Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city, is opening a virtual space on Naver Z’s Zepeto metaverse at 12 p.m. on Friday, Korea time, to promote the city in efforts to host the World Expo in 2030.
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Fast facts
The metaverse lot, named the ‘2030 World Expo X4 Entertainment World,’ resembles the port city and aims to attract the attention of millennials and Generation Z users for the 2030 Expo.Busan’s metaverse space features a virtual entertainment agency named ‘X4 Entertainment’ established by Lee Jung-jae, the Emmy-award winning actor of Squid Games.Visitors will be joined by a virtual idol band formed by avatars representing some of Korea’s popular musical acts — Zion.T, Arin of Oh My Girl, JEON SOMI and Wonstein.Metaverse visitors can experience being a K-pop trainee at X4 Entertainment, and participate in games, and educational content.Busan City, along with Rome and Riyadh, are vying to host the World Expo in 2030. The upcoming Expo in 2023 will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.The city has been officially designated as a ‘blockchain regulation-free zone’ of the country, and is developing its first city-backed crypto exchange with help from Binance, FTX, and Huobi Global.Zepeto, established by the metaverse subsidiary of South Korean internet giant Naver, had over 20 million monthly average users in March this year, according to its website.
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