Drama in Decentraland

Drama in Decentraland

Read time: 3 mins 21 secs

This is a weekly newsletter brought to you by a former fashion editor, aka me, Lina. I will particularly cover digital wearables and their role in the gaming and fashion industry.

The Wearables Daily will feature and acknowledge all industry talents and tell their stories.

INTRODUCTION

This week (Oct 5 - Oct 10) the Metaverse keyword reached its peak by hitting 100 points on Google Trends. What happened?

(Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. A score of 0 means there was not enough data for this term.)

IS DECENTRALAND DEAD?

Well, the answer is NO! This week, Coindesk released an article with DappRadar's data, stating that metaverse platforms Decentraland and The Sandbox each have fewer than 1,000 "daily active" users, despite $1 billion valuations. This statement got a sudden reaction from the Decentraland community, which was not good. In traditional media, little trust is established in the Decentraland residents, and this stunt certainly didn't help.

The biggest confusion that escalated through other media outlets was about DappRadar's definition of daily active users. They counted the activity of users interacting with a contract inside the platform. A misleading statement tells the story about how many transactions are at a particular time frame but not how many actual users are logged in to the platform. Decentraland stated that there were more than 56K active users in September. The Decentraland Foundation definition of an active user is people who log in and then move out of a parcel.

I have to say, this topic was the hottest this week in all Discord channels and Twitter. People were angry, disappointed, and felt misunderstood. These emotions show the Decentraland community's great dedication to making this platform succeed because they sure do rely on it as their own. They showed interest in re-writing the story and actively invited Coindesk to visit Decentraland and see the reality of it. And they succeeded! Coindesk visited the platform, and later, DappRadar adjusted its wording, and a new article was born.

SHORT INTERVIEW

Canessa

Decentraland Metaverse citizen since 2019, Community Builder, NFT/Digital Fashion collector

How Decentraland looked like when you first came here?

I came to Decentraland right after the second land auction, so… there was no Decentraland. We wouldn't be able to walk in the world for another 11 months… during the launch of 2020. So back then, the only thing you could do was build. I had visions of what I thought Decentraland "might" look like, but there was no way to really know. We hadn't seen any prototypes of the avatars yet, and there was not a single mention of wearable NFTs for your avatar.

How did fashion and digital wearables evolve since then?

With the emphasis in the early days being on building your land in the Metaverse, fashion and wearables came second. Those early wearables were very experimental… and you can really see that in their design and overall aesthetic. Compared to today's high fashion, they are extremely simplistic and probably very often overlooked. But I believe each wearable tells a story of the evolution of Decentraland. Because these early wearables were minted on the Ethereum blockchain, I'm also curious to see how their token will have utility over time. Will they have utility in other Ethereum-based creations?

How do you see the future of fashion in Decentraland? 

I think creators will continue to push the boundaries of what can be created in Decentraland. I think large fashion brands will continue to enter the space, but in my opinion, high couture brands do not equal high value in the Metaverse. I think that honor will be reserved for fashion that tells a story, whether because of the artist who created it or the period of time it represents. My favorite wearable is a simple t-shirt, the one I got on Launch Day. There's nothing spectacular about it except that it represents the first day I could walk in the Metaverse that I would someday help build. The story our wearables tell is so much more than fashion. It's the story of our home: Decentraland.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY IN DECENTRALAND MARKETPLACE

Welcome to the curated place, where I will list the newest and the finest wearables published by Decentraland creators. Let's all take a moment and appreciate the most fashionable items this week.

WEARABLES

#1 Cherub Wings by Refraction

https://market.decentraland.org/contracts/0x183a4abb4350af37cb554f827333d623fdd4b053/items/0

#2 FMF365 Halloween - Devil Costume by VirtualDan

https://market.decentraland.org/contracts/0x005d4450035a8deca37b969bd858da6f15ea21dd/items/4

#3 Panther SUIT & MANA Watch ~RGB~ by ARMANNFT

https://market.decentraland.org/contracts/0x5735a03afd72acfd88cc2a3230c0bc55405b032f/items/0

CHARTS OF THE WEEK

Wearables creators by total volume of sales in the past 7 days, Decentraland

#1 metamoves #2 MewCo #3 Doki #4 Refraction

INTERESTING AND WORTH CHECKING

#1 FTX Crypto Visa Card to Compete With Mastercard

#2 Listen to my Twitter Space with CKbubbles

#3 Listen me talk on Michi Todd's Twitter Space in a few hours

Disclaimer: I have to say this - this is not financial advice! 🙈

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