multipurpose metaverse soon where companies can advertise and monetize digital content. Decentraland’s work also follows the growing popularity of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), which can add value to MANA with Decentraland’s growing popularity and growing community membership.