Decentraland Marketplace

Decentraland Marketplace Review

Decentraland is a virtual world built on the Ethereum blockchain. It was conceptualized in the year 2017 by a public blockchain company called Metaverse Holding Ltd based out of Shanghai, China. 

Decentraland opened up to the world in February 2020. Within a short period, the virtual world sold USD 1 million in digital land. Decentraland claims to be the first-ever virtual platform that is owned entirely by the users.

What is an NFT Marketplace?

An NFT Marketplace is a marketplace for NFT. So far so good. But what is an NFT?

NFT is an acronym for “Non-Fungible Tokens”. Something which is fungible is replaceable. For instance, one kilo of 24 karat gold is – at least in theory – replaceable with any other kilo of 24 karat gold. When something is non-fungible, it means that it is unique, and not replaceable with any other item out there.

Although NFTs are conceptually similar to cryptocurrencies, these digital assets might represent antiques & artworks, collectables like trading cards, and other items with unique features. These tokens are stored cryptographically in a blockchain network for authentication and validation. Even when transacting, each token is sold as a whole, unlike cryptocurrencies which are divisible into smaller units. NFTs lose their value when split into smaller portions, however, they can be duplicated by the artist and each additional copy can be sold separately (but the total number of duplicates will then always be known).

Decentraland Marketplace Focus

The virtual 3D world of Decentraland mainly uses MANA tokens and LAND parcels. MANA tokens are the currency in Decentraland. MANA tokens can be used for buying wearables and other in-game items, whereas LAND is a non-fungible token representing an area of 16m x 16m, or 52ft x 52ft.

Decentraland Marketplace Fees

When you make a trade at Decentraland, they charge you with a commission. The commission is normally a percentage of the sale amount in the relevant trade.

Transactions in Decentraland Marketplace attracts a 2.50% MANA burn as charges by the participants. All MANA tokens burnt will be removed from circulation. Since it operates on Ethereum, users will have to pay Gas fees for making transactions via the Tools in the virtual world.

Layout of Decentraland

Different NFT Marketplaces present their NFTs, the latest bid and the remaining time of an auction etc. in different ways. What you are most comfortable with viewing and using is up to you and no one else. The following picture is a print screen from Decentraland Marketplace, set on showing Decentraland Wearables:

Selecting individual NFTs from the Decentraland marketplace shows a lot of different information on the relevant NFT. This information includes, inter alia, the description price, expiry, and transaction history. Users have the option to buy or place a bid on the NFT. Here is an image of Lirio Skull – a wearable belonging to the "legendary" category.

The largest purchase ever made in Decentraland was "land at 22.2", meaning a piece of virtual land at a very attractive spot in the game. This land parcel sold for 345 Ethereum. To put this into context, you can only move in the game in the areas of land you control or in public areas that nobody controls. So purchasing a piece of land at 22.2 made it preferential for the relevant player to move around in the game. Was it worth 345 Ethereum (on the date of first writing this review, 31 March 2021, corresponding to approx. USD 640,000)? Well, for him/her it was, and that's all that matters...

Decentraland Payment Methods

A few of the NFT Marketplaces out there accept deposits and payments via credit or debit card, and some even accept PayPal-deposits.

Decentraland Marketplace does not support credit cards or PayPal, so you need to have a previous holding of MANA-tokens in order to get going at the marketplace. MANA is a common cryptocurrency though, so you can obtain it a majority of the bigger centralized exchanges out there.