The original creators of Decentraland are Ari Meilich and Esteban Ordano. Upon its original creation in 2015, Decentraland was a proof-of-concept for assigning digital real estate ownership to blockchain users. Before evolving into a 3D virtual world, the digital property was implemented as a pixel in an infinite 2D grid. The initial creation of Decentraland was called the “Stone Age of the Decentralised.” By the end of 2016, Decentraland was developed into a 3D virtual world divided into plots. This version of Decentraland is called the Bronze Age.
The next version of Decentraland, the Iron Age, offers a social experience with an economy driven by the levels of land ownership and distribution of content. In this stage of Decentraland, users can create, distribute, and monetise applications to other users.
In 2017, the Decentraland team held an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). They raised 86,206 ether (approx. 26 million USD at the time) to fund Decentraland’s future operations. In the same year, Decentraland was officially launched in beta, and the first LAND auction where developers pick prime virtual property locations was held. During this launch, developers sold virtual land within Decentraland for as little as 20 USD. Due to high demand, the Decentraland Marketplace was released in March 2018. The marketplace allows users to buy and sell lands, as well as explore virtual worlds on a map. In 2019, Decentraland unveiled customisable avatars with passports.
With the boom of NFT art in 2020 and 2021, the most desirable virtual land in Decentraland was selling for over 100,000 USD.