Korea Blockchain Week 2022 launched this weekend, with over 7,000 people registered and over 120 speakers on the list. This year’s event, according to the event’s chief executive officer, Jeon Seon-ik, was one of the largest of its kind in Asia, if not the world.
Korea Blockchain Week reflects healthy crypto adoption in South Korea
Cryptocurrency initially gained traction in South Korea in 2017 when the country’s largest company, Samsung, stated that it will use Ethereum for corporate use. Samsung SDS was the first Korean company to join the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, which was founded that year in San Francisco to allow business transactions.
In his keynote address at the Korea Blockchain Week, Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder and the chief scientist at Ethereum, underlined the need to make cryptocurrency transactions more inexpensive for a wider variety of consumers and to promote the advantages of a decentralized financial system.
The cryptocurrency market in South Korea has developed into one of the biggest in the world. According to the nation’s Financial Services Commission, the country’s crypto assets increased to 55 trillion won ($46 billion) at the end of last year, with more than 15 million registered users of trading platforms.
A few years ago, the South Korean government took a more cautious approach to cryptocurrencies, even considering banning them. However, the government has increasingly sought to regulate the industry.
Cryptocurrency bullishness despite falling prices
When the South Korean cryptocurrencies Luna and TerraUSD failed in May, it resulted in a $300 billion loss across the crypto market, as well as widespread calls for Do Kwon, the cryptocurrency’ creator, to be arrested and various investigations.
However, this, as well as a broader crypto winter pushing down industry pricing, do not appear to have dampened South Korea’s appetite for all things Web3.
The main-stage activities for KBW2022: IMPACT took place on Aug. 8 and 9 at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas. Up until Aug.14, additional activities will be held on different days, including Seoul Festa 2022: K-Pop Festival, Solana Hacker House, Web 3.0 Dinner, Impact NFT Gallery, NFT exhibition, and more.
Buterin, Sergej Kunz of 1inch Network, and Sam Seo of the Klaytn Foundation all delivered keynote speeches on the first day of the main stage event.
Sam Seo, the director of the Klaytn Foundation, believes that Web2 businesses incorporating the technology into their products and services will make mass adoption of the Metaverse “easier.”
“If new ideas are combined with Web2 platforms like [social media app] Kakao, especially in South Korea, there’s accessibility to these new ideas for new services that could be easier than just starting from scratch,” Seo said. “Even though it’s hard, adapting Web3 technologies to Web2 platforms could be a way to bring mass adoption.”
He said that, despite the Terra-Luna collapse, South Korea was huge on crypto and was one of the world’s tech hubs.