The team behind the well-known blockchain-based metaverse, Decentraland, have published a 2023 recap report in which they not only look back at everything accomplished throughout the last year, but also give us a glimpse at some of the updates and events they’re planning on making a reality during this year. 

2024 Updates 

For this year, the developers have revealed some of the product and platform updates they plan on introducing. These include updates to the Web and Desktop (Windows & MacOS) clients, as well as improvements to the official Marketplace, the Web Editor, and SDK 7. 

When it comes to the Desktop Client, the Decentraland Foundation will look to create a new client featuring better performance in order to provide a stable experience that is ready for “the growth of Decentraland and future developments.” There will also be a new authentication dApp designed to bring transactions/signatures, login and sign-in functions into one place. This means you will have both Web3 and social login options here, and the dApp will also be “available for any other Clients to authenticate users with their Decentraland account,” thus providing better UX, security and scalability. Speaking of social logins, that’s right; new users will have an option to login using Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, Discord and more with the introduction of the new dApp, with the social login options getting added for both the web and Desktop Client, making this virtual world more accessible than ever before. 

As for the Web version in partiular, the Foundation is looking to introduce avatar creation, making it easier for new users to hop in and customize their avatar from their browser. This system won't have all of the functions as the client does, as this one will let users choose from a set of premade avatars followed by their NAME before hopping into the metaverse in Genesis City.  

The 2 NPCs in Genesis Plaza designed to welcome you to this platform will be improved to help newcomers better get to grips with everything Decentraland has to offer. 

Upcoming Events

For all upcoming key events, the Foundation states that there will be an open call for each in order to invite creators from the community to submit their proposals should they want to participate and get a funded event artist slot that will let you build your own experience for the event. 

Two events have been announced for this year: the Decentraland Wellness Week and Decentraland Art Week. The first will take place this month, from January 24th to the 26th, while the second one will take place from March 26th to March 28th. Next to these events, the developers will look to attend variosu IRL events, starting off with the Game Developers Conference (GDC), which is set to take place in San Francisco during March. 

The Decentraland Ambassador Program is set to officially start early this year, “so be on the lookout for local events across the globe!” 

Full info on what else is ahead alongside a recap of the previous year is available in the report linked in the official tweet. 

Last month, Decentraland partnered with Squid and the Axelar Network to introduce multi-chain purchasing to their marketplace.