This article records the two methods available at the time for buying a parcel in Decentraland.
There were two ways to buy a parcel in Decentraland: purchase through the Decentraland Marketplace or use a third-party platform such as OpenSea.
Here are a few terms used across the Decentraland platform:
LAND
The presence of Land makes Decentraland one of a kind from other virtual world projects. All of the spaces available within the Decentraland ecosystem (excluding roads and plazas owned by developers only) are called Land. Users are allowed to buy, sell, and even develop Land. You can think of it as virtual properties whose ownership and transactions are documented on the Ethereum blockchain.
Parcels
Every single Land is divided into parcels measured to be 16x16m (identified by x,y co-ordinates) in size and approximately 90,000 in quantity. Landowners can control the arrangement and the type of content to use on their parcels of Land. Parcels are non-fungible tokens (ERC-721) that are always unique and cannot be replicated.
MANA
Parcels can be bought in the Decentraland marketplace using MANA, the native cryptocurrency supported by this ecosystem. MANA is an ERC-20 token and has many functions, but mainly as the go-to currency to purchase stuff like Avatars, Lands, Wearable, and other in-game items. But remember that its supply continues to reduce with every activity on the platform. The current MANA supply is 1.6 billion.
Related analysis:
Can Decentraland (MANA) reach $100?
How To Buy Parcels of Land in Decentraland: Step By Step
The direct marketplace process at the time followed these steps:
Step One:
At publication, the Decentraland marketplace listed “Parcels” under the “Land” category and required a registered account.
Step Two:
Selecting a parcel opened its "Atlas view", which included its MANA price, owner’s name, availability, coordinates, and a “Jump In” option for a bird’s-eye view.
Step Three:
Purchasing required connecting an Ethereum wallet such as MetaMask. The wallet address represented the marketplace account, so no additional login was required.
Note: Purchases via Decentraland Marketplace incurred a gas fee paid in Ether.
The Other Way To Buy Parcels In Decentraland:
The second approach used a third-party marketplace such as OpenSea, which listed NFT collectibles including Decentraland LAND.
Step One:
OpenSea also listed Decentraland parcels priced in MANA or Ether.
Step Two:
Buying a Decentraland parcel through OpenSea required a marketplace account connected to a wallet.
Step Three:
Once the account was connected to a funded wallet, OpenSea's filters displayed the available Decentraland listings.
Step Four:
Selecting “Buy Now” redirected the buyer to the connected wallet to review and finalize the transaction. Upon completion, the parcel was sent to that wallet.
Bonus Step One:
Transaction details for a completed purchase could be reviewed through the Etherscan blockchain explorer.
Bonus Step Two:
With a MetaMask wallet connected to OpenSea, “View on Etherscan” showed the purchase details. NFT sales information appeared under the “Internal Txns” tab.
Which Of Them Is The Best Way To buy parcel In Decentraland?
The Decentraland marketplace showed details such as adjacent areas and proximity to popular locations. OpenSea showed the parcel on a Decentraland map but offered less descriptive detail.
I preferred the Decentraland marketplace because it exposed more location context for each parcel.