Decentraland is an Ethereum-based virtual world where anyone can create and explore experiences built by other users. This makes it perfect for creating an office for virtual meetings.

Creating an account in Decentraland requires a crypto wallet that will serve both as your bank account and payment method within the platform and as a sort of passport or ID. There are several crypto wallets you can choose from, some of which will let you open a business or institutional account. Considering this is a browser-based virtual world, a browser-based wallet like MetaMask is the ideal option.

Some features in this metaverse are paid, and some transactions are free but require you to pay fees to the miners in the Ethereum blockchain. This means that you’ll need to have a positive balance in your wallet to get started. If you’ve never bought cryptos before, then you’ll have to download a crypto exchange that lets you buy cryptocurrencies using your local currency or another one you have access to.

Some popular choices include Coinsmart, Coinbase and Binance. You can choose whichever you like, as long as it is compatible with your chosen wallet (most are compatible with MetaMask, but it doesn’t hurt to double-check).

Once you have your exchange account set up and linked to your wallet, you must purchase some Ether (to pay Ethereum blockchain gas fees) and some Mana (Decentraland native currency). Don’t worry about amounts for now, but you should have at least $100 worth of each, ideally 0.05 Ether and around 20 to 30 Mana.

It’s a common mistake to think of using an online trading platform to buy cryptos like Ether or Bitcoin, but those platforms don’t work like that. While you can buy and sell different cryptos on some of them, you won’t be able to transfer your crypto to a wallet to use them in the metaverse.

This is a simple account opening process. Go to the Decentraland website, click on Get Started to create an account, and you’ll be prompted to link your wallet. Once that’s out of the way, you’re ready to start customizing your avatar. There’s no need to be a perfectionist at this point. You can always go back and tweak it later.

In Decentraland, you can come in as a guest with a random guest number and explore the surroundings, but to become a true resident, you’ll need to register a unique name for your avatar in the blockchain. This process costs 10 Mana, worth around $27, as of writing this post.

As with most online games, you start in a tutorial mode to learn how to navigate and do things in Decentraland. I encourage you to complete the tutorial. It’ll make everything else clearer.

Plots of land in Decentraland are NFTs, which means they are unique digital assets you can buy and own like if you were buying a plot in a suburb. When you buy a plot of land, it’s yours for life to do what you like, including building on it.

Virtual real estate works just like real estate in the real world, only without taxes, maintenance fees, regulations and the pesky laws of physics. You can find available plots of land for sale on NFT marketplaces like Opensea. However, this virtual land is expensive, which is the single biggest entry barrier in Decentraland. Even so, it may make sense both as real estate to build your virtual office and as an investment that may capitalize over time.

If you don’t have that kind of cash lying around, you can always rent a virtual office instead.

Decentraland offers a drag and drop 3D builder that’s incredibly easy and intuitive to use. You can use free or paid 3D assets available in the builder library, but you can also create your custom 3D assets in third-party 3D modeling software and import them into the builder. This gives you the power to create a personalized space that fits in with your company image and that your coworkers and employees can easily relate to.

You can even hire specialized architects who design assets specifically for Decentraland and other metaverses.

You’ll need everyone that wants to join a meeting to create an account in Decentraland as described above. They don’t need to register their unique names, but it’s advisable.

You’re all set up. All you need to do now is schedule your next meeting and give your employees the number of your plot of land so they can get there. The rest is up to you.