Where to buy Decentraland (MANA)
You can buy MANA from various brokers and crypto exchanges. If you don’t already have an account with an exchange or broker, or perhaps you’re not happy with the one you’re currently using, below are some highly recommended options.
Why buy MANA?
Established in 2017, Decentraland is the most advanced and mature blockchain-based metaverse around today. It’s not a game per se, but a player-owned virtual world and decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO), meaning that the participants between them decide on Decentraland’s future.
This is where MANA comes in. By holding the token, players are not only able to buy things, they also have voting power within the metaverse depending on how much MANA they own. The more MANA held by an individual or collective, the greater their voting power.
Landowners, that is, people who have bought virtual real estate in Decentraland, also have voting rights. Still, MANA is the economy's primary fuel, enabling users to buy said 'land' and trade NFTs, wearable goods, and other in-world digital assets.
Decentraland is constantly evolving with new areas and venues in development. Exploration takes place by way of coordinates. This includes a teleport function that allows users to quickly get where they need to go. Each coordinate can generate a URL. So if you want to invite a friend to a seat next to you at the poker table, just give them the coordinates as a URL, and they can be there the time it takes to click on it.
To customise their avatar’s look in Decentraland, users can also invest in a new wardrobe. Each item of clothing, footwear or accessory has registered, verified ownership on the blockchain with its value denominated in MANA. These NFTs are stored in the user’s NFT backpack and can be used or traded with other people in the metaverse via their wallet.
Already, big brand companies are setting up headquarters in Decentraland. These include Atari, Tominoya Casino, Metazoo International Club Nights, Vegas Plaza and many more.
If you’d like to try out Decentraland, it’s free to explore, but if you want to become a serious player in the metaverse, load up your wallet with MANA tokens first.
Where to store your MANA
You can store your MANA in a non-custodial wallet. Although this is safer than keeping it on an cryptocurrency exchange, it still isn’t bullet-proof. To keep your MANA tokens completely safe, the best option is a hardware wallet. Below are two battle-tested options that hold the top slots in the hardware crypto wallet market.