Decentraland (MANA)

Decentraland (MANA) is the token of Decentraland, a browser- and desktop-based virtual world whose land, names and wearable items are owned by users as NFTs. MANA is spent in the world's marketplace, used to buy land and names, and gives holders voting power over the rules of the platform. It was one of the first tokens created for a blockchain virtual world.

MANA is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum Blockchain, and a bridged version on Polygon handles most everyday trading of items. The token is separate from LAND, the NFTs that represent plots of the world. Unlike many projects, Decentraland is governed by a decentralized autonomous organization that controls its main contracts and treasury. Its closest rival is The Sandbox (SAND).

Picture a city drawn on a huge grid, where every square is a plot that someone can own. Owners can put up a gallery, a nightclub or a game on their plot, and anyone with a web browser can walk around as an avatar and visit. The ownership records are kept on a blockchain, so no company can quietly take a plot back or change who owns it.

MANA is the city's money. Visitors use it to buy clothes for their avatars, a unique username or a plot of their own. Holders also act a bit like members of a residents' association: they can vote on proposals such as how the shared treasury is spent or which items are allowed. Some of the MANA spent in the city has been destroyed over time, which slowly reduces how much exists.

Decentraland was started in 2015 by Ari Meilich and Esteban Ordano as an experiment in owning space in a shared digital world. MANA was created in an initial coin offering on 18 August 2017 that raised roughly 24 million dollars in ether. In December 2017 the Terraform event auctioned most of Genesis City, the world's single continent, in exchange for MANA, and further land auctions followed in 2018.

The world opened to the public in February 2020, alongside the launch of the DAO. It drew wide attention during the 2021 metaverse boom, when brands and banks opened virtual venues and land changed hands for large sums, then lost much of that activity in the 2022 downturn. The Decentraland Foundation continues to develop the software, while the DAO funds community projects through grants.

MANA was issued with a supply of about 2.8 billion tokens and no new tokens are minted. All MANA spent in the early LAND auctions was burned, removing more than 600 million tokens, and the total supply is now about 2.19 billion; see burned supply. Sales on the original Ethereum marketplace carried a 2.5 percent fee paid in MANA and burned:

• $\text{Sale price}$ is the price, in MANA, of the LAND, name or item sold.
• $0.025$ is the 2.5 percent fee.

For example, a LAND parcel sold for 10,000 MANA would burn $0.025 \times 10{,}000 = 250$ MANA, and the seller would receive 9,750 MANA. On the Polygon marketplace, where most item trading now happens, the 2.5 percent fee goes to the DAO treasury or to item creators as royalties rather than being destroyed, so the pace of burning has slowed. This makes MANA an example of deflationary tokenomics with no inflation but only a modest ongoing burn.

Genesis City contains 90,601 parcels, including roads and public plazas that cannot be sold. Holders vote with MANA, LAND and names through the DAO, which decides on matters such as grants, content policies, which wearable items are approved and changes to the platform's contracts. Votes are signed off-chain to save fees and then carried out by a multi-signature wallet controlled by a DAO committee. For the general idea, see governance.

• Purchases. MANA buys LAND, wearables, emotes and unique names. Registering a name costs 100 MANA, a payment that was originally burned as well.
• Voting. MANA held in a wallet counts towards voting power on DAO proposals.
• Payments to creators. Designers who sell wearables and emotes are paid in MANA, and can earn royalties when their items are resold.

In June 2023 the US Securities and Exchange Commission listed MANA among the tokens it described as securities in its lawsuit against Binance; that case was dismissed in May 2025 without a ruling on the tokens. Critics have pointed to low visitor numbers compared with mainstream games, a claim the project disputed when figures circulated in 2022, and to the concentration of LAND and voting power in a small number of large holders, or whales. As a Web3 asset, MANA is volatile and its value depends on whether people keep using the world.

• Decentraland
• Decentraland documentation
• Decentraland DAO governance