Get started

Manacoin

Decentraland (MANA) Launches its Desktop Client. How is it?Decentraland recently released its beta version of the desktop client - how does it look in its current state? From egamers.io: "Players will now experience performance enhancement upgrades with cleaner graphics, faster processing speeds, and improved stability by adding the client’s option. The client is only available for Windows in beta, with the developers welcome any feedback while more operating systems will come shortly." egamers.io The client allows for faster processing speeds, lower loading times, and opens up bigger possibilities for content creators to do things on the metaverse in ways that were previously not possible on browser-based platforms.
Long
by RyanTanaka
Why is Decentraland the Metaverse of Choice for Businesses?The metaverse market as a whole has been down for the last 3 months as we plod through this crypto "winter" - though it's worth noting that Decentraland is slowly closing the gap to Sandbox after its surge last year. But one trend in particular here sticks out -- the emergence of Decentral Games ($DG) coin, which is a project that focuses on casino-style gambling games that are playable directly on the metaverse. In a way it's not surprising -- if you've been on Decentraland lately you might have noticed something: the majority of traffic on the platform right now is clustered near two types of locations -- play-to-earn games (Wunderland, etc.) and casinos run by organizations like Decentral Games. DG is a coin that went all-in on Decentraland's future -- it named itself after the platform it built itself on, even. We've heard many well-known companies jumping into the metaverse but Decentraland seems to be metaverse of choice above all others. Why? After looking into the details of the more popular metaverse projects (Decentraland, The Sandbox, Cryptovoxels, Somnium Space...even platforms like Roblox or Meta) the one thing that makes MANA stand out is the fact that it's the most decentralized platform out of all of its competitors, and its governed by its own DAO in a transparent way. governance.decentraland.org While there may be many who might oppose DG on principle (taking an anti-gambling stance), DG coin is, too, run by a DAO as well. decentral.games We may not see the influx of money going into MANA until the next fiscal year, but the fact that the big companies (including JP Morgan who recently opened its "Onyx Lounge" in Decentraland recently) are going there is easily noticeable -- why? Companies that are planning on operating businesses inside the metaverse seek a platform that maintains its neutrality and largely stays out of its way. The other projects are all run by companies or teams with centralized control in the background - for businesses that have done its due-diligence, a truly decentralized platform is the only option that makes any sort of sense. Following the lead of DG, a lot of companies are hoping to create commerce layers on top of Decentraland to drive more traffic to its worlds, long-term. In a way, these trends is a validation of the decentralized model, since it encourages other projects to follow the success of the DAO model as a whole. Projects that are currently centralized may find itself being left behind long-term, as the partnerships and resources required to make Web3 models work migrate towards better (neutral) waters as a whole.
Editors' picks
Long
by RyanTanaka
29
Will the Fed's Interest Rate Hikes Be Good or Bad for Crypto?It's probably going to be a tough market in the short term, but the interest rate hikes of 22' is exactly what the economy needs right now. Reducing access to cheap loans should curb the frenzied markets, at least somewhat. (Though given how low the rates are projected to be, probably not enough.) What does this mean for crypto? Well, that's the big question everyone is asking now. They said that Evergrande and cryptocurrency would go down together, but that didn't turn out to be the case. Will the same happen to USD? In a way, 22' is going to be a big test for how resilient the USD really is. Politics has been warping the numbers lately but inflation is the lie detector that will reveal the truth about the US economy. American Exceptionalism? Or will it follow the same pattern China did? Time will tell. (If you're a crypto supporter like me, you're hoping for the latter, of course.)
Long
by RyanTanaka
Royalties, The Hidden Gold Mine in CryptoDecentraland (MANA) has recently added royalties payments to their wearables market -- it might seem like a small thing right now, but testing out economies in "for fun", low-risk products like avatars pave the way towards more serious applications like NFTs, copyright, and asset markets later on. Right now, the crypto community is still unlearning the bad habits of Web 2, which is one-off NFT sales boosted by marketing and/or celebrity status in exchange for short-term gains. But that is not where the real money is -- the combined amount of the small business communities will outshine any of the current projects a 100x (literally) if they can get the ecosystem running correctly. The secret to crypto mainstream adoption is figuring out how partnership/distribution deals can be automated in a fair, clear way and the ones that figure it out will take the whole pie, imo. Also a reminder that fair royalty deals usually work in favor of small businesses, which is 99% of the market. More detailed post, here: mirror.xyz
Long
by RyanTanaka
Royalties, The Hidden Gold Mine in CryptoDecentraland (MANA) has recently added royalties payments to their wearables market -- it might seem like a small thing right now, but testing out economies in "for fun", low-risk products like avatars pave the way towards more serious applications like NFTs, copyright, and asset markets later on. Right now, the crypto community is still unlearning the bad habits of Web 2, which is one-off NFT sales boosted by marketing and/or celebrity status in exchange for short-term gains. But that is not where the real money is -- the combined amount of the small business communities will outshine any of the current projects a 100x (literally) if they can get the ecosystem running correctly. The secret to crypto mainstream adoption is figuring out how partnership/distribution deals can be automated in a fair, clear way and the ones that figure it out will take the whole pie, imo. More detailed post, here: mirror.xyz
Long
by RyanTanaka
Virtual vs Real Estate (Inflation, Real-Estate, and Government)Gavin Newsom has been bragging about CA's $31B surplus this year but we know that the state has been struggling for a while now. A locked-down economy and people/jobs leaving the state will kind of do that. CA owes the Feds $21B in unemployment debt, btw. www.sacbee.com Looking at the budget closer, you'll see that they gave educational institutions a modest increase (not enough to off set the damage COVID regulations they made them follow, of course) while most essential services are actually getting massive cuts. www.ebudget.ca.gov That 66% cut in environmental protections is pretty much a slap to the face to environmentalists everywhere. (Maybe that had something to do with why Newsom "disappeared" during the climate summit last year.😂) But Big Pharma and corporate tax cuts are doing great, at least. If budgets could give the middle finger to taxpayers, this is probably as big as a flip as you could get. We had the chance to get rid of Newsom last year so guess he felt emboldened enough to double-down on the abuse. But it is what it is, I suppose. Kind of too late, now. Note that despite Newsom's claims of economic recovery, we see a huge increase in labor dev funds, for reasons that should be pretty obvious by now. They know people are leaving and employers aren't hiring so something needs to be done but they can't be honest about it. Big picture, is this really about COVID, California's labor market, or is it the beginning of the 4th Industrial Revolution, as Andrew Yang and the #YangGang forewarned? "Supply chain issues" may be masking the reality that a lot of those jobs aren't simply coming back, at all. And it seems fitting that the day this comes out, we see Jerome Powell starting to look panicked about #inflation after a year of denying that it ever existed. Deer caught in the headlights, really. It's obvious that they really have no idea what they're doing at this point. Either way, we have government loaning each other money with the Feds just printing more money to keep the states afloat on their unsustainable path. It's a house of cards ready to come crumbling down, and it's going to trickle down all the way to state and local budgets, too. Lots of people probably thought I was crazy to double-down on #crypto during these times but the more I read about this stuff I feel better about the path I took. I often feel like an outsider to traditional financial institutions but maybe that's not a bad thing, after all. There's going to be a lot of people who claim that the sky is falling but that happens at every downturn so take it with a grain of salt. But it's not all bad -- some sectors will do well so the best thing people can do is to stay focused on areas of growth. 📈 What are those areas? Crypto, #NFTs, software in general, and service sector industries that aren't beholden to supply chain issues and can adapt to new economic landscapes very quickly. The #metaverse will adjust to inflation much better than real-estate, for sure. We're due for a market correction in the USD at any given moment, anyway. Long-term, it'll be a good thing, though, since all the FOMO in Wall Street and the government has created a monster that's out of control. A crash will fix a lot of that by removing the $$. Either way, good luck, folks. Been saying a while that the next few years is going to be a roller-coaster so I hope people are prepared for anything to happen. The smarter ones have seen the writing on the wall and are planning accordingly already. 🧐
Long
by RyanTanaka
Bucking the Trend - Why DYOR is the Best During Bear MarketsThe recent downturn in the crypto market has people feeling down, but here's why bear markets are actually the best times to DYOR. Projects (especially smaller ones) that "bounce back" during downturns (even if it doesn't immediately get back to its ATH) is usually an indicator of resilience and project viability. It's easy to get caught up in the FOMO and the hype, but long-term traders make money by mitigating downturns, rather than trying to time the market during its rise.
Long
by RyanTanaka
Is the Metaverse a Hedge for Inflation? (ft. Dogecoin) A little while ago I argued that virtual estate and real estate were inversely correlated -- as seen in the Evergrande example in China where Evergrande stock and MANA coin criss-crossed each other in terms of its ROI. It's yet to be seen how this will play out in the US real estate market but it seems likely that we'll start to see similar patterns emerge as time goes on. The US market may take longer to unravel since it's a bigger apparatus with a lot more moving parts -- talking about it in a coherent way in itself is often a challenge. But there's been a shift in tone from both DC and the media in regards to inflation in the last week, which may be a sign that things are starting to move forward. There's basically two different scenarios that could play out in the current US economy's trajectory -- hyperinflation, or an economic slowdown brought on by the Federal Reserve after they increase interest rates significantly. (Right now the former scenario seems more likely, but that's TBD.) Either way, crypto will probably end up doing well. More details in the video itself. Also as an aside, I also argued that Dogecoin could be an inflation hedge against the crypto market itself. We saw a weird blip this week where the coin pushed itself upwards a little bit, running counter to all of the other coins out there. Will this trend continue? We'll have to wait and see.
COINBASE:MANAUSD
by RyanTanaka
2