South Korea’s Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning said that the nation will invest at least $186.7 million, or 223.7 billion Korean won, in establishing its metaverse ecosystem.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said in November that the city wants to be the first to join the metaverse, a virtual world.
The investment is part of South Korea’s “Digital New Deal,” a collection of measures aimed at fostering the development of new digital technologies such as metaverses and artificial intelligence platforms.
According to Park Yungyu, the ministry’s director of media and strategy, “it is critical to establish a world-class metaverse ecosystem as a springboard for actively growing a new hyper-connected sector.”
According to the government agency, the funds will be used to further the creation of the metaverse, which the government believes will serve as a platform for the growth of industries and enterprises.
According to the government, the metaverse has the potential to generate 1.5 million employment, and the nation intends to establish a workforce of more than 40,000 specialists in the rapidly growing field of virtual reality. The South Korean government established a target of raising the nation to the fifth-largest metaverse market by 2026 during that period.
Alex Salnikov, the co-founder of the Rarible NFT marketplace, recently told Blockworks, “I’m really happy to think that Korea is positioned to become a major metaverse participant.” Salnikov is a co-founder of the non-financial trading platform Rarible.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government stated earlier this year its aim to build “Metaverse Seoul” to propel the nation to the forefront of the global metaverse sector.
By 2023, Seoul hopes to establish a metaverse in which residents may file civil complaints and participate in virtual discussions. Citizens may choose to attend a virtual city hall using virtual reality goggles rather than physically visiting one.
Noah Gaynor, the co-founder of metaverse startup Parcel, said in an interview with Blockworks that the South Korean government’s commitment to win the global metaverse race in five years, as well as the ‘Metaverse Seoul’ plan, unveiled last year, “Without a doubt, this positions the nation at the vanguard.
“According to the writers, no country or party will be able to dominate it, based on what we’re witnessing and the open metaverse’s decentralized character. This is an international movement with no geographical limits.
On the other side, the metaverse is often connected with crypto assets such as NFTs and ETH (non-fungible tokens). South Korean gaming legislation currently restricts the usage of NFTs or token issuance, which would jeopardize the country’s ambitious metaverse goals.
