Korea Blockchain Week in Review
In July, I was fortunate to travel to Seoul, Korea to attend the Korea Blockchain Week organized by FACTBLOCK, Beyond Blocks and HASHED. This was my first time in South Korea, and it was evident from the moment we landed that it is a country thriving on innovation.
Despite the Greater Seoul region being extremely dense, making up about half of the entire South Korean population, it has one of the fastest internet networks on the planet. Because of this speed, the population has adapted to always being connected. New technologies and online trends spread rapidly throughout the city, with cryptocurrency having been one of them. The nation in general places a high value in digital goods, and at the beginning of 2018, South Korea was making up 30% of global cryptocurrency trading.
For these reasons, the city was poised for an active inaugural Korea Blockchain Week.
Beyond Blocks Conference
The Beyond Blocks Conference made it clear that the nation is looking to win the race for crypto adoption. This could be seen through the conference’s curated agenda and community engagement. The excitement at the networking events made it clear that everyone was keen to build relationships and collaborate on scaling the industry. Attendees were also keen to learn about the use cases of the technology and token economics.
Women in Blockchain Event
On July 19th, I attended a women in blockchain meetup. The goal was to bring the community together to meet the talented women in the space, as well as to get a sense of the overall Korean blockchain industry. It was clear that the event was of interest to everyone, which was refreshing to see. With around 50% men in the audience, it was an incredible turn out! Everyone in attendance was up to speed on the technical jargon that fills the industry and were quick to spark up a conversation on the importance of peer-to-peer networks, decentralization, and token economics.
Meetups
Each of the meetups we attended were packed, as the technical and innovative minds in the electronic and digitally dominated region were keen to attend and stay on top of trends in the industry. A favourite to attend was the Metadium Meetup where we greatly enjoyed learning about their protocol and meeting their community.
Groups like HASHED were very prevalent throughout the week spreading their support for innovation, along with the leading messenger giant, Kakao, who shared its vision for blockchain within their ecosystem, and finally the leading exchange, Binance, emphasizing its values and its vision for a better world with more crypto adoption!
Blockchain Partners Summit
The Blockchain Partners Summit (BPS) offered a platform for those in the industry to share knowledge on trends and blockchain tech. With over 50 speakers from blockchain projects, venture capitalists and tech-giants, there was a lot to be learned. The event provided a good analysis on shared trends as well as provided educated predictions on the future market.
Final Thoughts
In the past 6 months, South Korean regulations have been particularly uneasy; however, from an end crypto user perspective, I still sensed a lot of optimism about the future of crypto.
While it seems as though the exchanges are going through some growing pains (with increased taxation laws and a stricter approach on anonymity), ICOs and the use of crypto currency appear to be widely accepted. With the recent announcement of the government’s willingness to support blockchain development with $200M, it’s clear there is a want to build this industry and technological revolution in South Korea!
Overall, we realized the South Koreans, with their love for k-pop, kimchi, crypto, and gaming is a place where we think there is an excellent opportunity for engagement. Localization is important here, and we truly see that with an SDK. the opportunity to run Superpeers within the RightMesh network would be a desirable innovative way to take part within the network.
Having met many great people, we have a lot of follow-up with our new friends and look forward to updating you on our global growth in South Korea!
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