Decentraland (CCC:MANA) is down slightly in trading today after notching an all-time high of $0.447 yesterday. MANA is down 5% in the past 24 hours, but still up nearly 350% year to date.
MANA appears to be another beneficiary of the market mania surrounding non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a cryptoasset class primarily used for digital collectibles at the moment. Tokens associated with NBA Top Shot and other NFTs were likewise boosted in trading yesterday.
MANA is one of two Decentraland NFTs associated with the virtual reality platform, essentially a digital world users can explore with their own humanoid avatars. Readers who are familiar with massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) already have a sense of what that experience looks like.
Built on the Ethereum (CCC:ETH-USD) blockchain, the MANA token is the primary currency for transactions in Decentraland. MANA can be burned in transactions for LAND, an NFT token that represents virtual real estate in Decentraland.
Users who own LAND can then build on their property in the virtual world and/or resell the parcel of LAND on the secondary market. MANA can also be exchanged for NFTs in the form of digital wearables for your avatar or interactive widgets to decorate your LAND.
Decentraland is governed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), a smart contract allowing Decentraland users to vote on policies such as the issuance of new MANA tokens and rules governing LAND. Combined with the blockchain nature of the network, which means no central entity can shut down Decentraland, these platform decisions serve to emphasize user autonomy.
Various cryptocurrency analysts have a broad range of price targets on MANA, which has been on a bullish run this year. One of the most expensive NFT purchases to date was a parcel of digital land in Axie Infinity for more than $1.5 million, giving a sense of the potential interest in Decentraland NFTs.
On the date of publication, Vivian Medithi did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
