- On Wednesday, China’s newly formed Metaverse Industry Committee announced that 17 companies had been included to the government body to further the development of China’s version of the Metaverse.
- Beijing’s Metaverse move has caught many by surprise, given the concept’s close association with gaming and cryptocurrency, two industries which the Chinese Communist Party has either curbed or banned
It’s not just Facebook that has gone all in on the Metaverse, renaming itself to Meta Platforms (-2.02%), but Beijing is betting big as well.
Beijing’s Metaverse strategy makes sense in light of its bet on blockchain technology and its digital yuan, with local governments and state-backed entities pumping money into companies involved in the creation of the Metaverse, to ensure China remains ahead of other countries in what could be the next frontier of the digital revolution.
On Wednesday, China’s newly formed Metaverse Industry Committee announced that 17 companies had been included to the government body to further the development of China’s version of the Metaverse.
China’s biggest tech companies, including Tencent (-0.59%), Baidu (+0.31%) and Alibaba (-0.98%) have already filed Metaverse-related trademarks in recent months, in an effort to ensure they stay at the center of the next evolution of the internet.
Beijing’s Metaverse move has caught many by surprise, given the concept’s close association with gaming and cryptocurrency, two industries which the Chinese Communist Party has either curbed or banned.
But just like the internet, Beijing is probably ensuring that it stays atop developing technologies and is consistent with its embrace of blockchain, while banning cryptocurrencies.
Beijing’s has already proved that it is able to create its own walled garden version of the internet and while it’s embraced blockchain technology, being the first major economy to trial its own central bank digital currency and managed to keep out the elements of the technology that do not favor the centralization of control, including cryptocurrencies.
Moving into the Metaverse would be consistent with Beijing’s embrace of blockchain technology and its digital yuan, before other more decentralized avenues take the lead and provide a viable alternative to Beijing’s conception of what the Metaverse should look like or how it should behave.
