The term Metaverse is coined by science fiction author Neal Stephenson in 1992 in his novel Snow Crash. Metaverse is a digital world that provides an immersive experience to its users that blurred the line between digital and physical. It is considered as the next generation Internet. It allows the users to enter the digital universe with digital avatars and move across and interact within the metaverse. It uses augmented reality(AR), virtual reality(VR), blockchain, artificial intelligence(AI) and social media concepts to create spaces for rich user interaction mimicking the real world. Metaverse will create online spaces where user interactions are more multidimensional than current technology supports.

There are multiple public metaverse platforms available. These are called public metaverse because it is permission less with full read & write access and it is decentralized. Let’s me take you through my point of view on Decentraland.

Decentraland : This is the most popular public metaverse based on blockchain architecture. It allows us to buy & sell digital LAND, Estates, Avatar wearables and names in the Decentraland Marketplace. It can be considered as the virtual destination for the digital assets. This is launched by January 2020.
•       It uses virtual reality(VR) along with open- source technologies.
•        It is one of the top 100 cryptocurrency projects.
•        Its native token – MANA, is one of the most popular cryptos.
•       MANA is used to buy LAND either directly from Decentraland or from other users in addition to making real world purchases.
•        It aims to recreate a free-market economy that is based on virtual space by using blockchain technology.

PROS of Decentraland

• Decentraland’s community governance is backed by the Security Advisory Board(SAB).
• There is option for auctioning of NFTs and selling of LAND for MANA
• There are several use cases for Decentraland tokens
• There are constant upgrades to ensure that new features are being introduced to the protocol

CONS of Decentraland

• There is a great lack in engaging content
• Lack of variation in the terrain  in Decentraland
• Users do not come across what others do as there is no interaction
• Risk of exploitation as result of the risk of cyberattacks