South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT established a fund to support metaverse efforts in the country.
According to the official press release, the South Korean government invested 24 billion Korean won ($18.4 million) to establish a metaverse expansion fund worth more than 40 billion Korean won ($30.6 million).
With the help of the Metaverse Fund, South Korea will support small and medium-sized companies in business development and M&A (mergers and acquisitions) support.
The investment will focus on companies that provide services connected to the metaverse, XR (Extended Reality), VR (Virtual Reality), blockchain, and other cutting-edge technologies like AI (Artificial Intelligence), cloud computing, and so on.
Notwithstanding the present economic difficulties and investment contraction, Web3 appears to be gaining traction, and South Korea is aware of this and prepared to help this market thrive.
This is not South Korea’s first step toward Web3; in September, the city of Seongnam revealed intentions to build a ‘Metaverse Special City Seongnam‘ platform with NFT citizenship.
Sungkyunkwan University announced the release of NFT-based award certificates to deserving graduates in recognition of outstanding achievements more than a year ago, while the South Korean Financial Services Commission (FSC) published a report defining cryptocurrencies as well as describing rules and penalties for token issuers in 2021.