Decentraland

What is Decentraland; Digging the whole nine yards!

Virtual worlds are becoming more popular places for people to spend their free time and time at work. This mostly happens with 2D interfaces like web and mobile devices. However, a 3D world that can be explored provides an immersive element and is adjacent to other types of content, making it possible to create actual communities. 

Decentraland is not governed by a single entity, in contrast to other virtual worlds and social networks. No one agent has the authority to alter the software’s rules, the Land’s features, the currency’s economics, or the ability to bar others from entering the globe.

Decentraland; A Beginners Guide: 

The Ethereum blockchain powers the virtual reality platform Decentraland. Users can produce, consume, and make money from content and applications. In addition, the community in Decentraland permanently owns the Land, giving them complete authority over their works. Users claim virtual land ownership on a parcel ledger built on the blockchain.

Landowners have authority over what information is posted on their plots of Land. The content might be everything from interactive systems like games to static 3D scenes. A rare, transferable, non-fungible digital asset called Land is kept in an Ethereum smart contract. 

An ERC20 token or cryptocurrency called MANA will facilitate the purchase of Land and other digital products and items on Decentraland. 

A shared virtual environment, or Metaverse, is supported by Decentraland’s architecture. It has a peer-to-peer network for user interactions, a protocol for specifying the contents of each land parcel, and a decentralized ledger for tracking ownership of Land. 

The three ages of Decentraland: 

Stone Age: 

As a proof of concept, Decentraland was created to show how users may be given ownership of digital properties on a blockchain. This digital space was first represented as a pixel on an infinite 2D grid, with each pixel including metadata that identified the owner and described the color of the pixel. Decentraland’s Stone Age was the experiment’s name.

Bronze Age: 

The Decentraland team began work on the Bronze Age, a 3D virtual world with individual land parcels, before the end of 2016. Using a modified Bitcoin blockchain, each parcel’s owner could link it to a hash reference to a file. Users exploring the virtual world might use this reference to download the file containing the parcel’s content, which specifies the models and textures to be displayed there, using BitTorrent and a Distributed Hash Table (DHT).

Iron Age: 

The following iteration of Decentraland, the Iron Age, will produce a social experience with an economy supported by the layers of land ownership and content exploitation already in place. Developers will be able to build Decentraland-based programs in the Iron Age, share them with other users, and make money off of them. 

Peer-to-peer connectivity, a scripting engine for interactive content, and a system of quick cryptocurrency payments for in-world transactions will all be implemented in The Iron Age. Decentraland uses a P2P network to provide positioning, postures, voice chat, and other social interactions that require a communication layer. The scripting system is the tool that landowners will use to specify the behavior and interactions of 3D objects, sound, and programs running on individual parcels of Land.

How does Decentraland work? 

The very fact that Decentraland depends on blockchain technology allows it to develop into a modern society with a decentralized internet. It is decentralized and runs by its members as an innovative contract-powered blockchain solution rather than by a single firm or entity.

The native token MANA is the foundation of the virtual world’s digital economy. The MANA ERC-20 token from Decentraland can be used to buy or trade in-game items, virtual real estate, and other NFTs. Additionally, it grants members who can administrate the decentralized autonomous organization in the virtual world voting rights. Several exchanges accept fiat or cryptocurrencies as payment for MANA.

Members can participate in the Decentraland DAO, where MANA and LAND owners are granted voting rights and allowed to influence the direction of virtual reality. As a result, members now effectively have more power, and there is no longer a chance that companies or other interested parties will try to influence how the platform develops for their own gain.

By using non-fungible tokens, Decentraland is also able to provide full ownership of assets thanks to the usage of blockchain technology. On the NFT Marketplace, users can gather, produce, and trade NFT items like real estate, artwork, wearables, and other digital assets. These digital certificates of authenticity allow individuals to influence how the virtual environment functions.

It also turns assets into money because they are worth money in the form of cryptocurrencies. However, despite providing a wide range of opportunities, the cost of entrance into this economy may be considerable due to high petrol prices and potentially prohibitive NFT costs.

What bestows value to Decentraland? 

Decentraland’s inherent value has originated from its technical potential and capacity. Additionally, the project’s singularity increases the value of Decentraland and its two tokens, LAND and MANA. Finally, Decentraland has value due to the number of users and the general demand for MANA, which can be used to purchase a parcel in the virtual reality (VR) environment. As a result, the community is expanding.

The MANA tokens price is determined by demand and its fixed and constrained maximum supply. 

Decentraland MANA Token: 

There are 2.19 billion MANA tokens available in total at the moment. When it started, the project had a total supply of 2.8 billion MANA, but this was decreased through token burns during the LAND auctions. 

The token was initially intended to have a rate of inflation that decreased gradually. However, this feature is currently deactivated, and the circulating supply is scheduled to be further reduced through mechanisms used in network operations, such as purchases made on the Decentraland Marketplace.

Approximately 70% of the 2.19 billion MANA tokens have now been distributed. The market cap is calculated by multiplication of the quantity of MANA tokens in circulation by the market price of MANA tokens.

Features of Decentraland: 

MANA: 

The native token utilized in this blockchain-based gaming platform, MANA, was earlier mentioned. It’s the money of the virtual world, and it may be used to buy expensive items like in-game clothing, artwork, digital property, names, and other items. 

Additionally, it grants voting rights to members who desire to participate in the DAO’s decision-making process. Users of Decentraland must convert their MANA into wrapped MANA or wMANA to vote using the DAO voting system. Wrapped MANA is confined within the DAO and only has one vote in proposals for governance.

A total of 2.8 billion MANA were first produced. However, 1.49 billion MANA tokens were in use by the beginning of 2021. A sizable fraction of the MANA tokens were burnt during the LAND auctions.

LAND: 

An NFT called LAND in Decentraland shows virtual pieces of land owned by community members. Although LAND can serve various functions, which we’ll discuss in the following section, it’s also utilized in conjunction with MANA to determine voting power. 

Unlike MANA, LAND can be utilized without being wrapped and locked into the DAO. Two thousand votes are represented by one LAND token. Decentraland with a large number of distinct plots can combine them into a single Estate token. The number of plots that make up an Estate token determines how many votes it has.

There are 90,601 LAND parcels in the Decentraland universe. Each LAND slot is separate from the others, measures 16m x 16m (256 square meters), and has unique coordinates. The Decentraland universe is divided into various districts, most of which have a similar concept. They are the product of crowd sales of MANA tokens, which makes these districts unique because their LAND cannot be exchanged.

Marketplace:

Players in Decentraland can manage their on-chain assets through the Marketplace. They can exchange goods and services with other users and buy, sell, or rent virtual LAND Estates, wearables, names, and other NFTs. 

They can also communicate with other members, exchange virtual goods, look at the virtual world’s map, give their virtual property names, let other users look around their LAND, and more. The Marketplace, in a nutshell, is the place to be. Decentraland is a “one-stop-shop for the very best digital assets,” according to its website.

Challenges: 

• Decentralized distribution of content: There are two fundamental problems with content sharing using a P2P network. The first has to do with download speed: previously, it has taken too long to retrieve a file from a distributed peer-to-peer storage system or DHT. Users will dislike using a system that takes a long to load, especially in a graphical application like Decentraland. The second concern is availability: ensuring that data is evenly spread across the network without being lost. These problems are being seen by IPFS and the future FileCoin protocol, and we eagerly await its release into production.
• Scripting: The most crucial tool for providing consumers with worthwhile experiences in Decentraland will be scripting. Its APIs must be safe enough for users to manage private keys and routinely approve micropayments. Another critical factor for reaching a large developer audience is usability.
• Content Curation: In a decentralized network, it can be challenging to filter out material for older audiences (such as pornography, violence, or gambling). We anticipate that a market will develop in this area. Using a reputation-based strategy, users might pick one or more suppliers of whitelists and blacklists that keep tabs on the kind of content being supplied on each parcel.

Convalescence: 

Decentraland has developed since it was formally introduced in 2017 into a charming, infancy-stage version of the Metaverse. Thanks to member contributions and the advancement of blockchain, the platform is constantly changing. The switch from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake addresses some of the main issues about its Ethereum-based architecture and high gas costs.

Decentraland is still working to develop to the point where it can join a complex, integrated, and unified Metaverse.