Korazón: The Korean Metaverse

Julian Moon

Contents

1. Background
2. Slave Contract, Zero-Sum Game, Uncomfortable Symbiosis with Public
3. Vision for Sustainable Korean Pop Culture Ecosystem
4. The Korean Metaverse
5. Business Model and Market-Product-Fit
6. Competitors
7. Positive Feedback Loop with Confío
8. China–United States Trade War
9. Token Economy
10. Legal Disclaimer

1. Background

Something very unusual is taking place in the world’s popular culture landscape. We are witnessing the phenomenal rise of a pop culture that can possibly compete with Hollywood. Not only “Squid Game.” Not only “Parasite.” Not only BTS. This wave often resonates with global audiences and influences the audiences to seek other parts of its culture, such as food, fashion style, beauty products, and language. This global wave is called the “Korean Wave” or “Hallyu,” the increasing international interest in Korean culture and Korea.

The Korean Wave is new to everyone who is exposed to the influence of Korean pop culture for the first time for each wave, the “Squid Game” wave, the “Parasite” wave, the BTS wave, the “Gangnam Style” wave, but the phenomenon has been around here since more than ten years ago, and it has been a long while the world’s scholars started to address Korea’s “soft power.” The Korean Wave started in Japan, China, and Southeast Asian countries, and despite its remarkable success, there was always skepticism about the existence of the “Korean Wave.” The naysayers always insisted that this is a short-term phenomenon and it will not last so long. When TVXQ was the most popular K-pop star, most people suspected that the Korean Wave would end when TVXQ was over. After all, there was a strong belief that the Korean Wave was going on mainly in Asia and was not attractive enough to Westerners. And then Psy’s “Gangnam Style” came out.

Despite the huge success of “Gangnam Style,” it was easy to find a claim such as, “It is just ‘Gangnam Style’ and nothing more of Korea and the whole Korean pop culture.” The major milestone that completely shattered the naysayers was BTS’s expansion into the United States. For the first time in history, the Korean pop culture industry achieved its longtime dream of becoming the most important place for the world’s popular culture, America. Before even having enough time to see the end of the era of BTS and then laughing at the end of the BTS era, we witnessed another worldwide sensation, “Squid Game.”

While some even call it “The Korean Invasion,” and the world admits that the Korean Wave will not end anytime soon after witnessing this happening repeatedly and more strongly, we do not have a good understanding of what ignites and fuels this unique phenomenon. Even Koreans themselves do not fully understand the secret ingredients for the Korean Wave due to the lack of research, and all local media outlets do is inventing reasonable reasons afterwords. As a result, international media outlets simply translate what Korean media outlets previously wrote, and thereby, the Korean Wave is often glorified due to the Korean government’s early investment in the entertainment industry. But as you can see, it is not that simple. The Korean Wave has always evolved in a way no one expected.

Although we do not know the reason behind the Korean Wave, we do know what makes Korea shameful behind the bright side of the Korean Wave. From the outside, people can only see the brightest stars and their success stories. The rest of the unfair treatment is easily forgotten. The local public’s pressure on Korean pop stars derived from Koreans’ strict criteria also complicates stars’ lives. Not too long ago, some well-known K-pop stars committed suicide. We figured that a wide range of these problems widespread in the Korean pop culture industry could be solved with Decentralized Finance by eliminating middlemen and directly receiving financial support for Korean stars and content creators from global fans. Further, we wanted to provide “the Korean Metaverse,” a positive ecosystem where global fans and Korean stars, and content creators can communicate with each other to make international friends in the 3D Virtual Reality(VR) that allows an immersive total Korean experience, learn Korean culture and language with gamification, and consequently, help each other to make the world for the better, just as the mission statement of Korazón, “Our mission is to promote world harmony through the postiive influence of Korean Wave.” We have not forgotten it yet since we started in 2019.

2. Slave Contract, Zero-Sum Game, Uncomfortable Symbiosis with the Public

In 2009, three of five members of TVXQ, the most popular K-pop boyband back then, filed a lawsuit to end the unfair contract with its label, SM Entertainment. The lawsuit brought a wave of shock to Koreans. It was the first time the general public was largely informed about “slave contracts” commonly practiced in the entertainment industry. The lawsuit ended in 2012, with a mutual agreement between SM Entertainment and the trio, JYJ. According to the court, the exclusive contract cannot be considered legal for the following reasons: 1) The contract violates the right to privacy, establishing a “dominant-subordinate exclusive” condition and forcing members to obey the agency. 2) JYJ has weaker negotiation capability, having no choice but to follow SM’s decision. 3) The long period of the “dominant-subordinate exclusive” contract cannot be justified as a reduction of investment risk or to penetrate abroad. 4) The articles, such as excessive penalty, also result in a stronger “dominant-subordinate” relationship.

It was a huge loss for the Korean pop culture industry. The biggest K-pop boyband was dismembered while flying. On the other hand, it was a necessary step as TVXQ became the first major K-pop star that paved the way for the next generation of K-pop stars to deserve fairer treatment. Thanks to TVXQ, major labels, including the big 3 (SM, JYP, YG), fixed their contract terms and started to treat their artists better. However, this only applies to major labels. Despite Korean Talent Agencies’ order to end slave contracts, the slave contracts continue to this day.

In a state audit on the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism held at the Culture, Sports, and Tourism Committee of the National Assembly on October 1st, 2021, a congressman claimed, “For another BTS to come out, Korean groups must be healthy and have a basic base and basic infrastructure. Behind the scenes, they are still groaning because of the slave contract.” It was pointed out that labels trick standard contracts with attachment contracts. “There is no contract date. They said they would start a contract when they put two single songs in an album, but they don’t include two songs on the album. Even after this, four years have passed, and the contract is not signed. Because the contract cannot be signed, K-pop stars are not getting paid. If this relationship is not resolved, newcomers cannot debut, mid-level writers cannot grow, and singers and trainees are the same. There is still such a dark shadow behind the splendid side of this music and broadcasting industry in the 21st century,” The congressman urged.

Labels’ mistreatments do not stop at the economic aspect. There have been countless testimonies that K-pop idols’ privacy and personal lives are not protected. It is well-known that JYP Entertainment has a strict three-year ban on new idol dating; trainees are forbidden from using their phones or meeting members of the opposite sex. But no dating ban has been stricter than Cube Entertainment expelled on HyunA. In 2018, Cube Entertainment decided to ban its artist HyunA for the crime of dating. As HyunA was recognized by some international fans, it was enough to surprise the world. For the global Korean Wave fans, it was hard to imagine how strict their labels are regarding dating and personal life, especially for trainees like HyunA, who devoted more than half of her life to becoming a K-pop idol when she was 11.

K-pop labels recruit or scout trainees when trainees are very young, in many cases, even before the age of 10. The older they are, the harder it is to be selected as a trainee. But being selected as a trainee does not guarantee them a successful career, especially when their labels are not major labels. In reality, most of them fail. Some industry experts argue that it is a fairer market and there are more opportunities in comparison to the path the majority of Korean adolescents have to go through — the national obsession with studying hard all day long to go to a better university. However, at a closer look, the Korean pop culture industry is not much different from how other Korean society’s competitions work. The winner takes all, and the loser takes nothing, or even worse, they end up in debt.

The justification for this insane zero-sum competition is based on neoliberalism which was massively adopted after the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. Although Koreans were competitive enough before, the national economic crisis made its society heartless and drove it into fierce competition. In this materialized neoliberal society, success, identified by social status and wealth, is the most important value for society. And Korean neoliberalism follows a fundamental belief that competition solely based on one’s skills and abilities is the fairest way to achieve social justice. This is why Korean education policymakers have strongly advocated “three bans” — on universities’ own written admission tests, grading of high schools, and college admissions in return for financial contributions since 1999. But they are missing one more important thing: they don’t need to fight to get into the best universities. The fruition could be shared better without competing for nonsense college diplomas. This is what Korea needs to fix before fighting for “fair admission” policies.

This obsession with “fairness” hit the Korean pop culture industry when Mnet’s “Produce 101” series vote manipulation was disclosed to the public. Viewers’ votes on the most popular Korean audition TV network series targeting both Korea and Japan turned out to be manipulated with bribery from contestants’ labels. The producing director and the chief producer were sentenced to prison with a fine. Mnet compensated the contestants who were eliminated as a result of manipulation. But the whole story did not end there. The Korean general public did not want to see the new K-pop project group “IZ*ONE” from the TV network for the reason that “IZ*ONE” members were selected through an “unfair process.”

Despite the court having decided that the contestants who benefited from the manipulation would not be revealed as they were unaware of the manipulation happening, and revealing their names could additionally cause harm to them, “IZ*ONE” was taken down by the public. “IZ*ONE“ could have walked on its way, and the other contestants could have started over by pursuing other opportunities. But Korean society rejected that possibility in the name of “social justice.” The zero-sum rule applied this time as well. Although everything was over and there was no way for Mnet to reinitiate the audition and select the contestants from the beginning, it did not make sense to the public that “IZ*ONE” members who benefited from the “unfair” process were flying over the eliminated contestants. So they were taken down, leaving a huge potential to be successful in the Korean market and the Japanese market. There was no place for a win-win.

This was not the first time the public made a decision “on behalf of” the stars themselves in an unfavorable way to stars. The Korean general public has always applied strict standards to Korean stars insisting that celebrities live on popularity and love, so it is fair to assault them as well. So it is not surprising that Korean stars are always cautious and quiet on political issues. There was a K-pop star who came to be known for speaking out on mental health issues, cyberbullying, and women’s rights — issues that remain sensitive in a conservative society like Korea. In 2019, the 25-year-old was found dead at home. The f(x) member Sulli had been experiencing sexist abuse and cyber-bullying from thousands of faceless online haters over her conduct and appearance. Unfortunately, she decided to end her life tragically.

One of the most hilarious moments in K-pop history was Exo fans’ petition to ban a member Chen from Exo for the crime of marrying without a sincere apology to fans. The fans considering Chen as their virtual boyfriend threatened Exo and its label SM Entertainment that they would not support Exo anymore if SM Entertainment did not take prompt action to kick him out of the group. They purchased a mobile banner installed in a van and protested around the SM Entertainment office. They sent packages full of Exo albums to the SM Entertainment office with the meaning of resignation from an Exo fan. “Slave contracts” once ruled the industry; now, fans dictate what an idol can do.

3. Vision for Sustainable Korean Pop Culture Ecosystem

Fermat’s Last Theorem was not proven for more than 350 years after Fermat’s death. The essence of all mathematics had to be used, and in the end, it was proved at the forefront of modern mathematics. Hilbert compared this theorem to a golden goose and hoped that it would not be proven forever because the mathematical achievement mankind had seen to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem easily overwhelmed the accumulated knowledge of mathematics before Fermat. In other words, it is one of the theorems that made the greatest contribution to the development of the science of mathematics, and number theory has developed in its current form thanks to Fermat’s Last Theorem. Modern mathematics and elliptic modular functions have also made significant progress.

In light of the current Korean pop culture trend, we can consider the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem as BTS’s exceptional achievements. And all other mathematicians can be seen as previous-generation K-pop stars or unknown Korean artists. All other mathematicians failed to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, but in the process, they made it to interim findings. In the process of proving Fermat’s Last Theorem, Euler refined the concept of complex numbers, which had not been established, and achieved inventing the imaginary unit i. Ernst Kummer also laid the foundation for modern number theory while exploring Fermat’s Last Theorem. Gerhard Frey was the first to prove that Fermat’s Last Theorem can also be proved by proving the modularity theorem. Kenneth Rivett proved the epsilon conjecture. Now you get it. There must be interim results from pre-debut Korean trainees and unknown Korean stars as well.

At this moment, to be a K-pop star, the dreamer has to apply for auditions from labels. If they are lucky, they are accepted and devote their entire lives. If they are lucky, they are not bound by slave contracts. If they are lucky, they become popular. If they are lucky, they are not cyber-bullied by the public. But why do they have to go through all these harsh processes? They can directly publish their works on a decentralized global network and directly communicate with Korean Wave fans and be understood by the fans. They can directly make a contract taking advantage of smart contracts on the decentralized global network without even glancing at a slave contract, which means they can set up their contracts for directly cooperating with composers, vocal trainers, choreographers, backup singers, and dancers, and vice versa. They can directly post their works and get feedback and monetary support from their fans even before they are well-known or hugely successful and make a living out of the support. All these are possible without a centralized label. Last but not least, they can laser focus on those who support them, not naysayers nor keyboard warriors.

The benefits of decentralization come from content creators who are not K-pop stars or Korean actors/actresses but are pretty popular on social media such as YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. They are crucial players in this Korean Wave ecosystem. The Korean Wave benefited them, but at the same time, the content creators can benefit the Korean Wave. Nevertheless, the world does not give much credit to content creators, and they make relatively very little money in comparison to mega-stars backed by big corporations. It is because they highly rely on social media platforms for their income. Instagram pays little to content creators. YouTube takes 45% of the revenue generated from attached ads. So they have to look for sponsored ads that do not always benefit their fans. Even then, this is only possible for mega-social influencers. Small or medium-sized content creators do not have this opportunity. But what if global fans can directly support them with monetary compensation on a decentralized global network, and content creators can focus on their creativity?

Not only Koreans but global content creators generating remarkable content related to the Korean Wave can also get direct support from their viewers instead of relying on the income derived from social media platforms. Foreign K-pop dance cover teams are a good example. Korean language teachers can also get direct monetary compensation from their fans instead of worrying about the diversification of their content or the lengths of class videos. It is also possible for individual Korean language tutors to offer online classes following smart contracts. The class contracts with their students will be recorded on the blockchain, and they will not need to work with expensive platforms to maintain their reputation.

No company lasts forever. No platform lasts forever. But fans can move on to the next trend. To the next label, to the next social media platform. We have very loyal fans around the globe. We will enable global Korean Wave fans to have direct access to the way they can directly support their Korean stars and content creators with Decentralized Finance so that we all together can build a sustainable Korean pop culture ecosystem.

4. The Korean Metaverse

Korazón has at least two advantages over Microsoft on the Metaverse. Microsoft acquired Blizzard for US$70 billion to acquire Blizzard’s content. We do not need to buy any content from anybody. The content is already out there as a form of the Korean Wave. K-pop is there, K-drama is there, K-food is there, K-fashion and K-beauty are there. The Korean language is available for global citizens to speak for free. We do not need to buy any copyrighted content. That’s the first advantage. The Metaverse is about a war for content. While tech giants and big players are gold-rushing decent content companies in the market that can potentially integrate well with the Metaverse, we do not need to. We have an abundant source of Korean Wave content available for free.

The second advantage is that Korazón is not only about the virtual world. Our Metaverse highly relies on real-world Korea and real-world Korean culture. Even if we develop our story further from our Korazón Metaverse, it will be based on the real-world Korean Wave. This is not about the music industry or entertainment industry. It is about lifestyle. The Korean Wave is in a unique position that can be integrated into entertainment and lifestyle. As a reader of this article, you will easily understand that the Metaverse is a new norm for global citizens’ lifestyles. What you need to understand more in addition to the Metaverse concept is that the Korean Wave is not only about music or entertainment but a “lifestyle industry.” To understand this, you need knowledge beyond BTS, which can be traced back to early or before 2010. Here are some recourses for having an idea about the Korean Wave before BTS’s fame.

TVXQ

Super Junior

The jewel in the Palace

My Love from the Star

The popularity of Korean food is a good example. When asked what image comes into your mind when thinking of Korea, “food” topped 2nd place now, which is a remarkable change compared to previous years.

The obsession with chimaek(Korean deep-friend chicken plus beer) that once swept China is a good example. The chimaek fever in China can be traced to a line from the popular South Korean TV drama, “My Love from the Star.” The show has inspired a chimaek festival in the Chinese city of Ningbo, social media memes, and long lines outside of Korean fried chicken restaurants in China. “Sales at the Kychon Chicken Ziteng Road location in Shanghai more than tripled over the previous year, following the success of (‘My Love from the Star’),” according to Gil Yeong-Hwa of Kyochon Chicken. “The effect of the drama wasn’t as big in the U.S. as it was in China, but sales have been rising continuously,” says Gil.

So, why Korean food?

Delicious? You are only 50% correct. You have to understand the other 50% to answer this question. If you are a K-fan, you’ll know the answer, but if you are not, it would be very tricky to come up with your answer even after some research because no good source on the internet will tell you the answer. You must understand that the K-fans want to follow (or imitate) the Korean lifestyle influenced by the Korean Wave. After experiencing the Korean Wave, they see Korean food through Korean dramas or YouTube. They want to try it out, not just because they look delicious, but because they admire the Korean lifestyle and desire to follow it.

There is a famous Korean dish called “Ttteokbokki.”

A lot of K-fans love to try tteokbokki, but for many reasons, for example, the ingredients are not available in their town or city, or there is no Korean restaurant near their home, they opt for an alternative: “Tteokbokki snack.”

There are huge differences between real tteokbokki and tteokbokki snacks. Although it may be a bit disappointing, it might not be a great deal for them because what they want is not the taste of tteokbokki, but the experience of tteokbokki. They want to “experience” Korean food, a part of a Korean “lifestyle.” In other words, they want to “experience” the Korean lifestyle, which is considered fancy, trendy, and hip. The taste is secondary. This is the reason behind the rise of Korean food.

This rule of thumb does not only apply to food but also to Korean fashion, Korean beauty products, beauty standards, and the Korean language as well. Once you understand that the core of the Korean Wave is about a “lifestyle” and that K-fans want to “experience” that “lifestyle” once they are attracted by K-pop, K-drama, K-fashion, K-beauty, or whatever it is, you’ll know, the Korean Wave will fly in the Metaverse, because the Metaverse is about providing a new “lifestyle,” new space “experiences,” and new feeling “experiences.” How many hours do you think Blizzard games fans spend outside their gaming hours? How much do you believe they would integrate the story and philosophy of the game world and style from that world into their lives? Not so much, unless they are very maniacs. The Korean Wave makes a distinctive, unique value proposition here. The Korean Wave will not be mere entertainment in the Metaverse. It will extend its reach as a lifestyle in the Metaverse as it has been in the real world. This is the second advantage Korazón has over Microsoft on the Metaverse.

Lastly, NFTs and the Metaverse are promising markets for transparent property ownership for content creators and for breaking distances between global fans and content creators. Korean big labels have already started to invest in the NFT and Metaverse industry as they saw a huge potential that could benefit Korean pop culture. The history of the Korean Wave has been about overcoming the distance between Korea and the other side of the world. So there is no doubt that NFT and Metaverse will be the next big thing for the Korean Wave. Even if there are Korean virtual stars on Metaverse, which anybody can create from any country or culture, people will still want authenticity and seek authentic “Made in Korea” verified by NFT.

On the other hand, the Metaverse can facilitate interactions among global fans. We have identified that K-fans enjoy interacting with each other and making friends with like-minded people over the internet much more than non-K-fans, as it is rather hard to encounter them in real life. K-fans are scattered all around the globe. For that reason, K-fans are already making friends through Amino, Discord, Kakao open chat, and so on. The Metaverse will dramatically enhance the internet friendship experience among Korean Wave fans and, consequently, encourage them to stay within the Korazón app and ecosystem. For a more supportive community and structure, we will introduce residency and citizenship structures. Should we make this process intentionally more difficult by setting up a 3D immigration office and making it feel more real and valuable to our users? We haven’t decided.

There is currently no disadvantage to not being a resident or a citizen. You cannot participate in purchasing lands or houses if you are not a resident. You cannot participate in Korazón DAO if you are not a citizen. That’s it. We will be working more in the direction of giving additional advantages or incentives rather than giving disadvantages to non-residents and non-citizens.

5. Business Model and Market-Product-Fit

Korazón will have three major functionalities:

1. Decentralized Finance
2. The Korean Metaverse
3. Gamification of learning Korean language with AI

With Decentralized Finance, we want to 1) eliminate middlemen such as big corporations and 2) directly support Korean stars and content creators with the flexibility of cryptocurrency. To our best knowledge, there has been hardly any attempt to eliminate middlemen in the Korean pop culture industry because big corporations have capital and accumulated knowledge. There have been some long-shots that tried to support Korean content creators directly, but none of them achieved remarkable success due to the barriers in conventional payment methods. Google and Apple would take 30% of the total purchase, and the platform would need a substantial portion of the fund to maintain the platform. We eliminate all this bureaucracy and take only 5% of the total fund supported by global fans.

The revenue sharing follows:

95 % — Content creators

2.5% — Korazón

2.5% — Confío (Cryptocurrency payment platform)

The whole economy runs on the “KORZ” token. Fans must purchase KORZ tokens to participate in the Korazón Decentralized Finance ecosystem. Content creators receive the KORZ tokens supported by their fans minus 5%. Both parties can freely exchange their KORZ tokens for Korazón Korean Won stablecoin(KKW), CONFIO, on Confío, a cryptocurrency payment platform. Fans can purchase Solana coin from any exchange at their convenience and send it to Confío. On Confío, they can exchange one of those tokens for KORZ. With the KORZ balance on Confío, they can start supporting Korean stars and content creators. The financial support mechanism will run on the blockchain with the facilitation of the decentralized Confío wallet. In other words, content creators will receive KORZ tokens directly from their fans with the help of smart contracts deployed on the blockchain. Content creators can exchange KORZ for any Confío, Korazón Korean Won stablecoin on Confío, and then cash out to fiat currencies from an exchange at their convenience. In return, fans will receive an NFT as proof of support that fans may keep in their Confío wallet or take out to an outside wallet.

The way fans support content creators is very similar to existing social media. We will fetch YouTube videos with authorization from content creators. This will enable our app, Korazón, to play YouTube videos directly from our app without a need to go to the YouTube app. So, for content creators, there is nothing more to do to participate in this project. They simply need to download Confío, log in with their YouTube account, and link it to our app, just like TikTok does. Fans will see content creators’ YouTube videos and choose to support them per video by giving them a “Heart.” There is no set amount for a Heart. Fans can choose to give a Heart with 0.00001 KORZ or 100 KORZ, depending on their economic solvency. When they spend KORZ within Korazón, Duende will ask permission to spend KORZ from their wallet. The fans authorize the transaction, and the KORZ token will be released from the fans’ wallets and deposited into content creators’ KORZ wallets. The total amount of support funds per video and per content creator, as well as NFTs issued to fans, will be visible to anybody at any time on the blockchain.

It will be a hybrid model of Decentralized Finance and a centralized platform with dedicated servers, and it may not be fully decentralized upon the launch. With the current transaction performance of blockchain, it could be more viable to run everything on a blockchain and decentralize it. We need instant response when fans click a Heart. But blockchain is incomparably slower than dedicated app servers and will not be able to respond promptly, which means the same with waiting for your Facebook Like to be processed for a few minutes. It does not make sense to any users. They have to move on to see other content and Like other content. What’s worse, the transaction may fail. So we will process this with centralized, dedicated servers in cooperation with Duende. But we are very optimistic about the future advancement of blockchain, given how fast this industry changes and evolves, and can’t wait to see what’s coming into the De-Fi space for the next few years.

Decentralized Finance will be a part of the Korean Metaverse of Korazón in the bigger picture. We will have an Instagram-like functionality to support content creators directly, but the app will not start from the Instagram-look page. It will start with a 3D map of Korea. Users can move around using their 3D avatar on the 3D map of Korea and, for example, move from Seoul to Busan to enter one of the group chat rooms in Busan. Once they choose to enter one of the group chat rooms in Busan, they will be transported to a group chat room with a 3D background. In other words, this will be a fully 3D environment room with 3D avatars. Users will chat only in voice calls. There is no text message feature, as we emphasize real-time communication as a Metaverse platform. The maximum number of participants is 30. Participants can take simple actions by clicking buttons such as “raising my hand,” “hugging,” or “kissing.” They can share their contact and message to keep in touch. But it is not the main feature, and it will not be anywhere near WhatsApp or a real-time chat. It will work like an old-fashioned mailbox. The connected users can open a group chat room and talk in voice calls if they want to hang out.

Futhermore, we will take full advantage of our other app, “Korean Dating,” which has achieved meaningful milestones of 200K+ downloads on Google Play and 100K+ downloads on Apple App Store.

We will provide a paid feature that allows users to send a private chat proposal to one of the other participants. Users will communicate only in their 3D avatars that have a similar look to themselves, but they can still post some photos. We will charge a few fees to make a barrier so that not everyone browses the other person’s photos. Most users will rely on the other person’s 3D avatar to see their look. But if they want, they can browse the other person’s album by paying a few KORZ tokens. This will not be decentralized either. We will sell 3D items to decorate their 3D avatars, and these items will be tokenized as an NFT.

Last but not least, the gamification of learning Korean language with AI is featured in every part of the Korazón Korean Metaverse. What this means is from the onboarding process, users will be guided through by an AI Korean friend represented in a form of a 3D avatar. As opposed to the traditional model of learning foreign languages, we will gamify the Korean language learning process and provide quests and rewards for solving the Korean language problems. All the quests and guidance will be provided both in Korean and users’ native languages.

The Korazón app will be available as forms of a native app and a web app on Android, iOS, PC, and VR glasses such as Oculus Quest.

6. Competitors

Many Metaverse platforms are going well, but none positions themselves as a “Korean Metaverse.” However, the closest ones should be Zepeto and ifland which are based in Korea. Zepeto identifies itself as a fashion Metaverse but certainly has great potential to expand its boundaries and concepts rapidly. We will be the pioneer and frontier in this area, uniquely identifying as “the Korean Metaverse.” We want to be a major market player that people can immediately think of when they think about Korea and Korean culture. This, a Korean community with strong support from international Korean Wave fans for “anything Korea,” was what Korazón had always wanted. With Facebook rebranding its name to Meta, we concluded that now is a good time to get into this market, which is not too early but not too late. We tried to find a Metaverse platform with this vision, goal, and business model. There is virtually no Metaverse positioning itself to rapidly absorb like a black hole taking advantage of the Korean Wave.

Below is a list of possible competitors aiming to be a more generic Metaverse. But there is a great niche market rather than trying to cover everything and catch up with the major players in the market from the beginning.

Big Tech Killer
Roblox
https://www.roblox.com/

Big Tech
Horizon Worlds (Meta)
https://www.oculus.com/facebook-horizon/
Mesh (Microsoft)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mesh

Big Player
Tinder
https://www.reuters.com/technology/welcome-tinderverse-tinders-ceo-talks-metaverse-virtual-currency-2021-12-02/

Mobile-based Metaverse
Zepeto (Naver, Korea’s Google)
https://zepeto.me/
ifland (SKT, Korea’s largest telecom)
https://ifland.io/

Metaverse Fueled by Cryptocurrency Field
Decentraland ($MANA)
https://decentraland.org/
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/decentraland/
The Sandbox ($SAND)
https://www.sandbox.game/
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/the-sandbox/
Axie Infinity ($AXS)
https://axieinfinity.com/
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/axie-infinity/

7. Positive Feedback Loop with Confío

This is about a sharing economy, and the whole point of this business model is to benefit both fans and content creators. So far, we have talked about the benefits for content creators. What about fans? What benefits are there for fans?

It might not be familiar to Korean stars and content creators, but there is a 2 billion unbanked population in the world and a much more underbanked population. In other words, 2 billion global citizens have no access to financial services and cannot deposit their cash in a bank account, nor can they use a debit card or a credit card linked to their accounts, which we, living in developed nations, take for granted in our daily lives. They are also most vulnerable to financial crises. Their currencies are highly dependent on the US dollar and fluctuate according to inflows and outflows of foreign investment.

Latin America is a region with significant economic size and infrastructure, but they have been suffering from economic instability for a long time due to bureaucracies and corruption. Their currencies are weak and have collapsed easily. Venezuela has been suffering from hyperinflation for a decade and is only getting worse. There was an exodus called the “Venezuelan Crisis,” which produced 6 million refugees.

Although it is not comparable to Venezuela, other countries also have suffered from a currency crisis. Argentine Peso and Brazilian Real are at risk of collapse. It will be no surprise if these currencies collapse in the next few years. In Argentina, people can only exchange Argentine pesos for the US dollar for up to US $200 a month. Therefore, poor citizens are stuck in the country, and only a few people benefit from such a policy. Some countries, such as Panama and Ecuador, chose to use the US dollar and rely on the power of the United States, but it cannot be the ultimate answer. It is just an easy, quick solution. Quantitative easing from the US Federal Reserve never benefits these nations without access to the money printer. Only Americans will enjoy a party time until the US dollar fails.

We would like to help them by taking full advantage of the power of the Korean Wave. The Korean Wave swept the whole Latin American continent, and its influence is remarkable. To enable Latin Americans to use cryptocurrency, we need to build a sizeable ecosystem. But it is difficult to encourage the general public to download a cryptocurrency payment app and use cryptocurrency. Hence, it returns to a chicken-and-egg problem. However, there is still a way to make it possible. The Korean Wave, with its influence in Latin America, has the power to make them use our cryptocurrency, KORZ, and spend it on their favorite Korean stars and content creators. In return, we facilitate Latin America to form a sizeable cryptocurrency ecosystem. And again, with more cryptocurrency users and a more cryptocurrency-friendly environment, more Latin Americans will use KORZ, and it will return with more benefits for Korean stars, content creators, and the whole Korazón community. While all these are happening, Korean stars and content creators do not need to do anything but simply join Korazón and let their fans know about it. It is that simple. In this simple way, we will create a positive feedback loop between Korea and Latin America. This is why we want to partner with Confío and focus on Latin America first, besides the necessity of our custody wallet to monitor users’ NFT better and maintain a hybrid model of a centralized & decentralized Metaverse. Yes, it is pretty convenient to draw a borderline and separate its roles for Korazón and Confío. But that’s not all why we partner. We see a bigger picture of a crossroads of Korea and Latin America, building an insanely huge ecosystem that history has never seen before and making the pie bigger, and sharing it with everyone.

8. China–United States Trade War

From its founding days, it has always been Korazón’s wish to contribute to world peace and harmony through Korean Wave. That’s how we came up with the word “peace” in the company name in addition to “Kool,” which stands for “Korean Cool.” With this aspiring mission, once we successfully build the Korean Metaverse, we will not only be working on North Korea but will also be establishing a good relationship with Korea’s neighbor, Japan, by creating a hyperloop that connects from Busan, Korea, through Tsushima Island to Fukuoka, Japan. We are even ambitious enough to support the entire map of Japan in connection to Korea — a mixed idea from Elon Musk’s hyperloop and the Japan–Korea Undersea Tunnel, a long-time proposed plan that has never been seriously considered.

We believe that lots of synergies can be added up when the two neighboring East Asian countries that are very impactful in the world get along well with each other. Although the Korean culture and the Japanese culture are very distinctive, they still share some commonalities as the same East Asian countries from outsiders’ views. While Korea has been enjoying its highest global popularity in history, Japan’s impact on the world’s entertainment industry has declined. Nevertheless, Japan has unique strengths in its modern and historical content and arts. We will start with the Kyushu area first, and then with Osaka and Kyoto, we can decide if we will support the entire map of Japan.

Not as much to support the entire map as Japan, but there is also a good reason to support a few areas of China, such as The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. Sparked by the Trump administration, The United States of America now declares China as an extraordinary national security threat, and the following Biden administration is racing to unite allies against China. Some experts are even concerned with a potential war between China and Taiwan and the intervention from the United States. Under this tension, Korea’s position becomes tremendously important for China and the United States due to its geopolitical uniqueness. Although its foundation is from Western free democratic societies, led by Germany and France, The European Union is not decisive in its position and wants to walk in its 3rd way, neither America’s nor China’s. Its united power as a whole in Europe is also in question, as revealed during the pandemic. Japan has long made it clear to be sided with the United States. So the rest is Korea. With its impact on the global economy, border with North Korea, and proximity to China, it’s both China’s and the United States’ interest to include Korea as their allies.

The United States already called for a semiconductor alliance with Samsung, a Korean electronics giant. But what about the Metaverse? As the whole world’s assets will be transported onto blockchains, the world will be pretty much all about the Metaverse. With its content and soft power, Korea has tremendous advantages and opportunities in this Metaverse era. It has been more than ten years since Korea established the Korean Wave. So basically, it is almost the same that Korea is ten years ahead of other nations and cultures in terms of the Metaverse. With more than 100 million global fans(when only counting official online fan clubs and the number of fans is expected to be a lot more unofficially), the Korean Wave has already formed a transnational empire. It is everywhere on Web 2.0, including but not limited to YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Amino, Discord, etc. With the Metaverse and Web 3.0, the Korean Wave will again be in its heyday.

With its superior strength in the Metaverse, Korea will now be able to be out of its league. Once inspired by former Korean president Roh, Korea will again aim to play a “balancer” between China and the United States. Korazón will try its best not to be involved with politics. We definitely won’t need to, as Bitcoin is all about the separation of money and states. However, China will be isolated as the rest of the world will be seamlessly connected with the Metaverse on top of the foundation of Bitcoin and blockchains. China is ambitious on its own CBDC(Central Bank Digital Currency), and it will ask Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America to trade with Digital Yuan. But that will never be easy. At some point, every government will want to keep Bitcoin as a reserve currency. Who wants Digital Yuan? Only foreign capital that wants to be converted to flow into China. For international trade and investments, China still needs a window to the rest of the world.

That bridge will continue to be in Hong Kong for the foreseeable future. China will not want to lose Hong Kong’s reputation as a global financial center. Korazón will create another hyperloop from Incheon, Korea, through Jeju Island to Hong Kong SAR, China. Only users in Hong Kong will be allowed to exchange their KORZ tokens for the Chinese Digital Yuan. Of course, it is only possible when the Chinese Yuan is fully on a blockchain. Eventually, it will have to be, and the Central Bank of China will even want to assign some nodes to other central banks or governments to add credibility, even if it is not a validator. But China will have to take it into their calculation once Digital Yuan is on a blockchain; Yuan tokens can be atomically tokenized again on other blockchains too, and tradable outside the scope of China. So, if that is inevitable, why not let them do it in Hong Kong rather than other places?

9. Token Economy

KORZ was issued as an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token. The Confío platform works with the Ethereum network, which is an essential part of the integration. The purpose of making the KORZ token is to be used as a virtual currency in our exclusive platform, Korazón, to support Korean stars and content creators directly and to integrate with smart contracts for issuing NFTs. We do not prohibit using our tokens outside the scope of our services, and you are free to withdraw your KORZ tokens from the Confío platform and keep them in your private wallet.

There is no “initial listing” or “initial offering” event. The KORZ token will be available for exchange on Confío simply to offer the availability to exchange for Confío, Korazón, and Korazón Korean Won stablecoins and facilitate Latin America’s cryptocurrency-friendly ecosystem. In other words, there is no “mega public sale event.” Nonetheless, you can still purchase a significant amount of KORZ tokens on Confío if you wish.

KORZ tokens are allocated as follows:

Total Supply: 1,000,000,000 (100%)

• Founder — (< 100%)
• Community — (> 0%)

Community members will purchase KORZ tokens from founder Julian as much as they wish. They can use the KORZ to purchase Korean cosmetics in the Korazón app in connection to the payment from the Confío app.

10. Legal Disclaimer

This article was provided to you by Duende Limited, a Hong Kong company. Duende Limited was organized under the laws of Hong Kong and operated under the laws of Hong Kong. The author of this article, Julian Moon, is a company founder and represents the company by acting within the course and scope of the company’s operation.

KORZ tokens are not intended to constitute securities in any jurisdiction. Rather, KORZ tokens are intended to function as a virtual currency from the beginning. This article does not constitute a prospectus or offer document of any sort and is not intended to constitute an offer of securities or a solicitation for investment in securities in any jurisdiction. The tokens and the terms and conditions have not been, and will not be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933.

Furthermore, this article is not composed under, and is not subject to, laws or regulations of any jurisdiction designed to protect investors. KORZ tokens are not investments or contracts, nor should they be construed as such. This article does not constitute or form part of any opinion on any advice to exchange or any solicitation of any offer by Duende Limited to exchange any KORZ tokens.

No person is bound to enter into any contract or binding legal commitment in relation to the exchanges of the KORZ tokens.

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