Beijing released a new plan for developing “metaverse” technologies and NFTs.
The municipal government detailed its two-year “Beijing Urban Sub-Center Metaverse Innovation and Development Action Plan” in an Aug. 23 release.
The plan leans heavily on existing development of the Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center and “the implementation plan for Beijing to build a global digital economy benchmark city in the city’s sub-center.”
It emphasizes a potential role for metaverse development in the city’s innovation center as a source for tourism and cultural interchange. That includes a metaverse theme park and “smart hotels.”
No budgets for actual grants or subsidies for developments were provided as part of the release. The term “metaverse” has elicited different interpretations and Beijing’s plan seems to lean heavily on a vision for a metaverse that largely just means virtual reality.
China famously banned cryptocurrency mining in early 2021, but has remained keenly interested in blockchain technological development and digital economies since. Though it is not on a public ledger and so volumes are unclear, China’s digital yuan is on beta testing whose scale likely makes it the largest operational central bank digital currency to date.
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Kollen Post is a senior reporter at The Block, covering all things policy and geopolitics from Washington, DC. That includes legislation and regulation, securities law and money laundering, cyber warfare, corruption, CBDCs, and blockchain’s role in the developing world. He speaks Russian and Arabic. You can send him leads at [email protected].
Source: https://www.theblock.co/post/165522/beijing-lays-out-plan-for-metaverse-development-in-tech-development-zones?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss