The bill, nearing approval, has measures to prevent children from experiencing harm online.

A U.K. bill on online safety, which has measures to prevent children experiencing harm online, will apply to the metaverse, lawmakers in the upper house of Parliament agreed on Wednesday.

The Online Safety Bill, brought forward on March 17, is nearing the final stages of approval before passing into law.

The metaverse, a superset of virtual realities, has gained widespread popularity in the last few years, with social media giant Facebook even rebranding to Meta to show its commitment to developing the sector. These virtual worlds also pose a risk to child safety, some regulators have argued.

“These virtual reality experiences are very immersive and the degree of harm that can be created and indeed the degree of enjoyment can be that much more intense,” Melanie Dawes, CEO at Ofcom, the U.K.’s communications regulator said during an event in October.

Through filming and analyzing 100 visits to the most popular worlds in Meta’s flagship platform, Horizon Worlds, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate found that minors are routinely harassed.

Given the potential harm children can face in these virtual reality experiences, lawmakers in the U.K.’s House of Lords argued it was significant to ensure that the Online Safety Bill applied to the metaverse.

“The metaverse is in scope of the bill, which, as noble Lords know, has been designed to be technology neutral and future-proofed to ensure that it keeps pace with emerging technologies,” Lord Stephen Parkinson who is also a minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, said at a Wednesday debate on the bill. The department was also responsible for ushering in the Online Safety Bill.

The bill applies to “anything communicated by means of an internet service,” which includes things like objects or avatars created by users as well as interactions between users in the metaverse, Parkinson said.

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Prime Minister Fumio Kishida continued calls for Web3 technology integration.

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in a policy speech on Monday that the country’s plans for investing in digital transformation include non-fungible tokens (NFT) and metaverse services.

The country has steadily been promoting investment in digital technology, including through tax incentives for companies that embrace a digital future. In his speech to Japan’s parliament, Kishida said the country will continue to focus on “supporting the social implementation of digital technology” and will “promote efforts to expand the use of Web3 services that utilize the metaverse and NFTs.”

Japan’s federal foray into Web3 follows a trend of officials taking strides to implement Web3-related services in the country – rather than following the typical bureaucratic route that policies must often travel through. Kishida’s administration recently established a Web3 policy office under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), which is focused on creating policies for the country’s gradual blockchain expansion.

In April, a task force launched by Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party and led by politician Akihisa Shiozaki released an “NFT White Paper,” which called Web3 the “the new frontier of the digital economy” and outlined plans to advance the national strategy on Web3.

METI is also reportedly looking into a proposal to offer tax exemptions to Japanese crypto companies in order to entice them to keep their business in the country and further fuel the nation’s growing Web3 industry.

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Old Fashion Research was formed by Ling Zhang and Wayne Fu, previously Binance’s vice president of M&A and head of corporate development respectively.

A group of former executives of cryptocurrency exchange Binance have created a $100 million venture fund with a focus on the metaverse and bringing greater crypto adoption to emerging markets, Tech Crunch reported on Thursday.

Old Fashion Research was formed by Ling Zhang and Wayne Fu, previously Binance’s vice president of M&A and head of corporate development respectively.

The fund, which was backed by traditional venture capital funds, family offices and angel investors, will focus on the metaverse and crypto adoption in emerging markets like Latin America and Africa.
“We are very Southern Hemisphere-focused,” Zhang said. “We’ll go after all of the emerging markets, but it’s our goal and vision to accelerate adoption there.”

The fund has already invested in over 50 blockchain projects, including a blockchain analytics platform Nansen, trading platform WOO Network and African gaming community Metaverse Magna.
Old Fashion Research was not available for comment at the time of writing.

Despite the troubling conditions that have set in in the crypto markets in recent weeks and months, venture capital does not appear to have been overly spooked. This week Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) formed its fourth fund to invest in crypto companies worth $4.5 billion, more than double the size of its third raised nearly a year ago.

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TOMORROW conference, the biggest Crypto, NFT and Metaverse conference in Europe, finalized its spectacular debut edition held at Belgrade’s Belexpocentar, from the 13th till the 15th of May.

More than 21.000 people from the whole world have enjoyed the event at the venue and online. More than 50 speakers participated on seven exclusive panels, more than 50 keynotes and numerous interactive discussions and workshops from the Crypto, NFT and Metaverse spheres. Leading global experts presented the exclusive information about the blockchain, cryptocurrencies as well as about “mining” and investments. A panel in the Metaverse was held for the first time in Europe and second time in the world, while the latest trends from the NFT world were also presented, including the collecting possibilities and other benefits. The opening ceremony was organized as a futuristic spectacle, with special effects, lasers, drones and pyrotechnics, while the man in the astronaut suit welcomed the crowd. Additionally, the next edition of the TOMORROW conference is announced, scheduled for May 2023.

“I still can’t find the right words to express my excitement and gratefulness to everyone who was part of the conference, who believed in this conference held for the first time in this part of Europe. Now I can say – it was the best. Past three days we could enjoy more than 50 speakers, seven panels; 6 000 people have visited three stages while more than 15 000 people have watched the conference online”, said Zoran Tadic, TOMORROW conference program director.

Nenad Paunovic on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, has opened the conference on the first day, pointing out that Serbia is well aware of this area and it started regulating the cryptocurrency market. He invited the attendees to invest into Serbia as it’s protecting intellectual property as well. Belgian investor and blockchain expert, Bruno Ver, pointed out that cryptocurrencies and NFTs are the future as the value of money is dropping, but there is a need for clear business and tax regulations. For the first time in Europe and the second time in the world, a panel titled “Creator economies and NFTs of the future” is held in METAVERSE, moderated by Vitomir Jevremovic, CEO of All Art and SolSea. He was on stage wearing the VR headset, the panelists located around the world were shown as avatars, discussing the hot NFT topics while the audience were watching it on the LED screens in real time.

Second day of the conference included interactive panel discussions as well as the panels about the Metaverse. Joel Dietz, Frank Fitzgerald and Laura K. Inamedinova were discussing “Where is the Metaverse taking us to?” and what possibilities it opens. Further discussions included experts’ opinions on the tendencies of merging the physical world with virtual reality and what consequences it could bring to the global community. Aleksandar Matanovic, crypto pioneer in Serbia and the founder of the local bitcoin exchange ECD, pointed out that the paper money is going to history and that the reason is not only the cryptocurrencies. Panel “Impact, Opportunities and Regulatory Considerations” got many visitors involved, discussing with Joel Dietz, David Bundi and the others on how the Metaverse will affect the future generations. UNICEF launched the humanitarian action of collecting Crypto donations to support the children of Ukraine. Every donation higher than 10 USD got an NFT created by Zamurovic brothers. Separate stages held workshops about the crypto law regulations and taxes in Serbia.

At the last panel of the second day: “Can the Music Industry go to Metaverse Altogether?” Dusan Kovacevic, founder and CEO of Exit, presented the Exit NFT collection created with the DJ superstar Maceo Plex. Later that night, Maceo shaked the packed party at the Belexpo centar.

Last day of the conference saw a huge audience interest as well. Marko Suvajdzic, director assistant at the Florida University, emphasized that, exploring the blockchain as a subject, method and media, he concluded that the art world has entered the journey of the technology revolution as well. “So far, the blockchain technology has been accepted by the leaders in the finance, computer science, transport, accounting, to bring efficiency, transparency and added value to their services”, he pointed out.

Dr Goran Segedinac /Headmade/ explained to the visitors how to recognize a quality NFT project. “Maybe it is not easy to detect the authors of the currently most valuable NFTs, but you can recognize the quality by four parameters: does the collection owns its identity, does it create users experience, is the community involved in the project development, does the project team delivers the product after minting and does it use the financial resources for the further development”, advised Segedinac.

Tether cryptocurrency founder Craig Sellars closed the conference at the end of the third day with his lecture “Decentralize Yourself” about the digital identity in the future. Due to the huge interest, the organizers opened the lecture for the doubled number of audience. This blockchain philosopher, as he calls himself, is still proud of his cryptocurrency that is still stable and it shines. The human individual is still the most important in this sphere. “Value of an individual is the most important in the digital world. All other platforms want to own your data, but here that’s not the case. You own your information; and if someone asks for it, you can charge for it” – said Sellars.

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Decentraland, Axie Infinity and The Sandbox have larger valuations and fewer active users than non-blockchain games.

The metaverse, despite all the interest from venture capital and the world’s major brands, is struggling to attract users, and token prices have begun to reflect this. Tokens for the three major metaverse protocols, Decentraland, Axie Infinity and The Sandbox are all down year-to-date, and significantly underperforming bitcoin.

While all three have seen significant interest from venture capitalists, who have allocated hundreds of millions to metaverse and GameFi, some market observers say the number of daily active users (DAU) doesn’t reflect the level of investment.

“There is currently no organic engagement that retains players in the game – unlike traditional games like Fortnite, GTA, Candy Crush – where players are willing to pay to keep playing,” Web 3 analyst DeFi Vader wrote in an August 2021 note about Axie Infinity. “If one or a few of those games create organic engagement, then DAU growth may stop being mostly dependent on daily earnings.”

In the past 30 days, the number of Axie Infinity’s average daily users has dropped 30% from the previous period to about 107,240, The Sandbox’s has fallen 29% to 1,180 and Decentraland has lost 15% to 978 users a day on average, according to DappRadar data.

When compared to mainstream games on Steam – a digital gaming store – these numbers barely even register against titles like Counter Strike, Dota 2, and PUBG.

For Axie Infinity, it’s impossible to determine how many of these players are there just for fun, rather than as employees of guilds playing the game to earn yield for investors. The team behind Axie Infinity seems to understand this, and acknowledges that gameplay needs to improve for the game to grow organically.

Gamers, themselves, appear to be hostile to GameFi. Gaming giant Ubisoft’s NFT efforts fell flat and an industry survey published during the Game Developers Conference showed that most studios are not interested in embracing crypto or NFTs.

It’s likely the wider industry sees the monetization of game play as unattractive to would-be participants, explains Messari in a research note, asking rhetorically if the reader has ever met anyone that finds these games fun.

“First, the ability to purchase NFTs or in-game currency effectively creates pay-to-win game mechanics, a quality that most major franchises and successful games avoid,” Messari’s Mason Nystrom wrote in a March report. “The most successful games often share an element of skill, opting to create a competitive multiplayer gaming experience and avoiding a ‘spam the credit card until you win’ option.”

Still, there are those in the industry who say quality gameplay can go hand in hand with GameFi and the metaverse. In an interview with CoinDesk earlier this year, Red Door Digital’s See Wan Toong sees the crypto funding model as a way to ween games off reliance on being bankrolled by major studios.

The question remains whether this view will become mainstream.

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Traditional finance firms are boosting their metaverse offerings following JPMorgan’s recent foray into Decentraland.

Payments giant American Express (AXP) could be readying a metaverse entry, recent trademark applications show.

The company filed trademark applications for its logos and items including the Centurion black card and “Shop Small” program. Amex is also seeking to engage in virtual payments and electronic business transactions for digital media and NFTs.

Amex’s applications come as traditional finance and large corporations increasingly aim to boost their metaverse exposure. JPMorgan recently opened a lounge in Decentraland and released a paper exploring how businesses can find opportunities in the growing metaverse.

Payments giant American Express (AXP) could be readying a metaverse entry, recent trademark applications show.

IMA Financial Group, a large U.S. insurance broker and wealth management firm, opened a research and development facility in the Ethereum-based metaverse as well.

It may only be a matter of time before one may be purchasing consumer goods and services using mainstream credit cards in the metaverse, with large payment firms increasingly seeking to ride on fiat-to-crypto rails.

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The Wall Street bank has opened a lounge in blockchain-based Decentraland.

JPMorgan, the largest bank in the U.S., said it has become the first lender to arrive in the metaverse, having opened a lounge in Decentraland, a virtual world based on blockchain technology.

As well as the unveiling of the Onyx lounge (the name refers to the bank’s suite of permissioned Ethereum-based services), JPMorgan also released a paper exploring how businesses can find opportunities in the metaverse.

“There is a lot of client interest to learn more about the metaverse,” Christine Moy, JPMorgan’s head of crypto and the metaverse, said in an email. “We put together our white paper to help clients cut through the noise and highlight what the current reality is, and what needs to be built next in technology, commercial infrastructure, privacy/identity and workforce, in order to maximize the full potential of our lives in the metaverse.”

With the mainstream acceptance of things like non-fungible tokens (NFT), the past year has seen a breathless advance into the metaverse, a catch-all for immersive gaming, world-building and entertainment, fueled by integrated commerce applications. In January, electronics giant Samsung opened a version of its New York store in Decentraland, and in November Barbados established a metaverse embassy, also in Decentraland.

JPMorgan begins its assessment of “metanomics” by pointing out that the average price of a parcel of virtual land doubled in the latter half of 2021, jumping from $6,000 in June to $12,000 by December across the four main Web 3 metaverse sites: Decentraland, The Sandbox, Somnium Space and Cryptovoxels.

“In time, the virtual real estate market could start seeing services much like in the physical world, including credit, mortgages and rental agreements,” said the JPMorgan report. It added that decentralized finance (DeFi) collateral management could well come into play, and that rather than traditional finance companies this could be done by decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO).

Work in the metaverse will also be gainful, said the report, pointing to a range of entertainment providers, as well as apps like RTFKT, a virtual shoe designer recently acquired by Nike. Another big spend will likely be on advertising, the bank said, citing a prediction that in-game ad spending is set to reach $18.41 billion by 2027.

The JPMorgan paper attempted to illustrate the metaverse hype versus the reality, stating that many areas need to improve. These include the overall user experience and performance of avatars, as well as commercial infrastructure.

“We believe the existing virtual gaming landscape (each virtual world with its own population, GDP, in-game currency and digital assets) has elements that parallel the existing global economy,” according to the bank report. “This is where our long-standing core competencies in cross-border payments, foreign exchange, financial assets creation, trading and safekeeping, in addition to our at-scale consumer foothold, can play a major role in the metaverse.”

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The deal could bring big name stars like Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars and Dua Lipa to the metaverse for the first time.

Warner Music Group (WMG) is entering the metaverse with a music-focused theme park in The Sandbox, the company announced Thursday.

WMG is the owner of a slew of popular music properties, including record labels Atlantic, Warner Records, Elektra and Parlophone.

The virtual theme park will feature “concerts and musical experiences” from the music company’s star-studded roster of artists, which includes the likes of Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, Dua Lipa and Cardi B, according to a press release.

As part of the announcement, The Sandbox will be hosting a LAND sale for virtual properties adjacent to the prospective festival site for fans to purchase in March. Consider it the latest corporate foray into the immersive experiences that some are calling the future of the internet.

“We are deeply focused on Web 3 right now and the impact it will have on music. It’s incredibly difficult to put value against fandom right now,” Oana Ruxandra, chief digital officer and executive vice president of business development at WMG, told CoinDesk in an interview. “The music industry had big decades in the ’80s and ’90s, and then Napster came around and there was a pullback. Then the same thing happened when Spotify came in. We want to be driving opportunity, not behind the eight ball.”

WMG isn’t the first major music player looking to expand its audience into virtual worlds. The metaverse game Decentraland hosted a three-day virtual music festival in October, with artists like Snoop Dog having toyed with virtual gatherings in The Sandbox dating back to September.

While no one knows for certain what companies getting into “the metaverse” will entail, it’s clear that partnerships with virtual reality platforms like The Sandbox and Decentraland are a safe starting point.

The Sandbox’s SAND token was up nearly 7% over the past 24 hours, to $3.49 as of press time, with an upward climb starting at about 4:00 UTC.

Earlier Thursday, the project announced a $50 million incubator program for metaverse startups.

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Those who have had applications rejected include NetEase, iQiyi and Xiaohongshu.

China’s government has begun rejecting trademark applications related to metaverse projects, according to numerous local media reports.

Trademark applications containing yuan yuzhou – Mandarin for metaverse – have been denied registration by the National Intellectual Property Administration, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported Monday citing data from business and trademark registration tracking firm Tianyancha.

Those rejected include applications by NetEase, iQiyi and Xiaohongshu.

Applications by the country’s tech giants including Tencent and Alibaba (which owns the SCMP) are still pending review.

The action has been attributed to an attempt to combat a rush of such applications which could cause trademark squatting – a situation where someone other than the original brand owner obtains a trademark – and misunderstanding among consumers.

According to experts, this suggests that authorities are attempting to assuage any potential hype around the metaverse in the technology industry.

“What I see is the government encouraging enterprises to enter the metaverse arena with genuine technological capability,” Chen Gaojie of tech research firm PatSnap, told the SCMP. “The metaverse involves many core cutting-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain.”

The metaverse is a conceptualized world where the internet eventually becomes an immersive virtual space that can be used for work, play, socializing, experiences and events. The term was coined by Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel “Snow Crash.”

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Over 60% of 100,000 virtual land plots have sold on Pavia, with the remaining set to go under the hammer later this quarter.

Gaming application Pavia launched on the Cardano network last week, becoming the first-ever metaverse project on the blockchain.

Some 100,000 ‘land parcels’ were issued on Pavia, each being minted as a unique non-fungible token (NFT) with individual ‘coordinates.’ Over 60% of these parcels were pre-sold in October and November 2021, with the remaining set to go on sale in the first quarter of 2022.

NFTs are blockchain-based representations of tangible or intangible objects. Metaverses generally describe a virtual world in which people can interact as they do in the real world, but digitally.

Pavia’s native token functions as an in-game currency, 25% of which was airdropped to NFT landholders following a blockchain snapshot in December 2021. Data from Muesliswap, a Cardano-based exchange, show pavia tokens sell for just over 20 cents at the time of writing and have a market capitalization of over $107 million.

Data shows there are now over 8,300 plot owners on Pavia. However, users cannot deploy assets over their plots as of Monday. “Please remember at this stage in development you cannot visit or deploy any content onto your land parcel,” documents from Pavia caution.

The project comes at a time when virtual land plots are being sold for millions of dollars on virtual ecosystems, built on blockchains like Ethereum. The plots on pavia were listed for as high as 30,000 cardano (≈$45,600 at the time of writing) on the Cardano NFT marketplace CNFT.

Companies have recently rushed to create their presence on the metaverse. These include the likes of crypto exchange Binance.US, which is building out an office on Portals, a Solana-based metaverse project, and global electronics maker Samsung, which launched a metaverse version of its flagship New York City store on Decentraland earlier this month

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