News

Everdome Announces First-Ever Metaverse Soundtrack

The interplanetary metaverse project has revealed the opening single from the world’s first metaverse-specific soundtrack.

Published

4 years ago

October 21, 2022

Nour Nasir

Everdome

Created in tandem with music composer Wojciech Urbański, a single called “Machine Phoenix” is being released today which forms part of the first-ever metaverse-specific soundtrack.

The project is called the “Everdome Original Metaverse Soundtrack”. It will give a unique atmosphere and background ambiance to Everdome’s hyper-realistic landscape, which is based on a future Mars settlement, using blockchain and VR technology.

Wojciech Urbański is a gifted composer with a portfolio of award-winning tracks that have been used by the likes of Netflix and Canal+. Wojciech’s Spotify community currently comprises over 600,000 monthly listeners, while overall, his tracks have been played more than 50 million times. The Everdome project hopes to use the composer’s talents to add drama to its hyper-realistic storytelling and visuals.

“Creating a musical illustration of the cosmos and space exploration is probably a dream held by every composer. This collaboration is for me a great artistic opportunity, as the setting of an immersive metaverse world permits the use of a very wide range of sounds and tools,” says Wojciech Urbański.

Metaverse users will hear Wojciech’s work as they launch from Everdome’s virtual Hatta spaceport to the Mars Cycler, situated in Earth’s lower orbit, with the musical collaboration evoking a similar atmosphere to Harry Gregson-Williams’ soundtrack for “The Martian” or Hans Zimmer’s “Dune”.

Also Read: Bedu Has Built A Metaverse Of The UAE’s Planned Mars Trip

As well as partnering with Wojciech Urbański, Everdome is also utilizing the talents of Michał Fojcik, a sound supervisor and designer who has worked on blockbusters including X-Men: Dark Phoenix and Solo. A Star Wars Story.

“Building a sonic background for a metaverse experience is a uniquely challenging task. In the absence of true forms of touch or smell, the visual and the sonic take on huge levels of importance if the experience is to be considered truly hyper-realistic,” says Michał Fojcik, sound supervisor and advisor.

Both artists will be dedicated to the creation of a sonic soundscape that will significantly enhance the quality of Everdome’s storytelling, and you can hear the first single from their collaboration, “Machine Phoenix”, on all major music distribution platforms, including Spotify, Anghami, and YouTube from today.

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.