Mapxus, the leading indoor mapping technology platform backed by the Japanese 
corporation Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Hong Kong-based venture capital firm 
Beyond Ventures, has announced a joint venture with NOIZChain ('NOIZ'), wholly 
owned subsidiary of a Hong Kong Listed Company Merdeka Financial Group Limited 
(Stock code: 8163.HK), leading provider of cost-efficient 
Blockchain-as-a-Service ('BaaS'), to co-create Honio, the world's first indoor 
location-based Game-Fi metaverse.

Honio is a move-to-earn metaverse that converges art, culture and community. 
Mapxus has partnered with NOIZ to build spatial digital twins of real-life 
shopping malls and landmarks in the Honio metaverse, using indoor maps and 
positioning technology. Honio app users will be rewarded with free art element 
drops according to the time they spend in physical stores. The longer the user 
stays, the more art element drops they earn. Furthermore, art elements can be 
merged into an NFT. Powered by NOIZ's blockchain technology, the metaverse will 
be able to record all customer transactions. As a result, Honio boosts foot 
traffic in shopping malls by increasing user retention time in physical stores 
while enhancing marketing analytics to enable more comprehensive data reports.

To drive the travel economy by connecting the real world via smartphones, Honio 
is being developed as a mobile app that will enable easy access for everyone. 
Most metaverses, which can only be accessed via computers, have relatively few 
active users, i.e., less than 10,000. In view of this, Honio is targeting the 
smartphone user population to increase accessibility. With the app's 
country-based feature that maps cities and countries, it is expected to have 
over 100 million users upon launch.

The Honio metaverse, which integrates a location-based reward system, creator 
and fan economy, and metaverse commerce, benefits from the instrumental role 
played by Nfternoon, a digital art specialist company and part of the joint 
venture. Nfternoon handles creative consultancy on digital creations, including 
NFTs, AI, and digital visualisation, while providing integrated Intellectual 
Property (IP) management and marketing for the metaverse. Furthermore, the 
location-based reward system redirects traffic to malls through the rewards, 
and the crossover of NFT marketing with IP demonstrates the creator and fan 
economy, encouraging fans to stay longer at malls to collect NFTs.

Last but not least, metaverse commerce possesses high loyalty value. Through 
these features, the Honio metaverse can attract more customers, expand markets 
and reach a large demographic by connecting the virtual and physical worlds.

Keith Chow, Chief Innovation Officer of NOIZ, added, "By 2027, over 40% of 
large organizations worldwide will be using a combination of Web3, spatial 
computing, and digital twins in metaverse-based projects aimed at increasing 
revenue. This presents a great opportunity for Honio to help retail businesses 
join the metaverse by creating an integration of physical and virtual 
experiences to retain and attract their targeted customers through metaverse 
gamification."

Ocean Ng, Founder and Chief Operation Officer of Mapxus, believes that Honio 
can bring customers back to shopping malls, "As the pandemic is now more stable 
and travel restrictions are easing, the travel and retail markets have been 
revitalized. Honio provides a metaverse experience for travel enthusiasts by 
the time they step into any Honio-supported shopping mall. I believe our 
metaverse can greatly benefit our shopping mall partners."

Honio currently focuses mainly on the Japanese market with a target to cover 
around 2,000 landmarks by 2023 and 5,000 buildings by 2024. It is also expected 
that Honio will be launched in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other Southeast Asian 
markets by 2024. Further information about the aforementioned markets will be 
released in due course.

About NOIZ

Established in 2018 and headquartered in Hong Kong, NOIZChain Limited ('NOIZ') 
is a wholly owned subsidiary of a Hong Kong listed company Merdeka Financial 
Group Limited (Stock code: 8163.HK). As a Blockchain-as-a-Service ('BaaS') 
company, NOIZ aims to make blockchain technology widely available for every 
business and to drive blockchain mass adoption and commercialization.

NOIZ values Environmental, Social, and Governance and has developed an 
environmentally friendly blockchain known as 'NOIZChain' ('NOIZ Green Chain'), 
which adopts a proof of capacity consensus mechanism that allows mining devices 
in the network to use available hard drive space to decide mining rights and to 
validate transactions. It has also developed a Metaverse and an all-in-one 
digital wallet on the NOIZ Green Chain.

NOIZ provides tailor-made services to various industries, including 
international banks, insurance companies, art museums, and advertising 
agencies, and it is well prepared to expand its business in a fast-growing 
market.

About Mapxus

Mapxus is a comprehensive indoor Geographic Information System (GIS) platform 
that provides global indoor mapping and navigation services, aiming to make 
indoor mapping smart and simple, and to create a barrier-free and inclusive 
city experience for everyone. With cutting-edge indoor mapping and navigation 
technology, Mapxus has quickly expanded its service to over 25 cities in the 
Asia-Pacific region, covering more than 1,500 venues across various building 
types including retail, universities, transit, and government buildings. Mapxus 
innovative indoor map data infrastructure is designed to empower people and 
businesses, improving daily experiences and work efficiency. Mapxus has just 
raised more than US$5 million from Kawasaki Heavy Industries to build a 
Japanese indoor map data platform and has received investment from Beyond 
Ventures in 2019.

Source: NOIZ