Decentraland 2022 Recap | Decentraland

2022 has been a full and exciting year for Decentraland. Not only did the platform grow in a variety of ways—new in-world content, new features, new tools, and much more—but the spectacular Decentraland community grew and contributed to the platform as well. In 2022, Decentralites were further empowered, created tons of new content from Emotes to experiences, and some DCL citizens even launched amazing projects to benefit both the platform and community with the support of DAO grants. All of these developments and achievements, from both the platform and community perspective, should be celebrated. Let’s take a look back at 2022 in Decentraland!

Decentraland defined—a public good

As Decentraland has continued to grow throughout 2022—celebrating wins and weathering controversies—the identity and mission of the platform, as well as what sets it apart from other Web3 platforms, became clearer than ever. Decentraland is a virtual social world and the only decentralized, open source Web3 platform that’s being built in the open and with the intention of being a public good. Anyone can contribute to it, it’s owned and governed by its users via the Decentraland DAO, which powers the platform, and is supported by the nonprofit Decentraland Foundation that works to grow and nourish both the platform and its community.

Decentraland members are not a product by which to measure success and Decentraland is not monetized by selling user data or pushing NFTs. In fact, the lack of true monetization is what makes Decentraland such an exciting place of potential and freedom and allows it to serve as a public good. Rather than anyone thinking, ‘How can Decentraland make money?’ the question asked behind the scenes of Decentraland is ‘How can Decentraland offer even more to its community?’

For example, Decentraland’s Marketplace is a space where any creator can publish and sell their content (Wearables and Emotes). Not only is Decentraland the only platform where user generated content is community curated, but it also enables creators to take home 97.5% of their revenue, more than any other platform, and even has a royalties system in place. The 2.5% of all transactions that are collected in the Marketplace, and the closest form of monetization the platform engages in, goes to Decentraland’s DAO, the community governance system, and besides being used to help run the platform, much of it is put back into Decentraland’s community in the form of grants that anyone can apply for.

‘Can’t Be Evil’ was the motto of Decentraland’s 2022 Manifesto. Going hand in hand with serving as a public good and monetization not being a goal, Decentraland’s true decentralization is something that doubtlessly sets it apart from other Web3 platforms and ensures the motto is truth. Decentraland’s code is open source, anyone can extend the capabilities of the platform, audit it, contribute to it, or run a server, and all ownership data is on the Ethereum or Polygon blockchains.

At this point in time, Decentraland is the best positioned decentralized virtual world to realistically survive the main organization behind it. A virtual world shouldn’t be owned by any single corporation, but rather be built as an open protocol owned by its users. Being decentralized, Decentraland is not controlled by any one entity, can’t be self-interested, and it is free to grow and develop in the way that best suits its community.

To best summarize how Decentraland was defined in 2022, we’ll highlight its mission statement released only a few months ago:

Decentraland’s goal is to be a fun and entertaining platform with a thriving community that educates and onboards people to the philosophies and tech of Web3 while empowering Creators in the hope that, when the masses realize why decentralization is important, a viable option will be available and the next iteration of the internet won’t be monopolized by a handful of corporations.

How Decentraland’s grown in 2022

New ways to use Decentraland

The PC client was released in April, followed by the MacOS client in August, with 161k downloads to date.
Decentraland is now also available on VR, thanks to work done by a DAO grantee. You can learn more about the VR beta here.
Linux platform support is still on hold while feedback is gathered from the Windows and MacOS clients. At the same time, opportunities are still being assessed with external partners to work on a mobile companion app
A dynamic bird’s-eye view of Genesis City was created by DAO grantees as well.

Personalizing your Avatar

Linked Wearables are a big step towards metaverse interoperability with the first Linked Wearables collection launched in June. Currently there are 20k Linked Wearables available across 12 different collections in Decentraland.
A new Wearable category was added, Skins, for outfits from head to toe.
RGB Hair/Eye Color update came out in May, allowing your avatar to have whatever eye and hair color you choose.

Protocol and SDK Enhancements

SDK7 has been announced with lots planned for it and will be out soon!
The first version of the Decentraland Editor was shipped in December and will ultimately make creating experiences in Decentraland more efficient and accessible to even those without coding skills.
Just before the end of 2022, Worlds, personal virtual spaces separate from Genesis City available to anyone with a Decentraland NAME, launched in beta serving as a brand new outlet of creativity for Decentralites. 91 Worlds deployed so far!
The Foundation introduced weekly Technical AMAs for more transparency and knowledge sharing.
The Decentraland Status page was launched in October to show platform metrics
The Awesome Repository has had even more useful content added as new models and features were created through all of 2022’s amazing events!

Content, Events, and Activities

2022 was big in terms of events for Decentraland. There were hugely popular events like Metaverse Fashion Week, tens of conferences and trade shows, hundreds of partnership events—2800 unique events in total!
Incubator programs were launched to support both creators and game studios.
Platform-wide events like Fashion Week, Pride Month, Art Week, Metaverse Music Festival, and many more events from the community made headlines all year long.
Community contests like the Film Club, Game Jam, Music Festival Emote, and Ugly Sweater competition provided excitement for the community throughout the year.

Marketplace Updates: Empowering the Creator Economy

NFT Emotes were showcased in March during MVFW when the whole Emote UI was streamlined, and were launched officially to the community in September. So far 22.7k have been minted.
LAND Rentals launched in December. There are already 260 listings so far with 29 rental agreements made.
Rankings and Metrics dashboards showing sales statistics and trending items were added to the Marketplace’s main page.
The My Store section was added to help users manage their items and manage their personal brand.
The option to make an offer for Marketplace Items on the Polygon network became possible.
MANA can now be purchased directly in the Marketplace via Transak and Moonpay.
Creator Royalties were introduced in January, and 755 creators have received royalties so far totaling 6.5k MANA.

In-World Updates

In one year, 47k scenes were deployed by the community and Foundation.
Regular in-world experience improvements have been released throughout the year. You can see the changelogs on Discord.
A new chat feature, Channels, launched in November with over 12k messages sent so far. It allows Decentralites to communicate regardless of where they are in Decentraland.

Decentraland’s 2022 in numbers

2.7M NFTs Minted (+440% YOY)
1M Unique Active Users (+12.9% YOY)
161k Desktop Client Downloads
143.9k Wearables Sold (+510% YOY)
47.4k Scenes deployed with Decentraland’s SDK (+696% YOY)
22.7k Minted Emotes
2.8k Events Created (+169% YOY)
755 Creators that received royalties
200+ Partners onboarded

Decentraland’s DAO in 2022

3 Core Units and 1 Strategic Unit were created with a total of 17 people currently working on them (GovSquad, Grant Support Squad (GSS), Facilitation Squad & Metaverse Studios)
2.4M VP per proposal (+375% YoY)
1.1k DAO Proposals (+95% YoY)
18M Delegated VP (+450% YoY)
100 Grants approved for a grand total of $6.2M ($600k were recovered by the GSS)
DAO Weekly newsletter and monthly Creator’s Highlights started going out
Full revamp of the Governance dApp
~921k in MANA fees went to the DAO (1.6M USD) to support Decentraland and fund grants

Decentraland Highlights Month to Month

January

The first big event that kicked off 2022 in Decentraland was the Australian Open
Samsung 837x launched their metaverse HQ in Decentraland
Creators started receiving royalties for their Wearable and later Emote creations
Bids on Polygon
User stores