Exploring Blockchain's Very Own Virtual Utopia [Decentraland's LAND Auction]
A New Auction for Digital LAND
Selling plots of land usually isn't the most intriguing spectacle. It's full of deeds, wills, contracts, surveyors and orange stakes in the ground. But this LAND, isn't typical. This LAND is powered by the blockchain. Enter Decentraland - a virtual world where users can buy, explore, build and program custom crypto-powered projects.
Back in January [enter California gold rush pun] Decentraland auctioned off close to 30 million USD worth of digital plots. The team set a powerful precedent for the demand and gamification of real estate in a virtual world that could be owned and secured autonomously. While we all know that the crypto markets have spiraled downwards since January, Decentraland has been something of an anomaly. Their virtual landlords started #BUIDLing, selling, gaming, designing and populating a planet of inhabitants that continued to bolster the value of MANA (the cryptocurrency behind this pixelated utopia.)
Over the last 30 days alone - Decentraland has seen 19,103.673 MANA per LAND parcel and more than 10,000,000 MANA transacted within their marketplace. That's a total value in the ballpark of $736,000 USD. This world continues to be incredibly active, vibrant, and in demand.
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LAND for SALE
In the second week of December (2018) more LAND will go up for auction. There are actually 9,300 unclaimed parcels up for grabs. This rest of this article will walk you through the basics of staking out your own pixels and what the future has in store for this marketplace of digital real estate. So let's begin!
Announcement From Decentraland :
Decentraland's first LAND auction concluded in January 2018, with a total of over 161 million MANA spent, which equaled roughly 30 million dollars at the time. Now, our community has voted in favor of holding a second LAND auction in Q4, 2018. There are still over 9,300 unclaimed parcels of LAND, and an auction is the best way for us to provide a fair and equal opportunity to everyone to obtain new parcels of unowned LAND.
Why is a second auction important for the Decentraland community?
“How do I buy unowned plots of LAND?” is the most frequent question that we receive across every one of Decentraland’s social media channels. These LAND parcels were always part of the initial intended supply for the world. However, they simply didn’t sell during the first auction - and now people have non-buyer remorse.
Also, there are many opportunities that a second LAND auction makes possible, including, but not limited to:
- Purchasing several adjacent parcels of LAND at once, to create a new Estate. Buying multiple parcels at once can be difficult in the current public market.
- Expanding your current LAND or Estate holdings to include adjacent, unowned space.
- Find affordable LAND where you can build, share, and monetize your 3D content and experiences!
How will the second LAND auction work?
We are going to employ a Dutch auction, in which the starting price of all remaining unowned LAND parcels is equal. The price starts at the highest value possible and is reduced over time. There is no bidding, you simply order, or purchase, the LAND parcel(s) you want, at the price you are comfortable with.
This allows participants to purchase estates comprising multiple parcels of LAND in a single transaction, while paying the same price for each individual parcel.
Dutch auctions are different from traditional auctions, where the asking price is gradually increased, with one or more bidders offering the asking price (or more) until a time limit is reached, or no one bids higher. We feel that a Dutch auction will provide the best user experience, removing the frustration and anxiety that is inherent to the English style auction we employed in our original auction.
How will users participate?
All users will need to participate in the LAND auction is a Desktop Browser, a MetaMask, Mist, Ledger or Trezor wallet, and sufficient MANA to bid on and purchase unowned LAND. We are collaborating with several other projects that will allow the use of their own ERC20 tokens in the LAND auction. If they hold any of these tokens, they will be able to exchange them for MANA, which can then be burned in exchange for LAND.
What happens to the MANA used in the auction?
All MANA used in the auction will be taken out of circulation via “burning”, which just means deleting the token or sending it to an empty, irretrievable address.
What happens to other tokens used in the auction?
95% of all other crypto tokens used to buy LAND during the second auction will be converted to MANA. This converted MANA will then be burned, and the remaining 5% will be either burned or sent to the zero address, effectively removing those tokens out of circulation.
Project Name: Decentraland
Website: https://decentraland.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/decentraland
Roadmap: Link here
Steem Account: @decentraland
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://thecreativecrypto.com/exploring-blockchains-very-own-virtual-utopia-decentralands-land-auction/
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I actually owned some MANA tokens during late 2017, into 2018, but didn't have enough to buy a plot of land in the first auction (there was a minimum bid/packet size).
So, I sold my MANA for a [fairly decent] profit and bought other crypto (alt coins) - which have all tanked with the market. Isn't hundsight a wonderful thing.
If I'd had more fiat to invest in crypto, I'd have kept my MANA because I really liked the project and thought it would do well long-term (which I still do - this is just the beginning).
Certainly an interesting project and I'd recommend looking into it, but I'd imagine there's minimum bid requirements again (which will be higher than before).
it will be a dutch auction - https://decentraland.org/blog/technology/how-will-the-land-auction-work