Decentraland is a decentralised 3D virtual reality platform that consists of 90,601 parcels of land.
Virtual estate in Decentraland are NFTs that can be bought using the cryptocurrency MANA.
According to the official docs, Decentraland is a decentralised virtual reality platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain.
Within the Decentraland platform, users can create, experience, and monetise their content and applications".
Just at this time when the world is moving toward digitisation, Decentraland has exhibited success in the monetisation of its virtual world for the benefit of its users.
The complete ownership and custody of a user’s content and creations, replete with the opportunity to fully reap the benefits therefrom is a testament to the effects of decentralisation evident in the Decentraland metaverse.
This is what makes Decentraland unique when compared to other projects in this space.
The concept of decentralisation is of great importance when it comes to Decentraland (MANA).
The mainstream currently meets, interacts, converses, conduct business, shares content, and plays games on the major for-profit platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
The Decentraland founders however, believed that a platform modelled in a decentralised format would yield significant user benefits over the widely utilised centralised service providers.
The two key benefits emphasised by Decentraland include:
Argentinians Ari Meilich and Esteban Ordano initially launched Decentraland as a 2D grid which by using a proof of work algorithm allocated pixels to its users.
The Beta version launched in 2017 with land developers selling the virtual parcels for as low as $20.
Over time, Decentraland has evolved into the 3D metaverse we are presently becoming accustomed to.
Nonetheless, with the advent of NFTs and their ever-growing popularity through 2020 and 2021, desirable virtual land parcels are now selling for between $6,000 and $100,000.
Earlier in 2021, Sotheby's (a London based high-end auction house) created a digital replica of its London HQ in Decentraland as a virtual gallery displaying digital art.
And in June 2021, Republic Realm (a New York based investment firm offering digital real estate opportunities) paid $913,228 for 259 parcels of Decentraland, for the creation of a virtual shopping district.
Decentraland is so much more than a typical video game.
At this time there are five identified use cases for Decentraland contained in its whitepaper:
1 Applications: Using Decentraland's free scripting tools, users can easily create applications and three-dimensional scenes permitting rich interactions for visitors.
2 Content Curation: Neighborhoods have sprung up in Decentraland which attract like-minded users and organic growth of communities.
3 Advertising: Increased user traffic in various communities has encouraged advertisers to purchase Land and set up billboards to promote their product/service.
4 Digital Collectibles: As users are given full ownership of their creations, the NFTs representing these digital collectibles are collected and traded within the Marketplace.
5 Social: Decentraland provides a vehicle for users to enjoy a more interactive style of socialising with friends, business associates, and any other community members.
However, the Decentraland whitepaper places no limitation on use, setting forth:
"There are no technical specifications to what could be built in Decentraland. Therefore, other use cases could emerge, such as training and professional development, education, therapy, 3D design, and virtual tourism, among others.”
The purpose of Decentraland is to create a virtual world where its users may act in the same way they do in the real world.
This encompasses the user’s ability to socialise, explore, do business, make money, and make purchases or trades.
All within the Decentraland metaverse, or virtual world.
This appears to be a daunting task to accomplish so, in this section of our Decentraland (MANA) guide, we discover just how Decentraland works.
For proper functioning, Decentraland's structure is divided into three layers:
Each Decentraland token plays an integral role in the operation of Decentraland.
The Mana token serves two important roles in the Decentraland ecosystem:
MANA is an ERC-20 standard token on the Ethereum blockchain.
By design, the MANA tokens are limited in number to 2,194,460,527 tokens which operate to make the token more valuable as the use of Decentraland increases.
LAND is an ERC-721 standard token on the Ethereum blockchain.
Each individual LAND token uniquely represents one parcel of Land with all its unique characteristics owned by the user/holder.
When a user acquires the LAND token, the user exchanges MANA tokens for the LAND token which MANA tokens are burned increasing scarcity and value.
As with MANA, the LAND tokens are limited in number as there exist only 90,601 parcels of land in the ecosystem.
When two adjacent land parcels are owned by the same user, the user becomes the owner of an ESTATE token, the importance of which is both the LAND and ESTATE tokens confer participation in the ecosystem's governance.
So as to facilitate publication and offers for buying/selling on the Decentraland Marketplace, categorisation of collectibles is essential
Each of the collectibles within the Decentraland ecosystem are classified as follows:
Without this, the Decentraland Marketplace would have no structure, function, or price equity.
As such, this categorisation plays an integral role in the efficacy and efficiency of the ecosystem.
Ecosystem governance is essential to the continued operation of Decentraland.
Decentraland is governed by a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO), which means the users who own either MANA, LAND, or ESTATE tokens decide which direction the development of the ecosystem should proceed.
This need for governance is self-explanatory.
A completely new style of virtual world emanates from the decentralised structure of Decentraland.
The platform provides the user with a new opportunity to fully own and control the user value created in the virtual world, with the added ability to transfer this value to the real world at will.
As such, Decentraland is so much more than your typical video game.
Opened in February 2020, Decentraland is a three-dimensional virtual reality world on the Ethereum blockchain.
In Decentraland, users may create buildings, charge other users to visit them, plus create and operate for-profit businesses.
MANA is the cryptocurrency that drives the Decentraland platform.
In the Decentraland protocol, MANA has three distinct uses that in this subsection of our Decentraland (MANA) guide, we identify and investigate.
Within the Decentraland ecosystem there are two tokens governing platform operations:
According to the Decentraland Whitepaper:
"MANA serves as a proxy to assess the price of a new parcel of LAND"
Unclaimed LAND in the platform is purchased at the same exchange rate of 1000 MANA for 1 LAND.
However, as each parcel of LAND is unique, LAND can potentially sell for different (higher or lower) prices on the secondary market due to differing traffic, adjacent land uses, and extent of development.
So LAND ownership is acquired utilising MANA.
Accordingly, the MANA token is used to bring value to the platform through the acquiring of LAND ownership and development thereon.
When purchasing LAND, the LAND smart contract utilises a burn function which removes MANA from the ecosystem in the creation of a new entry in the blockchain LAND registry.
This use is basically self explanatory.
Decentraland possesses a virtual economy in which users may partake in a variety of economic transactions in world.
Likewise, users have the ability to monetise the content they create and the applications they build.
MANA is the digital asset used to pay for in world goods and services that fuels the Decentraland virtual economy.
Decentraland exists in a fully decentralised environment.
"Unlike other virtual worlds and social networks, Decentraland is not controlled by a centralised organisation. There is no single agent with the power to modify the rules of the software, contents of land, economics of the currency, or prevent others from accessing the world.”
Not to mention the following extract from the Decentraland DAO:
The Decentraland DAO owns the most important smart contracts and assets that make up Decentraland – the LAND Contract, the Estates Contract, Wearables, Content Servers and the Marketplace. It also owns a substantial purse of MANA which allows it to be truly autonomous as well as subsidise various operations and initiatives throughout Decentraland.
It is the Decentraland community that proposes such things as platform policy changes, future LAND auctions, whitelisting of NFT contracts to be allowed in World, who will serve on the Security Advisory Board, and basically any other item deemed relevant by the community.
Ultimately these items are decided by vote of the community on the DAO's governance interface.
Holders of MANA tokens are entitled to propose relevant changes to the Decentraland ecosystem.
As well, the MANA token holders vote on these changes with the weight of their vote being in proportion of the relative amount of MANA tokens owned to the total circulating supply of MANA.
Decentraland aims to establish a network that allows its content creators to own and capture the full value of their contributions.
For the reasons set forth above, the MANA token within the Decentraland ecosystem demonstrates great utility and value.
Metaverse platforms that make use of NFTs and platform assets are being released every year.
In this subsection of our LeoFinance Decentraland (MANA) guide, we compare what are arguably the best two Metaverse projects presently existing in the cryptosphere:
We will undertake this examination by taking the relevant factors concerning both projects and examining them on a point by point basis.
Since October 28, 2021 the price of MANA (the native token of Decentraland) has rallied 400%:
Within the same time period, the price of SAND (the native token of The Sandbox) has rallied 300%:
Per CoinMarketCap, at the time of the writing of this article (November 21, 2021 at 06:25 EDT) there is a circulating supply of 892,246,119.22 SAND.
With the current price of $4.08 the market capitalization of The Sandbox (SAND) is $3,636,873,906.
There is a total supply of 3,000,000,000 coins authorized yielding a fully diluted market capitalization of $12,249,170,663.
Presently, The Sandbox (SAND) is ranked No. 49 by CoinMarketCap.
Per CoinMarketCap, at the time of the writing of this article (November 21, 2021 at 06:20 EDT) there is a circulating supply of 1,820,000,000 MANA.
With the current price of $3.72 the market capitalization of Decentraland (MANA) is $6,787,942,269.
There is a total supply of 2,193,991,427 coins authorized yielding a fully diluted market capitalization of $8,229,049,672.
Presently, Decentraland (MANA) is ranked No. 31 by CoinMarketCap.
"The Sandbox is a community-driven platform where creators can monetize voxel ASSETS and gaming experiences on the blockchain."
"With the support of creators around the world, our goal is to make The Sandbox the new standard in world-building games, with multitudes of user-created 3D voxel assets and games available on the blockchain."
"Decentraland is a decentralized virtual reality platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain. Within the Decentraland platform, users can create, experience, and monetize their content and applications.”
“This gives users full control over the environments and applications that they create, which can range from anything like static 3D scenes to more interactive applications or games."
Decentraland (MANA) is an ERC20 standard token and accordingly may use any ERC20 compatible wallet in the market.
The Sandbox (SAND) is likewise an ERC20 standard token which accordingly may use any ERC20 compatible wallet in the market.
There is in this regard one significant difference between the two projects.
Decentraland has recently created and enabled a bridge using wallet connect which now allows Polygon users access to the platform.
As both projects are built upon Ethereum, they face the same limitations in this respect.
These limitations are:
Decentraland has two tokens.
"With the launch of the Iron Age, we are introducing two digital assets: LAND, the non-fungible parcels in which the virtual world is divided; and MANA, an ERC-20 token that is burned to claim LAND, as well as to make in-world purchases of goods and services."
Decentraland operates using a DAO structure, where the community votes for such things like:
With respect to The Sandbox, the governance mechanism is similar, however it is less structured than that of Decentraland (and it is not as easy to find in the official documentation as that of Decentraland).
The Sandbox likewise follows a DAO structure where holders of the SAND token vote on such things like:
Decentraland operates with a security advisory board that oversees the DAO and responds to all bug and vulnerability reports concerning the platform.
This SAB also includes five Solidity experts (originally selected by the development team).
Decentraland boasts of its team being comprised of leaders in such fields as computer science, blockchain engineering, and venture capital to name a few.
The Sandbox team is spread through four different countries.
The Sandbox support experts are from the fields of start-ups, finance, and blockchain businesses to name a few.
In both ecosystems, it is the community that owns the land to be purchased.
As such, the community has complete authority over each project.
Landowners, however, have control over the material that is published on their owned land.
Land is identified by a set of cartesian coordinates making identification very easy.
And as a result of this, land in both projects is a non-fungible, rare and transferable digital asset stored in an Ethereum smart contract.
In Decentraland, you buy land by connecting your wallet and going to 'the marketplace' where you can access and browse all parcels and estates in the system.
To access parcels that are available to be purchased, a user must activate the 'on sale' option and all parcels that can be purchased will turn sky blue in colour.
At this point it is up to the user to choose the best land for their purposes.
But in any event, general real estate principles should be followed and you need to find land near strategic places where people gather to be successful.
In The Sandbox, you have two separate options to purchase land.
You can purchase land on the platform by simply connecting your wallet, choosing your land and paying.
However, the best way to acquire affordable land is to browse the Marketplace on OpenSea, write down the coordinates of available lands, then check the Map to see if the available land is near commercial lands.
Parenthetically, The Sandbox also has a separate 3d party P2P NFT trader.
Here, users can swap their Sandbox NFTs in an easy, efficient and secure fashion.
Major partnerships for the Decentraland project include:
Major partnerships for The Sandbox project include:
For full access in Decentraland you must connect your cryptocurrency wallet to the site.
There is, however, a 'Guest Mode' where anyone can gain limited access and experiences within the site is minimal.
The Sandbox does not offer a 'guest mode', but does offer more alternatives to gain platform access.
In The Sandbox, you need to register first, which may be accomplished by email, a social media account, Gmail, or by connecting Metamask.
ERC 1155 Standard tokens are not used in Decentraland.
The ERC 1155 token is used in The Sandbox, and for those unfamiliar with this standard, which is a token representing a mix of a cryptocurrency and an NFT all within the same token asset.
"The ERC-1155 standard that [The Sandbox] co-created with other game companies in the blockchain space, was designed to support the management of millions of tokens. On top of that our ASSET contract is also ERC721 compliant and allows multiple unique items to be created by a single smart contract with the benefit of keeping the ERC-721 interface to allow interoperability with other Marketplaces and games"
This comparison table shows you an unbiased feature set comparison of blockchain metaverse platforms in the discussion.
The below table shows you the comparison points between the two major blockchain metaverse platforms.
| Sandbox (SAND) | Decentraland (MANA) | |
|---|---|---|
| Sandbox was originally launched in 2011, going through various partnerships and acquisitions, it started venturing in NFT and now has a digital asset. | Decentraland was launched in 2017, it has a VR ecosystem and NFT, digital asset and virtual map. | |
| Sandbox is deployed on Ethereum network including it's assets, NFTs and deliverables. | Decentraland uses Ethereum network for it's platform transaction and assets. | |
| Sandbox has three ERC-20 tokens named - SAND, GEM, and CATALYST token and ERC-721 tokens namely - LAND and ASSETS. | Decentraland has ERC-721 tokens namely - LAND and MANA. | |
| Sandbox's total circulating supply of SAND token is around 3,000,000,000. | Decentraland MANA has current supply of 2.19 billion MANA as it was reduced due to the Token burn. | |
| Sandbox's NFT assets are available through opensea and Rarible marketplace. | Decentraland's NFT are available through opensea NFT marketplace. | |
| Sandbox's SAND token is being used for the in-metaverse purchases and the transactions. | Decentraland's MANA is being used for the in-platform transactions and buying the assets. | |
| Sandbox's assets can be stored in both custodial and non-custodial wallets. | Decentraland assets can be stored in the custodial and non-custodial wallets. | |
| Sandbox allows game developers to publish the games on the top of the existing ecosystem. | Decentraland currently only allows making of NFT and yet to allow external game dev to design any games on the top of it's ecosystem. | |
| Sandbox is the first gaming blockchain that has the DeFi and also governance system that allows vote, stake and govern ecosystem. | Decentraland is the first VR gaming blockchain to offer the ownership of the land and decentralized metaverse. |
The Sandbox is one of the oldest and robust blockchain-based platforms that has its own community following.
In contrast, Decentraland is just getting started with a VR platform as its own unique offering.
If you are investing in metaverse tokens, then either one is good to start at the current time.
After giving due consideration to all of the factors herein presented, it appears that The Sandbox is in a slightly better position to take leadership in this space.
The Sandbox project appears to offer a more technologically advanced comprehensive program better matched to the burgeoning Metaverse than its competitor Decentraland.
Finally, make sure you check out our The Sandbox (SAND) guide.
No matter what our old friend Mark Zuckerberg thinks or says, no one company or entity is going to be the metaverse.
Especially not a multinational corporation prone to shady dealings and censorship such as Facebook… erm, Meta.
The Metaverse is going to be a mishmash of virtual worlds, some centralised, some decentralised.
Honestly, the future is exciting!
This section of our Decentraland (MANA) guide looks at how this OG project can take advantage of the hype and position itself as the best crypto metaverse play.
Facebook’s rebranding to Meta (lol), if nothing else has certainly generated a ton of hype.
I genuinely believe that the metaverse is going to be an interconnected, decentralised universe that people can seamlessly move between and interact with.
Does that sound familiar?
Replace the word metaverse with crypto ecosystem and that’s what I’ve said many times here on the blog about our own future.
The entire digital world, encompassing the worlds we live in and the value we exchange within them, is all going to be interconnected.
Maxis, whether they’re for a singular blockchain ecosystem or single corporate metaverse, are going to fail.
This is why I find projects like THORChain, and even our very own LeoFinance suite of cross-blockchain tokens are so exciting.
But where does Decentraland fit in and what makes it the best crypto Metaverse play?
Decentraland fits in perfectly with this open, interconnected mantra that is ultimately going to win out.
The project is controlled via a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO), which owns the most important smart contracts and assets of Decentraland.
These assets include:
Furthermore, Decentraland ultimately aims to achieve full interoperability with other metaverse projects.
Can you imagine Facebook saying that they want to be interoperable with the entire decentralised web?
Yeah, naa.
Decentraland proposes to use an advanced protocol called the Idempotent Publish/Subscribe Messaging Environment (IPSME).
This proposal is still in its early stages, but will no doubt be a game changer for the project if they can actually pull it off.
Whether this proposal will become a reality, only time will tell.
But let’s just say that the market is optimistic that Decentraland (MANA) is in a good position.
I mean all you have to do is just take a look at the MANA price.
This section of our guide to Decentraland (MANA) isn’t about short term price action, so I’m not even going to include a candlestick chart.
Everything you need to understand about MANA’s price action, is shown on the following line chart from CoinGecko.
Talk about boarding the metaverse hype train, am I right?
Now surely this is unsustainable and purely on the back of Facebook’s garbage rebrand.
But I’ve been saying that about the likes of Solana and Avalanche repricing and not only doing insane multiples, but continuing to maintain those gains.
If Decentraland can remain decentralised and pull off its interconnectivity, it certainly looks to be the best crypto Metaverse play available.
Let’s go over some of the factors in favour of investing in Decentraland (MANA).
Let’s go over some of the factors against investing in Decentraland (MANA).
Within the first 5 months of this year, Decentraland (MANA) saw an increase of over 2,000%.
The price of the token moved from $0.08 as of January 1st, 2021, and in 5 months, it reached an all-time high of $1.63.
Projections for 2022 see it getting up to an average of $8 and depending on how the entire industry continues to play out, potentially a lot higher again.
You could successfully dip your toe into MANA now and hodl.
Or even invest in the real estate-stye game with the goal of earning substantial sums in form of accessories and land in the next 3 years.
Our Decentraland (MANA) guide has already shown that investing in the project for the long term might be the best decision you could ever make.
A concept that we explore further in the final section below.
Decentraland (MANA) has limited competition.
Its virtual gaming properties are currently widely adopted as a means of investment in virtual real estate that can be held or sold as they appreciate in value over time.
Although Decentraland (MANA) is currently back to its level playing field in prices, it still maintains its position as the second-largest blockchain game, just behind Axie Infinity.
Recently, a plot of land on Decentraland was sold at the highest price recorded.
Almost a million dollars!
This purchase was made on 16 acres of digital land by Republic Realm, a real estate investment firm.
And while the game can be played for free, getting started requires the purchase of land which costs around $4,000 at the time of writing, or alternatively a range of other accessories within the game.
Decentraland (MANA) has a large market cap of about 1.8 billion and its users have been on the increase.
However, the circulating supply of 1.82 billion tokens has so far kept the bears at bay.
We’re starting to see Decentraland having actual utility, thanks to companies like Sotheby's Auction House making it possible for their followers to purchase items from their store using MANA.
Decentraland (MANA) has huge potential through its NFTs and retail market.
Through its own market, users will be able to buy NFTs of certain products - A designer shirt, for instance, while even in some cases being able to exchange that digital item for a physical accessory in the real world.
Decentraland is going to allow the digital and real worlds to overlap like nothing we’ve ever seen before.
Once you consider the potential of this overlap, you’ll quickly come to the conclusion that virtual malls are just a small part of what can be built in the Metaverse via Decentraland.
Although those who invested in January have already registered massive gains, those who invested before the crash in May made some huge losses.
However, isn't that the beauty of cryptocurrency?
Volatility is the risk every crypto investor knows about before investing and a long-term investment is the surest way to avoid short-term heartaches.
While Facebook’s rebranding to Meta has seen the space pump in the short term, there’s no doubting the long term potential of the metaverse, with Decentraland sure to play its own massive part.
It’s true that Facebook is an unmatched rival of Decentraland (MANA).
Although Zuck himself claims to be the king of the Metaverse, the reality is that Decentraland (MANA) is already way ahead of the game.
A long-term investment in Decentraland (MANA) is likely to turn out to be a savvy play.
The average projection for 2022 is $8, with an all-time high of $10 and a low point of $7.
Yeah, we know not to trust the predictions completely but with the already large market cap and the increase in utility, this token may well be headed to the moon.
Whether that’s the physical moon or virtual moon, we’ll leave it up to you to decide.
LeoFinance Crypto Guides.
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