Metaverse News

According to a press release, the Cyber Security and Technology Crime Bureau (CSTCB) of the police launched CyberDefender Metaverse to make citizens aware and prepare them for challenges in the digital age by paying attention to fighting technological crimes.

In the CyberDefender Metaverse, three virtual venues were opened to the public, namely the CyberDefender City and the Web3-themed Gallery and Auditorium.

The CSTCB also held a thematic sharing session, which addressed threats related to the metaverse and crime prevention measures. CSTCB Chief Inspector IP Cheuk-yu said all the crimes in cyberspace could also happen in the metaverse, such as investment frauds, unauthorized access to systems, theft, and sexual offenses, adding the decentralized nature and use of virtual assets in Web3 may also increase the likelihood of cyber criminals targeting endpoint devices, virtual asset wallets and smart contracts.

He also pointed out that the decentralized nature of Web3 increases the possibility that cybercriminals would target endpoint devices, virtual asset wallets, and smart contracts, asserting the importance of being cautious in the metaverse.

It is worth mentioning that the Hong Kong Police increased the levels of launching technology crime educational initiatives, especially for the younger generations given that Hong Kong recorded 2,336 virtual asset-related cases with a loss of $1.7 billion in 2022.

In the first quarter of 2023, year, the police received 663 cases of such kind with a total loss of $570 million, representing respective increases of 44% and 75% as compared with the first quarter of last year.

A recent study showed the remarkable fall in the prices of the virtual lands of some of the top metaverses, which decreased by 90% since its peak in 2022, according to Cointelegraph.

Coingecko conducted the study based on its data plus data from Dune Analytics from January 1, 2022, to May 24, 2023, which showed a big decrease in the value of the popular metaverse properties, including The Sandbox, Otherdeeds, Decentraland, Somnium, and Voxels during this period.

“Virtual land projects have seen floor prices drop drastically between 2022 and 2023. Somnium Space had the largest drop of -93.9% from its peak, followed by Voxels with -93.8%. The other three collections fell less than 90%. The Sandbox dropped -89.8%, Decentraland fell -87.8%, and Otherdeeds with a loss of -85.5%,” the report read.

During the peak of the NFT bull market, the floor price of Otherdeeds by Otherside went down from 7.50 ETH in May 2022 to 1.09 ETH currently. The second most expensive metaverse land was Somnium, whose floor price of each piece of virtual land was traded at 6.05 ETH at the start of 2022. But it became 0.37 ETH now.

The third most expensive metaverse land was Decentraland. Its floor price for a piece of virtual land was 5.24 ETH in 2022, but it plummeted to 0.64 ETH in 2023. This was followed by The Sandbox and Voxels, trading at 4.20 ETH and 2.59 ETH, respectively. Now they declined to 0.43 ETH and 0.16 ETH, respectively.

Voxels, which consists of 7,930 parcels of land with various traits, is currently considered the cheapest metaverse land in May 2023, according to Coingecko.

However, Voxels remains optimistic about a comeback. Its official Twitter account tweeted that they are okay with being number five but they noted that they would keep building to overcome the bear market.

A Chinese city launched a metaverse platform to bolster the metaverse research and development across the country, Cointelegraph reported.

The capital of China’s eastern Jiangsu province, Nanjing, opened the China Metaverse Technology and Application Innovation Platform to develop metaverse-related disciplines and promote wider and higher campus and school-enterprise development.

The metaverse-based project, which is also state-backed, is led by the Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology (NUIST). Its founding members represent academic institutions and metaverse-related firms from different parts of Mainland China.

It also aims to gather the resources of academic institutions and enterprises in China and boost research endeavors in metaverse-related domains.

It is worth noting that Chinese cities are competing to take the lead in the metaverse development industry in the country. In February, Nanjing announced its action plan for the metaverse development 2023-2025 with an aim to achieve annual revenues from the metaverse industry exceeding 135 billion yuan ($19.13 billion) by the end of 2025.

A report by South Korea’s Korean Intellectual Property Office revealed that China is number two globally in terms of metaverse-related patents, following the United States, China Daily Hong Kong reported.
As many as 14,291 metaverse-related patents were filed in China from 2011 to 2022, accounting for 30% of the global metaverse-related patents, compared to the US, which recorded 17,293 applications, accounting for 36% of the global patents.

Earlier, a new report found that the metaverse industry in China is flourishing as it is expected to hike by about 40% this year.

According to a recent report by Research and Market, the world’s largest market research store, on the Chinese metaverse market and its future, the metaverse industry in China is predicted to increase by 39.5% on an annual basis to reach $1,06,102.8 million in 2023, a matter which shows the significant growth of the metaverse in the Asian country.