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Today, Decentraland launches its second land auction, allowing users to purchase digital "packs" of land on the blockchain.
If you are receiving visions of the virtual reality world Ready Player Oneyou are not far. Decentraland aims to build a VR world, complete with avatars, games and virtual real estate.
Today's auction will sell 9,331 parcels of land, each of 10m x 10m, in the virtual metropolis of Genesis City.
What is Decentraland?
Decentraland is a 3D, virtual reality space where users can explore, purchase and build on blockchain land. It is built on the Ethereum blockchain and uses a native cryptocurrency called MANA.
The virtual world is divided into "districts" and each district contains "parcels" of land. The world is over, which means that the land will eventually be scarce, fueling a real estate market inside the platform.
Decentraland hopes to encourage developers to create games and applications in the platform, increasing the value of the land and creating a true community.
Obviously, being this blockchain, it is decentralized: "Decentraland is not controlled by a centralized organization.There is no single agent with the power to change software rules, the contents of the land, the economy of the currency or prevent others from entering the world. "
Big money behind Decentraland
Decentraland is partly financed by one of the largest investment funds of the cryptoversa, Digital Currency Group (DCG). DCG has investments in Coinbase, CoinDesk, Ledger and blockchain.com, among others.
Despite having supported many of the world's largest blockchain societies, it has only five cryptocurrencies: one of them is the MANA of Decentraland. As DCG explains, "We own MANA and LAND and are actively exploring other initiatives to accelerate decentralized metaverse development."
As part of this acceleration, DCG recently launched Metaverse Ventures to support Decentraland-based projects. Metaverse Ventures is "a wholly owned subsidiary of DCG that will invest exclusively in companies that make products and services for Decentraland".
Among the initiatives supported so far there is Vegas City, a region of land with 7,000 complete packages of Vegas-style entertainment in virtual reality. They also invested in Artie, which is building VR avatars and Augmented Reality (AR) for the virtual world.
Decentraland Land Auction, December 2018
The Decentraland auction begins today using a system of Dutch auctions. The price starts high and gradually lowers until someone buys the land.
Decentraland will auction 9,331 packages in this round, each starting at 200,000 MANA (around $ 12,000). The price will drop every day until the parcels reach 1,000 MANAs (around $ 60), assuming they have not been purchased in advance.
Thanks to recent partnerships, users can also purchase land with ZIL, SNT, BNB, Dai and MKR. For more information on buying LAND, see the video below.
The Decentraland auction begins today.
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