You read that right! It is now possible for external NFT collections to be represented in Decentraland as Linked Wearables. The age of interoperability in Decentraland has begun!
The Linked Wearables feature was first added to Decentraland back in April as a result of a DAO proposal, and was announced via this tutorial. Linked Wearables are 3D representations of NFTs that originate from outside Decentraland and can be used as Wearables in-world. They are not regular Wearables however. They do not exist inside traditional Wearable collections, they have no rarity, and cannot be sold on the primary or secondary Decentraland market. They are simply in-world representations mapped to external NFTs.
What makes this new feature so exciting is that there are many benefits to having an external NFT collection brought into Decentraland as Linked Wearables. Some of the pluses for both the NFT collection’s community and the NFT project itself are:
- Increased usability: NFT owners get to actually wear their NFTs and show them off in Decentraland
- Adds a social aspect and sense of belonging to ownership: NFT owners can meet with other members of their NFT community in person and socialize
- A ready-made community platform: Decentraland can serve as a platform to host community events or even be the location of an HQ
- Helps your project grow: With an average of 500k monthly users, having your collection in Decentraland will naturally result in the increased awareness of an NFT collection which could result in further opportunities and growth
Our very own Nico Rajco, dApps Product Manager at the Decentraland Foundation and a leading force in getting the new feature implemented, had this to say about the process:
“Being involved in Linked Wearables as part of the Foundation team was incredible. I got to experience first hand one of the earliest experiments toward interoperability between NFT projects, the true future of the metaverse. Linked Wearables are exciting in so many ways as they give added utility to the holders of all kinds of NFTs, and bring new communities to Decentraland. There are already many more Third Parties getting involved to bring in their collections as Linked Wearables, so this is just the beginning!”
With a big community eager to dive into the possibilities of Linked Wearables, the Satoshiverse collection was the first to make it through the Linked Wearables curation process. We took a minute to sit down with one of their co-founders, Nick, to discuss why they decided to pioneer the feature. Here are some highlights:
DCL: Why did you want to create a Linked Wearables collection in Decentraland?
Nick: When first I heard about Linked wearables, I was really excited because it was something that combined all of my passions with what I had done leading up to joining Decentraland as well as with what we were then doing with Satoshiverse. We thought that creating Linked Wearables of our collection would be a really great way of getting our community, who may not know about Decentraland or may not have ever been in Decentraland before, on the platform. This would give them a way of interacting with each other and doing so in a way that they could relate to their NFT avatars in a way that they couldn’t before, which I think is really cool.
What is the upside and utility of Linked Wearables for your community?
Nick: I think the main upside and utility for our community are the social components that Linked Wearables offer. I like that now, having one of our NFTs allows a person to go into Decentraland and feel like they are their Legionnaire within Decentraland. They can actually wear their suit and walk around in it! But I think the further utility of the feature is the future potential of hosting events for our community in Decentraland. We’re building a headquarters in Decentraland that’s going to hopefully have streaming and music and all this other cool stuff so that our community can get together and mingle with each other within Decentraland and really start to take part in these exciting metaverse events. This could be the first step towards interoperability.
DCL: How do you see this evolving and what are your plans for the Satoshiverse in Decentraland?
Nick: From an interoperability standpoint, we do want to work with all these different metaverse platforms more and build tools that allow our community members to come in in different ways. With Decentraland specifically being probably the largest web-based, decentralized blockchain-based metaverse, I think it is a great opportunity for people to have a much more accessible touch point to the Satoshiverse. They can still have their connected wallet and use their Legionnaires in one way or another, but do so within this environment.
DCL: What do you hope will come from your Linked Wearables collection?
Nick: I think for me, the most exciting thing about these Linked Wearables is that they’re going to be an opportunity for people to really get in-world, talk to each other and hang out. I hope that other people see how cool these Linked Wearables are, and that they become interested in learning more about our project if they’re not directly involved or not part of our community yet. I hope that our Linked Wearables and the headquarters we’re building in Decentraland will be good exposure for us and a kind of beginning to everything we’re building in the Satoshiverse. Ultimately, my hope is that we’ll provide additional ways for our community to engage and welcome in some new community members through the collection.
Watch the whole interview in the video below:
Are you excited about Linked Wearables? Learn everything you need to know to take your external NFT collection through the Linked Wearables process here