Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments.
South Korea invests another $51M in metaverse tech
South Korea’s plans for metaverse domination are gathering pace. A March 8 document prepared by the Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the National IT Industry Promotion Agency and the Korea Radio Promotion Association, says the three entities will invest a total of 27.7 billion Korean won ($21 million) in metaverse projects across 13 sectors such as healthcare, tourism and education. One example use case is about telemedicine in the metaverse:
“Establish a virtual counseling space and provide mental health recovery and promotion services through expert psychological counseling, healing contents, and community activities.”
The same day, South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT also announced the creation of a 40 billion Korean won ($30 million) metaverse fund to be operated by local investment management companies. It cited the need to incubate domestic metaverse-related companies to become big enough to compete with global companies through the expansion of business areas and scale.
The South Korean government is betting big on the development of VR. Source: Korean Tourism Organization
Mt. Gox’s final deadline for claims
Mt. Gox creditors have until April 6 to complete registration to receive repayment, trustees of the bankrupt Japanese cryptocurrency exchange announced on March 9. Mt. Gox was the biggest Bitcoin exchange in the world when it filed for bankruptcy in 2014, after discovering that 850,000 of its customers’ Bitcoin (BTC) had been stolen via discreet hacks and siphoning over a number of years. The exchange has since recovered around 200,000 BTC. The funds have been held in trust for the creditors, with 162,106 BTC ($3.49 billion) sitting in wallet addresses tracked by Token Unlock.
Over the years, the trustees, attorney Nobuaki Kobayashi and the Japanese Bankruptcy…
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