Decentraland (MANA)

What is Decentraland (MANA)?

The cryptocurrency MANA is linked to the blockchain-game Decentraland, and functions as an in-game currency. Decentraland is a virtual world that players can freely explore and build their own things in. Blockchain technology enables the game to have its own internal economy where players can buy and sell properties, services and assets within the game, and MANA then acts as means of payment. The virtual plots inside the game are also known as "Lands". On the digital plots, users can be creative and create everything from simple, static scenes to complex, interactive games.

Users can also use MANA to participate in the governance of the game, which includes voting rights over how the network will be developed further, through a desentralisert autonomous organization (DAO).

Decentraland was started in 2015 by Argentinians Ari Meilich and Esteban Ordano, and the game was opened to the general public in 2020. Decentraland received a lot of attention in 2021 and 2022 in the context of crypto games and the metaverse becoming a trend. Several well-known brands bought digital real estate inside Decentraland, and famous artists such as Deadmau5 held virtual concerts in the game. But at the same time, Decentraland has also received criticism, partly because there are still few daily users of the game. If Decentraland is to succeed in the long term, they need to attract more players who use the game actively. That still remains to be seen.

Why do people buy MANA?

People buy MANA for two reasons. One is for using MANA in the Decentraland game. The second reason is that they want to speculate in the crypto-gaming niche and that the Decentraland platform will grow in popularity, which could potentially increase the demand and value of both digital properties in the game and the cryptocurrency MANA. Decentraland is one of the biggest cryptocurrencies related to gaming, and was one of the first games to get a lot of attention. But it is worth noting that the crypto game genre is still in an exploratory phase where there are several different games competing to attract users and activity. Who will be left as the winners is still hard to say.


What is blockchain-gaming?

The idea behind blockchain-gaming is that you can integrate blockchains and cryptocurrency into games, so that you can integrate ownership of assets within the games with the larger crypto-economy. In addition, the players can be allowed to participate in the management of the game's further development. In a game, for example, you can earn crypto which can be used to buy other assets in the game, or you could cash out of the game and exchange it for other currencies. When a game can have its own internal economy, the players can also share in the ownership of the game. The possibilities are many. You can read more about crypto gaming in this article.

Metaverse - Megatrend or short-lived hype?

Decentraland is also part of a larger trend known as the "metaverse". Metaverses are digital worlds, or games, where users can meet each other digitally, play games and do business in a virtual world. Metaverses can be open-world games like Decentraland. But there are also other actors in the metaverse space that encompass more than the game genre. Can you, for example, work in the metaverse? Can you nurture relationships with friends, date, go to job interviews, or go to school? The possibilities are many.

This approach to digital interaction has become increasingly popular and a digital trend. For example, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wants to create such a metaverse, which will basically be a further development of the internet we know today, and that is, among other things, the reason why Facebook changed its name to Meta. At the same time, the metaverse concept has also received criticism and has been met with scepticism. It remains to be seen how big this trend will be in the longer term.

24/04/2024