Blockchain technology has been gaining strength in the virtual world for years. The function of these technologies is to keep a secure, decentralized, synchronized and distributed record of digital operations. Many platforms have been created to meet this goal, including Decentraland, which we will talk about in this article.
There are many video games that work with the blockchain technology, Decentraland is very similar to traditional open world 3D games. The platform runs on the Ethereum blockchain, a system that includes the second most popular cryptocurrency in the world, and aims to allow its users to interact in the same way as they would in real life.
Socializing, exploring and trading are some of the things that can be done on the platform that has its own cryptocurrency called MANA. What makes Decentraland attractive to users is that they can fully control the content of their land and can retain the income earned from the value generated by other users.
This is how Decentraland works
Esteban Ordano and Ariel Meilich, creators of the project, have detailed a series of rules for the best functioning of Decentraland. The structure is divided into three “layers”, the first being the consensus layer. In this falls the responsibility of tracking all the operations owned by the game, that is, if a player has registered and has bought a lot of virtual land, this layer will create the corresponding blockchain record of such actions.
The second is the content layer, where the information that will be used for rendering the content in the virtual world is stored. Its objective is that each user has in their possession a part of the data to be rendered.
Finally, there is the real-time interaction layer, which is responsible for the interaction of users in real time within the platform.
How do tokens work on the platform?
The platform has two functioning tokens, the first of which is MANA. This is the governance token and is used for the purchase and sale of virtual land. This token was created under the Ethereum ERC-20 standard so it allows a fast exchange of it, if the user so wishes.
The existence of the MANA token is limited to a total of 2,194,460,527 tokens, of which 1,816,935,591 tokens circulate. This is aimed at making the token even more valuable as the use of the platform increases.
The second token is called LAND, a non-fungible token that serves to uniquely identify the properties of a parcel of land that is owned by a Decentraland user. Each lot of land has its unique characteristics, therefore, each LAND token represents all those properties. To acquire these tokens, the user will have to exchange their MANA tokens to LAND tokens.
LAND tokens are also found in a limited way, their creation responds to the smart contracts that participate in the internal exchange of MANA for LAND.
Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of the Metaverse caused the blockchain world to take hold. All Decentraland-style projects can be taken as predecessors of this new virtual universe. According CoinMarketCap, This announcement increased the popularity of Decentraland.
The Metaverse Group bought, exactly, a plot in this digital universe with specific measures: 116 small plots of 4.88 digital square meters, a total of 565.78 square meters in total.
This commitment to the future by Meta reduces criticism from people who claim that these practices are speculation. The movements of large companies towards blockchain technology make faith in investors grow.