Regulation
The Swiss Metaverse Association seeks to bring certainty to the metaverse through regulation: London Blockchain Conference 2024
At the London Blockchain Conference 2024, the Swiss Metaverse Association presented its Regulatory Position Paper, which aims to assist policymakers in Switzerland and around the world in creating “positive” regulation for metaverse space.
There were few other prescient topics to conclude London Blockchain Conference 2024The three days of presentations on his ‘Spotlight stage’ are more of a metaverse talk.
The speaker was Doctor Daniel Diemersco-founder and board member of the Swiss Metaverse Association, an organization whose goal is to create a broad metaverse ecosystem and support favorable framework conditions in Switzerland.
He began by announcing to the enthusiastic delegates that: “I am from Zug, the famous valley of cryptocurrencies, and I am talking about regulating the Metaverse.”
After that, he paused, joking that he expected to hear boos from the audience. There were none, but as she was quick to point out, perhaps the lack of ridicule was no surprise from an audience of blockchain and fintech enthusiasts, overwhelmingly in favor of regulation and compliance.
Diemers then went on to explain the impetus for the Regulatory Position Paper.
“Metaverse narratives go, like artificial intelligence and blockchain, through cycles… but you and I know it won’t go away,” he said. “We are trying to create a dialogue between academics, startups and, of course, industry regulators.”
The document itself, titled “Creating certainty for the Metaverse‘, breaks down space into four “independent ecosystems” that come together to create the metaverse. Namely: NFTs, blockchain and digital assets; games and e-sports; brands, influencers and creators; and cloud and big tech.
The Swiss Metaverse Association has also created working groups to cover various aspects of the space, including arts and culture, insurance and payments, technology and infrastructure, consumer and fashion, regulatory, tax, legal and policy.
Diemers’ speech focused on the latter of these working groups. He explained how his organization’s approach was: “Let’s build a position paper and send it to the world… and send it to politicians, to slowly warm them up to the fact that regulation is coming.”
This, he said, was a copy of the blueprint used by blockchain advocates in Switzerland, including Diemers himself, to get progressive regulation of digital assets and blockchain through the Swiss parliament.
The main areas of focus of the document, as highlighted by Diemers, were digital interaction, educational programs, data privacy, intellectual property, taxation, digital identitylegal entity and licensing regime, digital assets and labor law.
He also wanted to underline that for the Swiss Metaverse Association it was essential that the document was “a streamlined, understandable and clear language”. A point particularly relevant to blockchain advocates and companies in the public, who have difficulty getting their messages across to lawmakers and potential investors, something that was the topic of much discussion at the London Blockchain Conference 2024 on advertising and related communications to the blockchain.
“So now we throw it to the politicians,” Diemers said, completing his presentation on the Metaverse Regulatory Position Paper. “I hope that in three or four years I can stand here and say we have solved some of these problems.”
He concluded by assuring the audience that “digital assets will be an elementary part of the metaverse… we hope to see this development bring many things together, including AI and blockchain. There are so many things that can happen. Let’s let them happen in a positive and regulated way.”
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