$26 Million: Blockchain VR Project Decentraland Raises New Funding in ICO

A virtual reality project built on top of blockchain technology has raised over $26 million in ether via an initial coin offering (ICO).

Decentraland, as previously reported by CoinDesk, is looking to create a virtual world, in which blockchain acts as a registry for digital plots of land. Among those involved is developer Manuel Aráoz, who also built the bitcoin document timestamping tool Proof of Existence.

Kicking off yesterday afternoon, the ICO raised 86,206 ether ($26,203,082 at press time), according to the Decentraland website, and hit its pre-set hard cap in a little over an hour.

The speed with which the raise was completed evoked memories of the Brave sale in May, which concluded in an astonishing 30 seconds. Perceptions that, as a result, the tokens sold will have ended up in the hands of a few bigger investors stoked some criticism on social media.

Decentraland's ICO is the latest in a string of such crowdsales, as illustrated by data from CoinDesk's ICO Tracker, that have raised more than a billion dollars-worth of cryptocurrency to date. More than $500 million was raised in July alone through the funding model.

Also completed this week, was an ICO held by 0x, a decentralized exchange project, which raised $24 million.

Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Brave.

VR set image via Shutterstock