Decentraland user names powered by Ethereum domain names

Citizens of the virtual world of Decentraland will from now on be able to login using decentralized user names from the Ethereum Name Service. Login names are converted into ERC-721 tokens, which means they can be transferred. These login names also serve as a cryptocurrency wallet. Decentraland announced this change one week before launching its virtual world on February 20th 2020.

The wallets will use a subdomain on the standard Decentraland wallet DCL.eth. This means that a wallet for Play to Earn would be written as playtoearn.dcl.eth. The old system for user names in Decentraland has been abandoned with immediate effect.

Visitors are free to login using Metamask and play as a guest character. However, these Ethereum domain names don't come free. Registering a name will cost 100 MANA, which equals roughly $6.70 at the moment of writing.

Virtual land in high demand

Decentraland is leading the pack when it comes to virtual worlds. The online social hub sold over half a million dollars worth of digital property in the past seven days, according to data from NonFungible.com. The average price for a piece of land is currently 1309 dollars.

That's roughly the same amount for a piece of land in Cryptovoxels. In this more art oriented digital world people pay 1566 dollars for a piece of land. That's a lot more than the 34 dollars The Sandbox is asking in its second land sale.

The value of digital land has been increasing dramatically. In Decentraland gamers and investors paid between 500 and 800 dollars one month ago. High demand and the impending launch caused prices to double.

A world full of opportunity

The hype surrounding virtual worlds is based on opportunity. At the moment 36 blockchain companies have claimed land in The Sandbox. Cryptovoxels has been selling more than 250 thousand dollars per week for several weeks in a row now. Player ownership and blockchain technology will enable companies to expand their online presence into virtual worlds. This way they can be creating new businesses. or building on top of existing ones. The growth of blockchain gaming continues in 2020. This is mostly coming from the hype surrounding virtual worlds.