Authors: Mikaela Belcher, Casey Yang, Nick Breen and Michael Isselin

Welcome to Reed Smith’s monthly DigiDigest series on all things Metaverse and Web3. These short updates cut through the noise and put the most talked-about news and coolest new initiatives in the Metaverse and Web3 at your fingertips.

Here’s the best of March 2023:

Trends to watch

The Metaverse is gathering momentum

According to DappRadar, virtual land trading reached an all-time high in Q1 2023, and trading volume for virtual worlds is on the rise. In total, there were 147,000 trades, and $311 million was traded in virtual worlds. That’s a 277% increase from Q4 2022. Thus, as virtual worlds launch their initiatives for 2023, money continues to pour into the Metaverse sector, as evidenced by the fact that $502 million was invested into blockchain gaming and Metaverse projects in Q1 2023.

Read more on nftnewstoday.com.

Microsoft's AI-powered Bing Chat to deliver increased advertising opportunities

Microsoft is exploring different ways to drive revenue on its ChatGPT-powered Bing, including placing ad content next to Bing Chat answers. Microsoft has reported that it is also exploring placing ads within the chat experience, in order to share ad revenue with partners whose content contributes to the chat response.

Read more on pcmag.com and Microsoft’s blog on bing.com.

New AI-powered Metaverse platform Oncyber allows instant text-prompted Metaverse manipulation

3D world-building platform Oncyber has revealed its latest creation: an AI-powered tool called Magic Composer. Magic Composer harnesses the power of OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 model to allow users to customise their Metaverse environments via text commands and easily create virtual galleries to store and showcase NFT works from connected crypto wallets.

Read more on decrypt.co.

Board your next flight abroad with an NFT

An Argentinian low-cost airline, Flybondi, has integrated Web3 into its ticketing process by issuing e-tickets as NFTs. The integration is powered by NFT ticketing company Travel X and is built on the Algorand blockchain. Customers can change their name, transfer or sell their “NFTickets” independently.

Read more on coindesk.

Avenged Sevenfold NFT fan club receive priority access to tour tickets

Ticketmaster has launched crypto wallet integration for Avenged Sevenfold’s upcoming tour, allowing NFT holders from the heavy metal band’s fan club – Death Bats Club – to get priority access to tickets and reserved seating with no queues. NFT ticket holders even get special experiences such as sitting in on a sound check.

Read more on billboard.com

Loyalty program for NFT holders

Blockchain network Polygon has joined forces with Salesforce to form an NFT-based loyalty program. This follows Salesforce’s announcement that it was expanding client services to include management of NFT loyalty programs. Customers can monitor real-time blockchain data from collections launched on Ethereum and Polygon within their customer relationship management (CRM).

Read more on The Crypto Times.

Latest legal developments

NFTs are a valid method for serving legal notice, rules U.S. District Court 

In a first-of-its-kind case, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida has allowed notice of a legal action to be sent to a scammer’s Ethereum account as an NFT. A tech-savvy theft victim, who had almost a million dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency stolen after connecting his crypto wallet to a fake crypto mining website, created an NFT of the notice of suit before sending it to the scammer’s Ethereum address. The scammer’s Ethereum address was the only available identifying information that arose as a result of the crypto transaction. It remains to be seen whether the serving of the NFT will actually allow the victim to recover his money, but this case opens up many possibilities as to the role that NFTs are able to play in legal proceedings.

Read more on nftevening.com.

Creator of world’s first ever NFT successfully defends ownership claim

Kevin McCoy, co-inventor of the world’s first NFT, has successfully defended an ownership claim by Canadian company Free Holdings. Free Holdings claimed that McCoy had failed to update the code, which signifies ownership of NFTs, on the digital public ownership register and in doing so had ceded ownership of part of the NFT to Free Holdings. Despite this, however, ultimately the court ruled that McCoy was entitled to the NFT. In ruling against the claim, the court overlooked certain nuances of digital ownership and focused more on the legal ownership of the digital asset.

Read more on artnews.com.