The crypto-metaverse transcends mere amusement and has evolved into a robust digital landscape. The paper "Digital real estate in the metaverse: An empirical analysis of retail investor motivations" reveals the motivations behind why ordinary retail investors purchase metaverse land.

We are excited to announce that the Blockchain Research Lab has received a grant from the DZ BANK Stiftung. The funded project started in August 2023 and seeks to explore the opportunities of security tokens as a local investment option for individual investors. Furthermore, we are investigating the viability of security tokens as a potential future business model for cooperative banks.

This blog post is an invited guest post by Dr Julian Granados. This post draws on the research conducted by Dr Granados at the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research on the opportunities and tools that arise from blockchain technologies for facilitating Payments for Environmental Services (PES) and other environmental management schemes.