Have you wondered if you can own land in the digital world in a more efficient way than owning land in the real world?

Well, there is a way. In Decentraland you can buy, develop and sell virtual parcels of land. You can also use Virtual Reality to hang out in your own favourite spot, or even with your friends next door. How cool is that?

The most simple explanation is that Decentraland is a virtual world where you can buy a piece of land with the platform's native cryptocurrency MANA, turn it into something amazing, hold on to it as an investment while you enjoy the use of it, and/or sell it for a profit. More or less the same reasons as to why someone would buy Crypto kitties. But this is not where it stops.

You might think that it is completely 'out there' and that not many people would be interested in buying virtual land, but you would be mistaken. When the company auctioned off the land last year, investors paid a whopping $28 million in total. The cheapest lot at the moment that's for sale in the marketplace goes for a little more than $600,- and after this, the price rises quite a bit depending on the location.

Now why would someone want to invest $600,- on something like this?

Well, first of all, for the same reasons as you would buy any cryptocurrency. Not only the value of the land can increase, but also the value of MANA, making a parcel of land worth more. Aside from this, there are quite a few options to create an income without ever having to sell the land. Like offering services or consultations, organizing events like art exhibitions, gaming, poker tournaments or open mic nights. Pretty much the same that would be possible in the real world, without the hassle of having to do any physical work.

In a way, it's a game, but also so much more. In any game, it's the company after all who builds whatever you, as a gamer, come into contact with. With Decentraland, each owner builds their own reality, making it a very interactive community. You could see it as a social network platform, but instead of chatting or messaging with friends, you can now do the same but in Virtual Reality. Besides this, if a company built a game, and they cease to exist, the game would do the same, whereas, with a decentralized platform on the blockchain, it's all in the hands of the owners.

Until April 1st, Decentraland is hosting a creator contest, sponsored by Bittrex, which anyone can join to create their own scenes in a chance to win a share of the 900K MANA prize pot, or even one of the 50 lots of land. Before this, the only way to develop a scene on Decentraland was by using their SDK. However, for this, knowledge of code is essential, making it out of reach for most people. For the contest, a special 3D builder was introduced, and even though the possibilities are more limited, the click-and-drop function now makes building a scene like it is child's play. Before the contest started, I had the chance to test the builder. The image below shows the scene I built in less than an hour.

A booming market?

Once I dove a bit deeper into the world of virtual land ownership, I was quite surprised to find that this is definitely not something new. NeoWorld is a similar platform, but in their case, the game resembles Sim City, as each player would have an in-game character to explore the space with, and without virtual reality. When I tried to find out more about this, I discovered that their token, NeoWorld Cash (NASH) is actually an ERC-20 token, while the platform is built on the NEO Blockchain. To make it even more confusing, they are now also launching a platform within NeoWorld, called NeoLand, which uses the NEO coin, as well as EOSLand, based on EOS.

NeoWorld seems to be more focused on the Chinese market, maybe that will change with the other two options.

The possibilities

What I found quite interesting was the partners Decentraland are working with or will be in the near future.

One of these is Aminoca Brands, an internationally recognized publisher and game developer, who gamified well-known brand names like Garfield, Ben 10, Thomas and friends, and Astroboy. The two companies will be co-developing two new games exclusively for the Decentraland platform.

The German Qwellcode is a German software developer, who is building the RPG game Chainbreakers for the platform. What's so special about this game is that players will be able to explore the platform, by searching for special 'Questing areas' which will be hosted by landowners, who will be reimbursed for this with a share from the questing pool.

In this article on Bloomberg, one of the interviewed investors explains that he plans to build a virtual art gallery on his land, making it possible to view, buy and sell art, essentially monetizing his plot without ever having to sell it. There are also plans to develop amusement parks, a virtual Las Vegas and even a university to attract visitors, all of which has the possibility to attract an income for all those involved.

This made me think of the game 'Second Life', where some gamers were quite inventive and created an income stream by selling virtual clothes, owning virtual bars and restaurants and much more. And then it hit me: with a few talented creators occupying Decentraland, there are truly endless possibilities in regards to monetising the land.

Credits: Fabian Orrego

Conclusion

Of course, there are always risks involved with investments, whether you invest in tangible or virtual land. Even though its popularity has increased considerably over the years, Virtual reality has yet to be adopted and accepted by the masses, and especially when it's paired with something relatively new like blockchain technology. I believe that we won't really know for sure if it will be successful until people who know nothing about the blockchain will want to visit and play. However, it is clear that anyone can get sucked into building on Decentraland. Even those who think they will not be interested can go head over heels and become expert scene builders. In a way, it's a game as well as an investment, but aside from buying and selling, there are endless opportunities in between. With the different kinds of talent it could attract, it has the possibility to become a virtual world beyond our wildest dreams.