Norway Enters Metaverse with Virtual Tax Office in Decentraland

The Brønnøysund Register Center, a Norwegian governmental agency, has established a virtual office in Decentraland metaverse with the help of the accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY). Announced at the Nokios conference on Wednesday, the center is in charge of managing the government's electronic data-sharing infrastructure as well as Norway's public registries.

The agency aims to connect with the younger, tech-savvy people that uses its services and because "future users of public services are there" while establishing their Web3 footprint.

The virtual office intends to provide users with information on cryptocurrency reporting through the Norwegian Tax Agency and advice on how to launch a business from professionals at the Brønnøysund Register.

In a LinkedIn post, Magnus Jones, the Nordic blockchain lead at EY, expressed his hope that the collaboration with the Norwegian government will help advance education in the cryptocurrency space by teaching users about taxes related to decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFT).

The Brønnøysund is also exploring additional Web3 services, including decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO), wallets, smart contracts and more.

“Kudos once again to Norwegian authorities who dare to make moves to bring clarity in a complex landscape,” wrote Jones. “Building further on issuing worlds first guidance on how to tax DeFi and also NFTs, and being a front runner in the crypto space in general.”

Norway has been gradually adopting crypto services at the national level besides the metaverse. The government announced in June that it would release a capitalization tables platform for unlisted companies using the Ethereum scaling service Arbitrum. Sweden, Norway, Israel, and the Bank for International Settlements partnered up in September to investigate the introduction of a CBDC (central bank digital currency) for international transfers.

Other nations were also incorporating Web3 tools at the national level. The Shanghai city government announced its plans to grow its metaverse industry to $52 billion by 2025 in a policy briefing in July. And earlier this month, the prime minister of Japan declared that the nation's plans for digital transformation would include NFTs and the metaverse.