 Madonna bought a Bored Ape NFT for $560,000 as the "queen of pop" entered the metaverse. The announcement was made on Twitter, stating that Bored Ape #4988 was bought for 180ETH on March 23. More: - MoonPay is the payments processor behind the transaction. The company has a list of high-profile celebrities, including Snoop Dogg, Gunna, Diplo, Kevin Hart, and more.
- Madonna's fans were not happy with the transaction. Ine fan wrote, "Madonna. I've always looked up to you."
- Bored Ape Yacht club has a list of celebrities that have bought the NFTs in recent months, including Justin Beiber and Eminem, who bought BAYC NFT #9055 for over $400,000 or 123.45ETH.
Crypto Potato 
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 Osso VR raised $66M in Series C financing led by Oak HC/FT with participation from GSR Ventures, Signalfire, Tiger Global Management, and Kaiser Permanente Ventures. The fresh funding will be used to expand education on the benefits of VR for surgical procedures and attract new talent. More: - The company has over 150 staff members and will hire more talent across industries.
- Osso VR solution trains surgical professionals in virtual reality before conducting real-life surgeries and makes training more accessible in remote settings.
- It eliminates the need to travel and makes collaboration more accessible.
- Osso VR has partnerships with Johnson & Johnson, Zimmer Biomet, Stryker, and Smith + Nephew.
XR Today
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 Goldman Sachs featured the metaverse and cryptocurrency on the bank's landing page. The financial institution is offering resources on the metaverse, Web3, crypto, and blockchain on their website as a means to educate people on emerging technology trends. More: - The bank included digitization, metaverse, and crypto on its home page, which reads, "From cryptocurrencies to the metaverse, explore the megatrends that are reshaping economies."
- The global financial institution appears bullish about the opportunities in this space:
- March 2021: Brought back the bitcoin trading desk.
- May 2021: Established a cryptocurrency trading team and launched the derivatives trading desk for bitcoin.
- June 2021: Added futures and options to its trading desk.
- Jan. 2022: Analysts at the bank predicted that bitcoin would reach the $100,000 mark and sees the metaverse becoming an $8T opportunity.
- March 2022: Introduced the very first over-the-counter crypto transaction with Galaxy Digital.
Bitcoin.com
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 Real estate sales on four major metaverse platforms reached $501M in 2021, with a growth projection of $1B in 2022. Everyrealm, A New York-based company that raised $60M from Andreessen Horowitz, is investing in 25 different metaverse platforms, including Decentraland and The Sandbox. More: - Julia Schwartz, co-founder at Everyrealm, says, "I get calls every day from brands, companies, artists, athletes, retailers, banks, investors — every segment — looking to get into this space."
- The company also bought $4.3M of land in The Sandbox last year and added celebrity clients this year, such as Will Smith, Paris Hilton, Gene Simmons, The Weeknd, and more.
- Some of the things to consider when buying virtual land:
- Metaverse platforms can expand their virtual land offerings, but once it is created, it is governed by a DAO.
- The parcels of land can face various zoning restrictions that will limit what can be built.
- People invest in tech and not real estate, and when you buy virtual land, "you are investing in societal shifts," says Schwartz.
- The company raised a $60M Series A round, and Schwartz says, "Our (Series A) round was significantly oversubscribed. There was a ton of interest from a lot of people — hedge funds, Layer 2 players, celebrities … We're excited to continue to look at opportunities to buy land and develop content."
Crunchbase
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Cyworld, a Korean metaverse launched in 1999, was one of the first virtual worlds that enabled users to create a digital twin of themselves. The company has become an "instant hit" in Korea following the metaverse hype. More: - The company allows users to create avatars and profit from the sale of digital goods in the virtual world.
- These platforms and games aim to create a highly sophisticated version of reality by leveraging 5G technology and graphics cards.
- What is the metaverse, anyway?
- Simply put, it is a 3D experience aimed at becoming the new internet that will allow users to be "inside the internet" as opposed to staring at a 2D computer screen.
- It does not fully exist yet, but early iterations can be seen on platforms such as Decentraland, Meta Horizon Worlds, Cryptovoxels, and The Sandbox.
- Each metaverse platform will have its own distinctive culture, functionality, visual aesthetics, audience, and particularities.
- Justin Sun, head of Tron, believes that every brand needs a metaverse strategy, and companies like Gucci and Balenciaga are eager to enter the virtual world.
- Gnosis Safe, a digital asset management firm, said, "Many brands are experimenting with Web3 now, and we think it'll be a norm in the future, where every major brand would have a consumer segment paying for products in crypto or interacting with NFTs."
Yahoo Finance
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 Minecraft, with over 170 million players, is the second-largest blockchain platform. Users can earn Trilium, the game's native cryptocurrency, and compete in the NFT-enabled metaverse. The company aims to bring onboard non-blockchain and other blockchain games onto the Alien Worlds metaverse via an interoperability bridge. More: - Alien Worlds was launched in 2020 and is the second-largest play-to-earn (P2E) game by monthly users.
- Players have access to NFTs and Trillium tokens, vote in elections, and have fun with the planetary council.
- The game consists of six planet DAOs designed to encourage users to collaborate and travel to Alien World Missions to different planets.
- "This (interoperability) bridge is significant in that we are linking one of the world's most popular decentralized games to the blockchain and opening up a world of new possibilities for Minecraft players through our social metaverse," said Saro Mckenna, co-founder of Alien Worlds.
Financial Post
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 |  | Gia Mattu is based in Calgary, Alberta. She is an entrepreneur with experience in climate technology, drones, AI, machine learning, and blockchain technology. When she's not working, she loves to hike the Canadian Rockies, try new cuisine, and travel. | | | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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