Launched in 2020, Decentraland is a virtual social world, the first decentralized metaverse, and the only one that is open source. Within the Decentraland platform, which can run on a browser or desktop client, users can create, experience, and monetize content and applications as well as socialize and attend a wide range of daily, community-driven events. Decentraland is unique in that it is owned, created, and governed by the people who use it everyday. Through Decentraland's decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) users can submit and vote on proposals and even apply for grants for the community to vote on

Step 1: Choose where to enter Decentraland You can enter Decentraland via the default starting location, Genesis Plaza, by going to https://play.decentraland.org/ (If it's your first time trying out Decentraland, you'll first complete a short tutorial experience). Alternatively, you can enter Decentraland directly in your area of interest via an Event page link (just click 'Jump In' at the bottom of the event listing you're interested in) or via the Places page.

Step 2: Play Using Your Wallet or Play as a Guest When you enter Decentraland, you'll have to decide whether to do so with or without a crypto wallet. This essentially means deciding whether to create a Decentraland account (which requires connecting a crypto wallet—it doesn't have to have money in it) or to visit Decentraland as a guest. If you make an account you can permanently save your avatar for return visits, make Event listings, claim free Wearables at events, try out different Wearables & Emotes in the Marketplace, and buy your favorites. If you don't already have a crypto wallet to connect to your account, you can get one quickly and at no cost, it's as easy as signing up for a new email. Learn more here.

Step 3: Customize Your Avatar Once you enter Decentraland you'll first be asked to customize your avatar to represent the metaverse version of yourself (be whoever you want to be!). If you can't find what you're looking for in the free starter options, take a look in the Marketplace and browse community creations for the perfect outfit.

Step 4: Familiarize Yourself with the Basics & Explore After completing a quick tutorial on how to control your avatar, Decentraland is yours to explore! To change your outfit, adjust settings, see the Decentraland map, or browse through events and places of interest in-world, just click on the profile bubble showing your avatar in the top right corner. Here are some commands you'll find useful: Keyboard W-A-S-D/Arrows: Move Spacebar: Jump X: Pull up event interface M: Open map V: Third person view B: Emote options U: Remove user interface Enter: Open the chat box Chat box (Commands you type into the chat box and hit 'Enter') /goto xx,xx (e.g. /goto 47,-110): Teleports you to specific coordinates /goto crowd: Teleports you to a random busy area /help: Lists all other available commands Step 5: Have fun! You're all set. Walk around, talk to others via the chat box on the bottom left, and pop into some events!

You do not need to own cryptocurrency to enjoy Decentraland as it is free to use. If you decide to purchase a community-made creation from the Marketplace, there are multiple payment options available, such as credit/debit card and bank transfer in addition to various cryptocurrencies. As for owning a digital wallet, if you don't already have one, you don't need to get one yourself if you don't want to. When you sign-in to Decentraland for the first time—creating your account—a digital wallet will be created for you behind the scenes, it's as simple as that! This digital wallet is part of your Decentraland account and is used to store any digital assets you acquire, such as free Wearables you might claim in-world or a fun Emote you purchase in the Marketplace.

Decentraland is a world created by its users, meaning you can be a creator of everything from Wearables (this can include whole skins, articles of clothing, hair styles, accessories, etc), Emotes, entire scenes with buildings and/or landscapes, interactive experiences, and games.

Most Wearable and Emote designers use Blender to design their creations. Once complete, items are submitted for publishing in the Marketplace for a fee of $100 per item (regardless of the quantity you choose to make available), a process that involves approval by the Curation Committee. Once listed in the Marketplace, creators keep 97.5% of the proceeds from every sale of their item and earn 2.5% royalties on all secondary sales. Learn more details about creating Wearables & Emotes.

To create scenes, experiences, or games in Decentraland it is currently necessary to have some degree of coding knowledge. However, efforts are underway to make creation in Decentraland more accessible for all with updated tools and ready templates that anyone can drag and drop into place. Just about everything you might need to know about scene, experience, or game creation in Decentraland can be found on the Docs page. There you'll find step-by-step guides, video tutorials, and the Awesome Repository which has tons of templates, mechanics, animations, and much more to help you get started.

Costing just 100 MANA, the currency of Decentraland, a Decentraland NAME is essentially a unique and personalized username for your avatar that represents your virtual identity within the Decentraland ecosystem.
Getting a Decentraland NAME comes with the added bonus of granting the owner their own World, your own personal space in the metaverse, separate from the open world of Decentraland. In your World you can build, experiment, host events with up to 100 concurrent users—whatever you want, as long as your build is limited to 100 MB.

Currently, Worlds can only admit up to 100 visitors at a time and scenes are limited to 100MB whereas LAND parcels have no such limitations. If you would like to build large scenes or host big events, buying or renting renting LAND will be a better option.

Scenes and experiences deployed on LANDs in Genesis City are also more easily discovered by users as they don't need to know specific information like your NAME to visit—they can just stumble upon your scene while exploring. On the other hand, if privacy is what you're looking for, then a World might be just the thing for you.

Additionally, Worlds do not grant you the same amount of DAO Voting Power as LAND parcels. The NAME attached to your World grants you 100 Voting Power whereas 1 LAND parcel grants 2000 Voting Power.

You can contact the Decentraland Support Team via live chat or you can join the official Decentraland Discord server. Please remember that Decentraland staff will never ask you for the private key (seed phrase) to your crypto wallet. NEVER share it or your personal information on social channels.