Virtual Reality Worlds Developed On Blockchain
First of all, as a matter of disclosure, I might nearly be turning 40 but I'm a stereotypical man. I leave the seat up, I don't ask for directions, but I am naturally funnier (at least, we think so). I also remain entirely childlike. I'm a sci-fi loving, tech geek, so Virtual Reality ticks a lot of boxes for me. It's Tron. It's the Matrix. It's Total Immersion in Red Dwarf.
What Is Decentraland And What Is MANA?
Decentraland is an online virtual reality world. Individuals and businesses can buy virtual real estate, using the world's virtual currency, MANA, and then create whatever they want. They can charge for products and services and because Decentraland is built on blockchain and completely decentralised, the business gets to keep all of its profits. MANA will also become the in-world currency used to pay for goods and services once the world opens up.
Buying Into Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality has been relatively slow to take off, but it has been a slow burner and there are a lot of real life uses that could be carried over to a virtual world. There are billboards and advertising vans near me offering to sell property using virtual reality real estate services (the other kind). It is used for education and training, and as the cost of good quality headsets continues to fall, we should further takeup and investment.
VR is already used for real estate and education, it has been used to offer otherwise unattainable real-world experiences (think Formula 1 and flight simulators). It could be used to show how YOU would look wearing certain clothes, before enabling you to buy them in the real world. There will be cinemas where you can go to pay for and watch films and more immersive VR experiences. There will almost certainly be vomit inducing roller coasters and rides. Esports is already massive with multi-million dollar prize money on offer at regular tournaments, and it is easy to see how this could be taken into a virtual world.
Decentraland, ironically, is looking to centralise all of these services and experiences into a single VR world, rather than the disparate blocks that currently exist.
Think Habo Hotel. Think Second Life. Even Playstation Home. Imagine Facebook with virtual avatars. The possibilities are virtually endless.
Players sunk a lot of money into these games. Habbo made $74m in 2008 and that was long before mass adoption of mobile phones and tablets had fully taken hold. In 2011, Second Life owners Linden Lab made the same amount of money. Add Virtual Reality, which is an industry already worth more than an estimated $7bn a year, and you certainly have huge potential. If existing businesses can turn a profit in Decentraland, then it has the potential to really take off.
A Working Product... Sort Of
Working products are alarmingly rare in the cryptocurrency world and there is very little content from Decentraland, that can be viewed at the moment. There's even less Virtual Reality content. This means that we're relying on whitepapers, POCs, timeframes, and details of the team behind the tech. There is a pretty cool teaser trailer and the weekly reports and dev updates are genuinely insightful; often diving deeper and looking at problems from more than just a skin-deep, aesthetic solution. This piece on the importance of roads and whether traditional town planning would work in a decentralised, virtual world, is genuinely insightful.
The Team
The team behind Decentraland has crypto former. They were creators of Streamium and Bitcore, and the advisory board includes the founders of INBlockchain, CoinFund, and the ex-CTO of Ning. They have blockchain and crypto experience sewn up, but I do feel they're lacking in the commercial and marketing side of things; at least for now.
Potential Problems
There is a lot of potential in Decentraland, but there are also some obstacles. Virtual Reality may have gained in popularity, but it has a long way to go before it becomes mainstream - it might prove difficult to initially attract the same number of users as virtual worlds like Second Life or World of Warcraft.
Although the team update well with written content, there is very little actual content to salivate over yet, and MANA will have limited use so is unlikely to ever become the biggest cryptocurrency. The world is there, and site owners are developing, but end users are not yet a part of the equation. It isn't finished and hasn't really released yet.
Questions
I love the concept and what does exist looks good. However, even having read the whitepaper and updates, questions remain.
- What is the scope?
- Will the world be open to everybody or exclusive to land owners?
The team seem to go to great pains to let the world develop organically and with no centralisation, although they have realistically had some input. But if that's the case, what will be the incentive for everyday people to buy land? We buy land and build property in the real world because our real-world selves are fragile and meaty, and the outdoors can be a pretty vicious place. Our virtual selves, however, do not have the same need for a roof over our head.
Businesses have a financially viable reason to invest. While there is obvious geek appeal to donning a headset, heading down the high street and doing your shopping virtually, will the appeal be enough to warrant a real financial investment from those with no potential gains?
And, if it is the plan to encourage mass adoption, rather than exclusivity, there hasn't been a lot of marketing or hype building going on. There's also a bit of a marketing shaped hole in the Decentraland team.
Also, and this may be a personal thing, but I'm not a big fan of the logo. It's just a bit grey, drab, and doesn't portray the fact that Decentraland brings together blockchain and Virtual Reality, which are emerging and cutting edge.
Early Signs
For all these questions, though, there is a lot I like. They have a strong development team and deevelopment leads. They don't launch unnewsworthy news and unnecessary announcements. The project itself has great scope in an industry that is still advancing but has already gained reasonable traction. Their initial land auction was, despite a few early hiccups, incredibly successful, and I would presume that the hype will escalate once the land fills and there are working properties in the world.
MANA
MANA is currently the 106th ranked coin, with a market cap of $94m, according to CoinMarketCap.com. It is readily available on most major exchanges. You can find it on Binance and Huobi, Bittrex and HitBTC, among others.
Decentraland Links
Whitepaper
Decentraland Site
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