South Korea $200B Wealth Fund Eyes Metaverse Move

Metaverse hype keeps growing. 

South Korea Fund Looks to Metaverse 

After Adidas, Facebook, and the Turkish government, South Korea’s sovereign wealth fund could be the next giant to explore the Metaverse. 

The head of the $200 billion Korea Investment Corp has said that it is looking into investing in the Metaverse and AI as it makes a push to embrace alternative assets, Bloomberg has reported. 

Seoungho Jin, who’s been at the helm of the fund since mid-2021, said that the fund was not put off by the Federal Reserve’s planned interest rate hikes, which have been a cause of uncertainty for global markets and contributed to a Big Tech stock and crypto selloff over recent weeks. 

He said that hotels could be a strong bet in the recovery from Coronavirus and that he still sees potential in Silicon Valley investments. “Some investors say Silicon Valley is already saturated, which I have to concede is partly true, but it is still a source of global growth,” he told local media. “There are still plenty of good opportunities, if you chase them eagerly.”

Jin added that the fund could expand its investments into alternative assets to represent around 25% of its portfolio by 2025, and estimated that its assets under management could swell to $300 billion. 

“Metaverse” has become something of a buzzword in the tech and crypto worlds of late, though its true definition remains unclear. It loosely refers to a next-generation version of the Internet that combines virtual worlds and augmented reality for people to connect, play games, and participate in other activities with other users. 

The Metaverse is often referred to in close tandem with cryptocurrency technology and Web3, as it’s expected that blockchains will underpin much of the Metaverse of the future. If the Metaverse lives up to its potential, it’s possible that Internet users could earn crypto tokens for using decentralized social media platforms, playing games like Axie Infinity, and more.

Since Facebook announced its rebrand to Meta in October 2021, mainstream interest in the Metaverse has reached new highs. Metaverse-based cryptocurrency projects like Decentraland and The Sandbox have also benefited from the boom. Their tokens soared following the announcement, while plots of digital land in the virtual worlds have become extremely sought after. The Sandbox has recently sold land in NFT form to Gucci, PwC, and Snoop Dogg, with the most valuable virtual estate plots on the game fetching millions of dollars.