Decentraland

Decentraland is a virtual world built on Ethereum where users can explore, build, and trade digital land and items. MANA is the platform's currency, and it launched following a token sale in 2017, making it one of the earliest metaverse projects to reach significant scale.

How Decentraland works

The virtual world is divided into parcels of LAND, each represented as an NFT that grants the owner control over what is built on that space. MANA is the fungible token used to purchase LAND, wearables, names, and other items within the world. When MANA is spent on certain in-world purchases, it is burned, which permanently removes it from supply.

The platform is governed by the Decentraland DAO, which controls key contracts, a treasury, and policy decisions. Voting power derives from holdings of MANA, LAND, and other ecosystem assets, so governance is distributed among participants who have a stake in the world rather than concentrated in a company.

MANA has no fixed maximum supply in the available data, with total supply around 2.19 billion and roughly 1.96 billion in circulation. The token exists on Ethereum and on Polygon, where most in-world transactions occur due to lower fees.

Role in the ecosystem

Decentraland is one of the reference examples of a blockchain-based virtual world, alongside The Sandbox. Both attracted considerable attention during the metaverse interest of 2021, including corporate land purchases and virtual events. Sustained user activity in these worlds has been substantially lower than the attention they received, and the projects have continued developing while operating at a smaller practical scale.