Seoul, the capital of South Korea, took the initiative by introducing the first phase of “Metaverse Seoul” on 16 January. It is an online metaverse platform where the government offers services to the public, like administrative, economic matters, taxes, and education. The authority claims it as the world’s first publicly supported metaverse platform backed by a city government.

In a press conference on Monday, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-Hoon announced the official release of this project. Seoul’s first phase after its successful beta testing. The city’s mayor has stated that the internet will serve as a “place of communication for citizens,” where people can view official documents, lodge specific complaints, and get information about paying city taxes.

The second phase will begin in 2024 and include a more comprehensive range of services, such as real estate consulting and introducing overseas investors to domestic businesses. 

Seoul’s Officials expect to complete the public metaverse by 2026, claiming that the third stage will be able to use a combination of Virtual reality technology tools to manage the city’s physical assets more accurately.

Seoul Authorities Showing Interest In Metaverse

The government of South Korea has shown a keen interest in maximizing the benefits of the Metaverse, or virtual reality environments. This project is part of the so-called Web3 movement, a new step for the internet supported without the intervention of centralized entities and toward decentralized platforms built around blockchains.

The Ministry of Science and ICT of South Korea announced proposals to spend a 223.7 billion Korean WON – $180 million fund to invest in the country’s metaverse sectors in February 2022.

The president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-Yeol, has considered developing this technology a top priority. As a result, big South Korean companies like Samsung Electronics, SK Telecom, and Naver Corp have all expanded into the metaverse.

The Science ministry of South Korea defines the metaverse as the junction of the digital and physical worlds, where users can interact to provide economic, social, and cultural benefits.

The Digital Policy Division of the government portrays Metaverse Seoul as a place where reality meets online, and creativity meets communication. Recently, a Korean neuroscientist named Jang Dong-Seon stated on the municipal government’s Podcast channel that the cyber platform had transformed the city into a “first mover” in the global public service sector.

The platform is also concerned with preventing illegal acts like sexual crimes involving user avatars, verbal harassment, and information leakage. For this reason, Seoul Digital Foundation’s “Code of Ethics for the Metaverse” was chosen as the platform’s guiding code of conduct. Avatars are not allowed to touch each other, vulgarity is automatically screened out, and users can report any issues they encounter.

Besides this, numerous businesses worldwide announced their intentions to construct virtual offices once Facebook rebranded to Meta in October 2021. However, several prominent systems, including FTX, Voyager Digital, and Celsius Network, went silent in 2022, which may have slowed adoption.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $21,300, 23% up from the last week.

Featured image from Washingtonpost, Featured chart from Tradingview.com.

Per a report, the biggest oil exporter in the world, Saudi Arabia, might take a hit to the U.S. dollar (USD) supremacy for the benefit of Bitcoin and other global currencies. During the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, the country’s minister of finance, Mohammed Al-Jadaan, hinted at the possibility of accepting non-dollar currencies to trade oil.

Since the 1970s, Saud Arabia has agreed to price its oil in the U.S. dollar, giving this currency and its country an advantage over the world. This system is known as the “Petrodollar,” and it’s part of the machinery that supports the dollar’s global reserve currency status.

A New World Order, What’s Bitcoin’s Role In It?

Al-Jadaan claims Saudi Arabia is open to revisiting this agreement as it strengthens its ties with the world’s largest oil importer and U.S. rival, China. During the WEF, the government official stated the following, opening a Pandora’s Box that can affect the market for years to come:

There are no issues with discussing how we settle our trade arrangements, whether it is in the US dollar, whether it is the euro, whether it is the Saudi riyal. I don’t think we are waving away or ruling out any discussion that will help improve the trade around the world.

According to the report, China is moving in to speed up a shift in the U.S. dollar global currency status. The Asian giant is offering its partners access to the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange, a platform that operates with the Chinese Yuan.

In 2022, the Petrodollar system was questioned by Arthur Hayes, founder of the crypto exchange BitMEX. Per a report from our sister website, NewsBTC, Hayes believes this system was jeopardized by the sanctions imposed by the International Community on Russia. The BitMEX Founder said in 2022:

Now add in the news that Saudi Arabia is considering accepting Yuan instead of Dollars for Chinese oil and you have an accelerator for more economic problems and market uncertainty.

In addition, the Petrodollar system is jeopardized by China and its allies trying to gain trade influence and break the multidecade system. In this new scenario, countries will seek a neutral currency, such as Gold and Bitcoin, as the dollar losses strength. Hayes:

A new neutral reserve asset, which I believe will be gold, will be used to facilitate global trade in energy and foodstuffs. From a philosophical standpoint, central banks and sovereigns appreciate the value of gold, but not that of Bitcoin (…). Bitcoin is less than two decades old. But don’t worry: as gold succeeds so will Bitcoin.

Twitter recently added 30 more tokens to its Crypto Price Index or $Cashtags feature. The $Cashtags service allows users to check the price of individual cryptocurrencies. The users need only type in the name of the cryptocurrency to check its price. Twitter started this feature in 2012 but added cryptocurrencies on 21st December 2022. 

Importance Of This Decision And The $Cashtags Feature

The social media platform users are already applauding this decision by Twitter. Now they can search the current price of ETH, BTC, XRP, DOGE, LTC, BUSD, SOL, ADA, DAI, AVAX, UNI, SHIB, BNB, USDC, OKD, LIDO, DOT, TRX, BCH, XLM, MANA, and SAND, etc. the platform’s new CEO, Elon Musk, is a staunch supporter of DogeCoin (DOGE).

Twitter has added the $DOGE cashtag!

Clicking or searching $DOGE automatically brings up price data for #Dogecoin

Thank you Elon and $TWTR engineers! pic.twitter.com/f3GNb6Dkn9

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— 💸💸💸 (@itsALLrisky) January 12, 2023

As seen above, one of the users shared the excitement and gratitude for adding $DOGE to the $Cashtags. This new addition will make access to crucial information about a cryptocurrency, like its price, accessible. TradingView enables the price information on the platform within the $Cashtags feature.

Related Reading: Is Elon Ditching Dogecoin? Twitter Prepares To Launch ‘Coin’ Feature

In the list of new cryptocurrencies, Twitter has added the top 20 by market capitalization at the time of additions. 

Another function of the Cashtags feature is its direct access to the price page. When any user adds a $ symbol in front of the eligible stocks and cryptocurrencies, it will generate a clickable link. This link will take the users to the price page. 

In December 2022, the platform also enhanced its Search Results for Cashtags. It now shows real-time price graphs. The company’s devs will gradually add more cryptocurrencies to the mix, but the timeline for the addition is not determined. 

In addition to extracting information from TradingView, the price graph will also include a link to the trading platform Robinhood. At this point, there is no proof of a formal partnership agreement between Twitter and Robinhood. 

More Crypto-Specific Updates Coming To Twitter

Elon Musk is the face of Twitter 2.0. Under its new CEO’s leadership, the social media platform will continue to add more features and functions specific to cryptocurrencies. Starting with Cashtags, the company will also enable crypto payments down the line. 

Slides from my Twitter company talk pic.twitter.com/8LLXrwylta

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 27, 2022

These slides hint at Elon Musk’s new vision for the social media platform’s future. In all these talks and updates, users assume that Elon Musk will have a special place for Dogecoin.

 Related Reading: Elon Musk Integrates Bitcoin, Ethereum Price Charts On Twitter, Where’s Dogecoin?

As the social media platform is going forward, it is increasing the volume of integration to the crypto-verse. Will Twitter bring new features besides the tentative crypto payments to the platform? Stay tuned for the update. 

Featured image from Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com.