weBloc Project Closure Announcement
Dear weBloc supporters and ICONists,
Today, I have a heart-breaking announcement about weBloc.
From 2018 when the weBloc team started the project and launched the TGE to 2021 when the crypto market has been re-ignited, weBloc team has navigated through so many difficulties. When the entire crypto market had collapsed at the end of 2018, most of the development team members left the team. weBloc had to develop and update its services via partnership with outside vendors as a small group of dev team members could only support the operation of the services like fixing bugs.
weBloc team was closely working together with the JEJU municipal government and supported its initiative to become the Blockchain Sandbox Zone in South Korea. With the high hope and expectation originated from JEJU government’s effort and will, weBloc team decided to establish the cooperation on JEJU Island, which is in the Jurisdiction of South Korea.
But Busan metropolitan city became the Blockchain Sandbox Zone — weBloc was not physically in Busan, weBloc’s service and business model suddenly became illegal, violating Electronic Financial Transaction Act Article 28 Clause 2 and Article 28 Clause 2. Due to the legal barrier, weBloc had to give up JUBJUB, which was planned to be the main service of weBloc. weBloc had no choice but to decide PAYWOK as the main service to launch its reward-based advertising service and protocol despite PAYWOK only works in South Korea and on Android phones.
However, all blockchain-based business environments in South Korea were so hostile — if any business deal with legacy business sectors included the word “Blockchain”, it failed. weBloc could not find any business partner who would like to put their Ads on PAYWOK because it WILL cause a legal problem. weBloc put all Ads on PAYWOK at weBloc’s cost but still could not build a working Token Economy. weBloc has put all its resources including the profits from the legacy advertising and marketing business parts and P-Rep rewards, but the burden only got heavier as more users came. And at a certain point, the business was not sustainable with sales getting lower and costs getting bigger.
CEO Ken Hong and all left team members did their best to stay alive during the crypto winter and waited for the spring while maintaining its members and business. It has been 3 years since such effort began and the team achieved all promises and landmarks stipulated on the Whitepaper no matter how difficult they were.
While weBloc has been doing its business, it declared itself as the best partner/Dapp of ICON, participating in the expansion of ICON’s ecosystem. weBloc bridged the partnership between ICON and LINK. weBloc made so many promotional efforts to promote and boost ICON even before the ICON’s mainnet was launched. weBloc delayed its TGE — Token Generation Event, aka ICO — 4 times to become the very first Dapp using ICON’s smart contract. weBloc planned its TGE on July 2018 and launched its TGE on November 2018, when the collapse of crypto market began. But weBloc never stopped being the best partner of ICON. At the initial stage for a certain period time, weBloc covered more than 50% of the entire transaction of ICON. Even when there was no P-Rep or Dapp, weBloc attracted new partners of ICON such as Block Insight and TimeTicket. weBloc initiated ICON Dapp Alliance to establish the foundation of cooperation among ICON Dapps. Even though every single effort weBloc made has not achieved big success, weBloc has been the most reliable partner of ICON all the time.
Unfortunately, the funds were running out and by the end of 2019, the services used up all money weBloc had. weBloc started participating in the government funding projects to make money and all team members started working as vendors for other projects and companies to maintain its business. Marketing & advertising projects, getting government loans, design, and any outsourcing works we could get became the job of weBloc. No matter how hard it would be, the team waited for a turning point.
And finally, the South Korean government passed an amendment to the Act on the Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Transaction Information in 2020. It came into effect in March 26th 2021 and all blockchain service providers issued coins or tokens are now required to be registered as VASP — Virtual Asset Service Providers — and to acquire ISMS — Information Security Management System — certificate if they provide services using crypto as a payment method or there is a transaction of coins/tokens within the services. The worst part is that the yearly cost for registration and renewal would be hundreds of thousands USD. What a bummer.
In addition, weBloc could not tap into the Market Making action as it can be a violation of laws in Korea. Ironically weBloc wanted to be a Korean cooperation, it has been subject to the Korean laws and regulations, making it impossible to do any MM activities as it can be illegal for Korean companies. weBloc never wanted to be a pump-and-dump project but there was no way to put liquidity on WOK trades and maintain the prices as the Token Economy could not work under the market circumstances.
weBloc also failed to attract additional investment as all VCs in Korea replied that they do not invest in a “Blockchain company”. The team has had difficulty making ends meet and now it is faced with another regulatory barrier that would easily cost more than several hundreds of dollars for VASP and ISMS certificates, which even do not guarantee the legal stand of a blockchain business. There was no way out under such a business environment.
weBloc team had to make a decision. The team is really sorry to fail all weBloc supporters but it was too clear that the project reached the dead-end. Accumulated debts reached the tipping point and the project cannot bear more burden. As a result, weBloc team decided to close the project by March 31st 2021. Starting from the Kakaotalk community on March 31st, all weBloc communities will be closed by April 21st 2021.
The team acknowledges that the rewards for the supporters and contributors are handful but it hopes to show its good faith. With all the money — and loan — left, weBloc team will buy WOK tokens at 0.00001 ICX at VELIC exchange and 0.01 KRW at Probit Korea exchange from April 1st to April 21st. After the period, WOK token will be delisted from the two exchanges accordingly.
It is such a big pity that weBloc team failed to establish the “decentralized advertising ecosystem” it pursued. It would be easier to blame the market circumstances but the biggest reason for failure would fall into the hands of the team that failed to achieve positive results and to adapt to the ever-fast changing market situation. We are wholeheartedly thankful to the supporters of weBloc project, and sincerely sorry for stopping the journey.
Sincerely,
weBloc team
