This Is Why Decentraland (MANA) Is Taking Off Right Now

If you’re looking for out of the box blockchain application ideas, you can’t get better than Decentraland (MANA). This virtual real estate startup made waves when it hit markets with what can only be described as the most successful, failed ICO ever and has since developed an incredibly strong following among a whole spectrum of sector enthusiasts – gamers, cryptocurrency users and investors, real estate developers, and more.

MANA Daily Chart

Over the last 24 hours, this enthusiasm has ramped up and the company’s underlying token – the MANA – has gained close to 200% versus the US dollar. MANA tokens now go for just over $0.10 a piece and command a market capitalization of more than $230 million. Volume during the last 24 hours alone came in at more than $160 million, or 10,000 BTC.

So what’s driving the run and is there more of the same to come?

Let’s take a look.

For anyone that’s not yet familiar with Decentraland or MANA, the company is – as mentioned – a virtual real estate company that’s created a virtual world built on blockchain technology.

It’s then sold various chunks of land in the virtual world (as measured by pixel size) to investors. MANA is the currency that’s going to be used in the virtual world and participants in the ICO (who received MANA in return for their investment) can either use the MANA they own to buy virtual plots of land or can hold onto the MANA in anticipation of its value increasing in line with company growth.

So why is there demand for some real estate that a company has just created out of thin air?

Well, the idea is that this ecosystem can grow to become something like Minecraft, the hugely popular virtual world type game that Microsoft bought back in 2014 for $2.5 billion. There are numerous examples of areas of Minecraft that would benefit from a decentralized base and –

By amassing land holdings in this platform now, the idea is that they will become more valuable over time (in the same way that they might in the real world) based on the concept of limited supply.

That’s the idea, at least.

So what’s driving the action now?

The company is about to hold an event that it called Terraform, which is basically a huge auction for large pockets of land in the Decentraland world. In order to take part in Terraform (and by that we mean in order to bid on the land that’s being sold as part of the event) a bidder has to bid with MANA.

The reason we are seeing such a dramatic rise in price right now, then, is that we are seeing so many people buy MANA in anticipation of being able to use it to purchase land at the event.

So what happens next?

Now it’s all about what happens at Terraform. If the event proves popular (and the huge uptick in MANA purchases that we are seeing right now suggest that it’s going to be) then it’s going to really get this token (and the company behind it) on the map – for want of a better phrase.

This, in turn, is going to attract more speculative traders and investors towards the company and its token which, by proxy, will serve to compound the upside action that we are seeing right now and push the price of MANA further heading into the close of 2017.

Bottom line here is that this is an incredibly interesting concept and one for which we are now seeing there exists large market interest. This makes MANA a token to watch going forward.

We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest on MANA, sign up below!

Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency.

Image courtesy of decentraland.org