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How Business Owners Can Get into the Metaverse (Decentraland)

19 December 2021 by Celestelle

After the public announcement of Mark Zuckerberg’s change of Facebook’s corporate name to Meta on October 28, 2021, I became curious about the Metaverse and wanted to explore and hop on immediately. Five days later, I discovered Decentraland, which is already one of the existing metaverses at the time. Since then, my life has changed; it has improved my financial situation and developed a more robust network within friendly and generous metaverse communities.

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My NFT artwork “Castle Under the Stars” being given away at the Wisher Vodka event held on December 17, 2021

What is the Metaverse and how can this grow your business to greater heights exponentially?

The Metaverse, for me, is like a virtual recreation of the physical world. Just like in real life, you own a property, dress up with different clothing, go out and meet people around you. Using your avatar or character, you get to make friends living in other parts of the world with a wide array of backgrounds. Even if you are a university student like me, I have built a good network with many artists, content creators, entrepreneurs, and even owners of tech giants within six weeks. If it is possible with me, then it can work for you!

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Visiting Decentraland’s Crypto Valley with TheGoldGuy

Part 1. What Can Business Owners Do?

Buy Land and Build Properties

Here at Decentraland, you can buy at least one parcel with a dimension of a 16x16 square meter lot. At the time of this writing, the lowest price of 1 parcel is around 4,000 MANA (3.17 Ethereum or 12,240 USD). You may check out the

Decentraland Marketplace⁠

or Decentraland’s

OpenSea Collection⁠

to see available listings.

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Decentraland Marketplace Land Listings

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Decentraland Land Listings on Opensea.io

Once you obtain your land or parcel, you are free to build any structure with your designs.

You can create your own scenes or estates using

Decentraland’s Builder platform⁠

or design 3D objects with the following software

here⁠

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A snapshot of the TrustSwap Headquarters at Decentraland’s Crypto Valley.

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A snapshot of the top floor at the TrustSwap Headquarters in Decentraland’s Crypto Valley.

Build your Company’s Virtual Headquarters

Here at Decentraland, there are multiple ways you can establish your business presence in the Metaverse. Here are some examples of cryptocurrency companies and well-known play-to-earn websites that have built their headquarters.

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Over here, we have the Polygon (MATIC) Headquarters located at Decentraland’s Crypto Valley.

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On the image above, we have the Binance Headquarters.

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The famous Play-to-Earn Game Axie Infinity is also here at Decentraland.

Promote your business’ products and services

It is not only about having a structure or owning land can make your company be known to the world. Within your property you are free to do the following things:

Place advertisements, banners, and social media handles of your company.

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Here’s an example at the Binance Headquarters and their product features and services are showcased here. Social media handles such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram will allow you to click on a link and direct to their pages.

Create and Sell Wearable NFTs

Another way to market your brand is to create wearables. You can partner up with 3D Artists and create avatar clothing that speaks your business.

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Wearables can be bought at the

Decentraland Marketplace⁠

. Here you can see a wide array of selections made by our talented artists. Anyone can create and upload their own wearables and sell for a profit. However, each item is subject for approval by the Curation Committee and requires a publication fee of $500 value (paid in MANA). To know more, click

here⁠

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Here is my avatar visiting the Festival Roads with my cool wearables.

For more information on my wearables, special thanks to the following creators:

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Butterfly Updo⁠

T0kenKiwi⁠

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King’s Wings⁠

JTV⁠

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Fairy Little Waifumon Pet fairy⁠

AaronLeupp⁠

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Diamond Hands Hoodie⁠

HODLHQ⁠

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Altcoin Radio Walkman⁠

AltcoinRadio⁠

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Metawear Triple Shoes⁠

Metawearable⁠

Showcase and sell your NFT Art Collection

You can build your own gallery and showcase your own NFT Art Collection if you own land. You may also want to promote other artists’ work and bring exposure to the Decentraland community.

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My first NFT artwork is now displayed at one of Decentraland’s galleries. Thanks to

CBGallery⁠

for promoting my work in the community.

Host and Attend Events

For Business and Professional Themed Events

Here at the Crypto Valley, virtual structures such as the Conference Rooms and Convention Centers have been built for launch events in the near future.

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A snapshot of the Conference Room located at Decentraland’s Crypto Valley.

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Here you can present your keynote speech to showcase your products and services to the world.

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And for greater reach, you can do so at the Convention Center.

Drop Parties and Giveaways

Here at Decentraland, we always have time to party. Every week at different locations, we meet new people, know the latest and promising NFT projects, and attend live band artists and DJ’s concerts. Just by participating in an event, you may be lucky to win wearables and NFT’s for free. These wearables and NFT’s contain real money/crypto value which you can sell later on for a profit.

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The event at The Aquarium Casino in Decentraland.

Part 2. How to Get Started

Set up your MetaMask Wallet

To get a full experience of Decentraland, it is highly recommended to have a digital wallet. The most commonly used wallet is MetaMask.

Step1: Download, install, set up your MetaMask Wallet. The most straightforward and full tutorial can be found in the YouTube video below.

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Step 2: After completing all the steps presented in the video, visit

play.decentraland.org⁠

. Log in to Decentraland with your digital wallet.

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Take note: You are not required to have any crypto balance even Ethereum, Polygon, or MANA. However, if you want to purchase land, names, or wearables, you will need to load up some MANA into your wallet.

Dress up, go out, and connect with people in the metaverse

Once you enter Decentraland, you will have to customize your avatar and step into Genesis Plaza.

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From the Backpack, this is where you can see all your wearables and change your outfit anytime.

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Every new player at Decentraland gets to land at Genesis Plaza. This is also the default location for returning users.

Feel free to explore around, say “hi” to the public chat, and strike a good conversation with people around you.

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Join a Group Tour or Book a Personalized Tour

At Decentraland, we have also built an organic community that supports newcomers to guide and orient them on what the Metaverse has in store for everyone!

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We have the DCL Tours, a community-led project, that serves as the Tour and Information Desk for the Decentraland Metaverse. As the tour appointment system is still undergoing development, we are currently doing tours on a voluntary basis until the end of 2021.

You may reach out to DCL Tours'

Twitter⁠

or join the

Discord server⁠

for more information.

Buy MANA Tokens

MANA is Decentraland’s virtual currency to buy goods such as wearables and to purchase LAND. Here are some of the following ways you can acquire MANA.

Alternative 1: Buy or Swap MANA directly at Decentraland

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There are two types of MANA. The first is the Ethereum MANA that runs on the Ethereum network which is mainly used to purchase land, claim names, and buy a few wearables. On the other hand, Polygon MANA runs on the Polygon (MATIC) network, most commonly used to buy, sell, or trade wearables due to very low or no gas fees.

To buy or swap MANA go to

account.decentraland.org⁠

More about Buying MANA

At this writing, you can only purchase Ethereum MANA via third-party software using your credit/debit card. Polygon MANA is not yet supported to purchase directly; however, this can be done by swapping from Ethereum MANA to Polygon MANA.

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More about Swapping MANA

Ethereum MANA to Polygon MANA

Although I’ve never tried making conversions between the two networks, take note of transaction fees + gas fees occurring when swapping Ethereum MANA tokens to Polygon MANA.

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Polygon MANA to Ethereum MANA

Similar to the previous exchange, even if you are converting from Polygon to Ethereum, it may be likely that you will have to cover gas fees too. The gas fees occur in almost any activity that involves the Ethereum network. However, almost any activity or transaction that happens exclusively on the Polygon network will remain gas-free or may have extremely low gas fees.

Alternative 2: Buy or Swap at an Exchange

If you are familiar with cryptocurrency exchanges, it is possible to acquire MANA through some popular exchange platforms such as

Coinbase⁠

Binance⁠

KuCoin⁠

Crypto.com,⁠

among many others. For a full list of exchanges, you may check out

Coinmarketcap⁠

Coingecko⁠

One possible downside with this method is that you will only be able to hold MANA tokens. If you will want to use it at Decentraland, you will need to transfer an amount of MANA to your MetaMask or other digital wallet address that you use to log in to Decentraland.

On the other hand, if you are already comfortable with swapping your current crypto holdings for a wide array of tokens, you may use DeFi (Decentralized Finance) apps. Some exchanges I personally use are:

QuickSwap -

quickswap.exchange⁠

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Polygon Wallet -

wallet.polygon.technology⁠

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UniSwap -

uniswap.org⁠

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Aave -

aave.com⁠

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Explore different parcels

The best way to understand your world, is to explore it. Just like visiting a new place in real life, it is satisfying to feed your curiosities of the things around you.

Here are some of the cool places you can see around Decentraland yourself. You can also invite a friend to join you too. There are 90,000 parcels in Decentraland and you will not likely run out of places to see them.

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In a nutshell...

As a business owner, the best way to stay ahead is to be aware of the trends and innovations that are emerging in this realm. Within the next 10-20 years, the metaverse will be the norm. Our generation grew up in the age of gaming and everyday we are surrounded with video games, mobile apps, and computer games. The next business leaders have developed these roots since childhood and we are here to revolutionize the future of work and play. In the metaverse, we have a strong freedom of expression through our creative pursuits. Our ideas have turned into digital products and services that can be enjoyed by anyone in the metaverse space. The way we learn, train our peers, and build our communities will all be done virtually and anyone can simply spread their thoughts and ideas and deliver value in greater reach.

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Thank you very much for taking the time to read the article and I hope you have gained valuable insights on what the metaverse is, as well as the opportunities that are awaiting you.

If you want to know more about Decentraland, I have attached the following links for your reference.

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Play Now⁠

at Decentraland - your entry to the Decentraland metaverse

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Decentraland Documentation⁠

- contains guidelines in creating wearables and designing scenes in your land

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Decentraland Marketplace⁠

- contains a catalogue of wearables, land listings, and names

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