Data Theft Risk Identification and Governance in the Metaverse Economy: Based on the Bybit Cold Wallet Theft Incident

With the rapid development of the meta-universe economy, new types of risks such as data theft are becoming more and more prominent, seriously threatening economic security and user trust. This paper takes the Bybit cold wallet theft incident as a case study to analyse the causes, impacts and governance strategies of data theft risks in the meta-universe economy. It is found that technical defects such as smart contract loopholes, weak authentication mechanisms and unencrypted cross-platform data interfaces are the main sources of risk, leading to huge asset losses, market panic and economic ecological imbalance. At the same time, the lack of legal regulation and users’ lack of security awareness aggravate the risk proliferation. To address the above issues, this paper proposes to introduce Threshold Signature Scheme (TSS) to optimise key management at the technical level, improve cross-border data governance and asset insurance system at the legal level, and strengthen self-regulation, collaboration and security education at the industry and user levels. The conclusions of this study can provide a basis or reference for multi-dimensional collaborative governance to build a secure and trustworthy meta-universe economic ecology.