Crypto-Backed Virtual World Decentraland Goes Live

The cryptocurrency-backed virtual world Decentraland has made its official launch, giving users the ability to spend real money on digital property.

Decentralaland, which raised more than $20 million during its initial coin offering (ICO) held in 2017, has officially launched its virtual reality world living on the Ethereum blockchain.

Users have been rushing to spend money on virtual plots of land they hope will appreciate like real-world real-estate. As previously reported, crypto gamers spent more than $600,000 last week to purchase digital plots of land in the leadup to Decentraland’s official launch. 

Long-time holders of Decentraland’s native coin, MANA, are also cashing in on the craze, with the asset more than doubling since the beginning of 2020. According to data collected by NonFungible, more than $1 million in assets have been traded via Decentraland over the last ten days, making the project’s virtual world the most active entity on Ethereum’s blockchain. 

Ari Meilich, the game’s project lead, told Bloomberg in a phone interview,  

The users are in control of the digital assets, which is something that hasn’t happened before.

He continued, 

We think that over time players will gravitate toward games where they are more in control.

Decentraland is already trading more than 10 times the virtual assets as CryptoKitties, which was previously one of the most popular Ethereum network applications. 

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