- Metaverse platform Decentraland has introduced a new feature allowing virtual landowners to become landlords
- Rented land can be an entire estate or a parcel
- If rented, landlords can’t sell the land until the end of the rental period
Metaverse platform Decentraland has launched a new feature that allows virtual landowners to earn passive income by renting out their land. The renting process is powered by the platform’s native token, MANA, which is paid as a lump sum before officially being recognized as a tenant, while landlords cannot receive selling bids until the rental period is over.
Off-chain Signatures, On-chain Transactions
According to Decentraland, landowners with idle space can give learning institutions the space to build classes, in a process governed by a trustless system that employs multiple signatures. While the signatures are stored off-chain, landlord-tenant transactions are recorded on-chain on the Ethereum blockchain.
Decentraland allows landowners to set how much they need for the plot per day, the period of time they’d like to delegate operation rights, and how long the land is open for renting after which it’s removed from the rental marketplace. Although the land is locked from selling when it has an active rent contract, the landowner maintains voting rights.
Tenants Keep Operator Rights
However, once the renting period is over, “operator permissions are not transferred automatically back to the land owner,” meaning the landowner must claim their property back through a transaction that attracts gas fees.
Those looking to continue keeping the land open for new tenants can choose to list their property again for renting, a process that doesn’t incur gas fees but the previous tenant keeps operator rights “until a new tenant confirms a new rent.”
Decentraland’s move comes even as the term metaverse continues to gain attention to become Oxford’s word of the year runner-up. The virtual world also continues to be among the main gateways to the Web 3.0 world.
