Singapore explores metaverse; Thailand mulls ETF approval

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Singapore’s parliament is pushing to engage more young citizens and interest them in legislative processes, and the metaverse has emerged as one key avenue for targeting this demographic.

Speaker Seah Kian Peng says that parliamentary proceedings are critical for Singaporeans as they affect every aspect of their daily lives. As such, the citizens need to pay attention when matters close to their hearts are debated.

Younger Singaporeans are more unlikely to follow these proceedings, and it’s this demographic that parliament wants to target with the metaverse. The aim is to make the debates interactive and more accessible, the speaker told Channel News Asia.

“The aim is to make parliament more relatable to youths, allowing them to explore Parliament House and learn about parliamentary proceedings through engaging and educational gameplay,” he said.

Parliament has started building the metaverse, which the speaker says will offer a gamified and interactive experience hosted on the virtual gaming universe Roblox.

“Whether young or old, (parliamentary proceedings are) extremely important to every Singaporean, because whatever is decided here, laws that are passed here or not, these affect Singaporeans and their families,” Peng noted.

The metaverse was once the hottest sector of the blockchain industry, with billions of dollars flowing into its development. Its appeal went beyond the blockchain industry, with mainstream players like Facebook (NASDAQ: META) pivoting to focus on it, although Mark Zuckerberg’s bet has not paid off as he initially projected.

However, in the past two years, interest in the metaverse has cooled off. By mid-last year, the sector had only raised $460 million, a significant dip from the year prior when the sector raised $1.7 billion. The funding peaked in 2021 when metaverse startups raised $4 billion in 341 investment rounds.

While the speculative investment may have cooled down, the building has continued unfazed. In Singapore, more institutions are turning to the metaverse to offer new interactive services to their clients. Last November, the country’s second-largest bank, OCBC, launched a virtual banking platform on the metaverse. The platform is open to OCBC customers and the general public, allowing users to interact with the bank’s products and learn about its services.

Earlier in the year, McDonald’s (NASDAQ: MCD) launched ‘My Happy Place,’ a virtual environment on the metaverse where Singaporeans could build virtual burgers and engage in other fun activities to earn rewards.

The government has also been pushing metaverse development. In 2022, the Law Ministry decreed that some legal services, such as court proceedings and select government services, could be handled on the metaverse.

Thailand weighs BTC ETFs

In Thailand, the country’s securities watchdog is weighing approving local exchanges to list BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

In an interview, the Secretary-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Pornanong Budsaratragoon, told Bloomberg that the agency is considering opening up the market to allow ETFs to invest directly in BTC. The approval would emulate similar moves in the United States and Hong Kong; the latter has failed to replicate the success recorded by American ETFs, where legacy financial heavyweights like BlackRock (NASDAQ: BLK) and Fidelity now dominate the market.

Last year, the Thai SEC gave the green light to One Asset Management to launch a fund that invested in overseas BTC ETFs.

“Like it or not, we have to move along with more adoption of cryptocurrencies worldwide. We have to adapt and ensure that our investors have more options in crypto assets with proper protection,” Budsaratragoon stated.

Thailand is one of the world’s leading digital asset hubs. The country ranked in the top 20 globally in the past three years for digital asset adoption according to Chainalysis. In Central and Southern Asia and Oceania (CSAO), Thailand ranked sixth just behind its local rival, the Philippines.

Despite the adoption, Thailand, like most of its Asian peers, has been cautious about approving a BTC ETF. Some, like Japan, have maintained a hard stance against the ETFs, which they believe are too risky for retail investors. Others, like South Korea, are exploring the feasibility of such products, but approval is a long way off.

Thailand’s digital asset ambitions go beyond ETFs. Recently, the Deputy Prime Minister, Pichai Chunhavajira, revealed that the government would test digital asset payments in the tourist destination of Phuket. Tourists must verify their identities with local exchanges before making payments, which Pichai says will ease payments and attract foreigners seeking to settle in the picturesque islands.

Watch: The Web3 trifecta—AI, metaverse & blockchain