South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has increased scrutiny of NFTs and the metaverse. This follows the guilty verdicts for V Global executives, including their CEO who was slapped with a 22-year prison sentence.
The FSS said it will take countermeasures against factors that cause damage to consumers in the fast-paced digital assets market. The watchdog has increased the verification of initial public offerings (IPOs) of businesses in NFTs and the metaverse. However, it has been noted that some NFT projects in decentralized finance are still able to collect investments without meeting regulatory requirements.
Besides driving branding to the 3D digital world, metaverse has caught the attention of the authorities for all the wrong reasons. Earlier this year, there were reports of a woman, vice-president of Metaverse Research for Kabuni Ventures, having experienced a real horror play out in Horizon Worlds, a virtual game developed by Meta. She claimed to have suffered verbal and sexual harassment and male avatars having virtually gang-raped her avatar. The victim detailed watching her avatar get sexually assaulted by a handful of male avatars. They also sent her photos of the incident and commented – “don’t pretend you didn’t love it”.
Nina Jane Patel said the metaverse is becoming increasingly immersive. She added that the bodily harm, which she experienced in her avatar left her very much shocked and offended. Joseph Jones, the president of Bosco Legal Services, said harassment in the metaverse is an emerging space. He highlighted that Patel’s case depends on factors such as specific comments people made and whether her avatar reveals any identifiable information like her name.
