Day 1 takeaway from the Cointelegraph team

The fifth annual Korea Blockchain Week kicked off on Sunday, with more than 7,000 people attending Asia’s largest blockchain event in 2022.

The Seoul-based event is set to run its sessions on the main stage on August 8 and 9, while side events such as music festivals and non-fungible token (NFT) art galleries will run through until August 12.

This year, Korea Blockchain Week features presentations from more than 120 figures in the blockchain space, including prominent names such as Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, Animoca Brands head Yat Siu and Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.

The event is organized by FactBlock and Hashed (co-host) and is sponsored by Solana, Klaytn and Wemade. Key focus topics will include decentralized finance, NFTs, gaming, Metaverse, Web3 technology and crypto.

In case you missed the action, here’s a literary highlight of all the key moments from the first day of the event, brought to you by the Cointelegraph team currently on the ground in Seoul.

Vitalik: Layer-2 scaling will make crypto payments “make sense” again

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has claimed that crypto payments will once again “make sense” as transaction costs will soon drop to fractions of a cent due to layer-2 rollups.

He pointed to “solid work happening” with rollups at the moment, such as Optimism’s layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum, which has worked to bring down the size and cost of data in blockchain transactions by introducing zero-byte compression:

“So today with roll-ups, transaction fees are usually somewhere between $0.25, sometimes $0.10, and in the future with roll-ups with all the efficiency improvements that I talked about, transaction costs could go down to $0.05 , or maybe as low as $0.02. So much cheaper, much more affordable and a complete game changer.”

Related: 60 million NFTs can be minted in a single transaction: StarkWare founder

Web2 adoption key to Metaverse success, says Klaytn Foundation directly

Sam Seo, the director of the metaverse and blockchain ecosystem Klaytn Foundation, believes that the widespread use of Metaverse will be “easier” if Web2 companies integrate the technology with their products and services.

Related: Major crypto exchange announces its arrival in the metaverse

Speaking to Cointelegraph during Korea Blockchain Week (KBW), Seo suggested that Web3 Mmetaverse projects generally have trouble attracting a mainstream audience, as people are often hesitant to use new technology from companies they’ve never heard of:

“If new ideas are combined with Web2 platforms like [local social media app] Cocoa, especially in South Korea, I mean, there’s accessibility to these new ideas for new services that can’t be easier than just starting from scratch.”

DeFi market has room for growth in Korea: 1-inch co-founder

Decentralized finance (DeFi) aggregator 1inch Network has revealed plans to expand within the Asian market, according to co-founder Sergej Kunz.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Kunz said that despite the DeFi market being relatively small in Korea and Asia, there are a number of Asia-based Web3 companies that 1inch wants to partner with.

Related: Wirex partners with 1inch to enable wallet-based token exchange

However, Kunz also added that the biggest barrier to entry appears to be a lack of understanding about DeFi and how to use crypto wallets:

“As soon as people understand that they can [yield] farm, they can exchange, they can exchange and get easy access to cryptocurrencies on Ethereum with a few simple EVM compatible networks, the market will grow a lot.”

Crypto.com reaches important regulatory milestone in South Korea

Crypto exchange Crypto.com has announced a major regulatory milestone in South Korea after acquiring two local companies, giving it access to crypto and payment registration in the country.

The announcement came during Korea Blockchain Week 2022 after the company acquired payment service provider PnLink Co. Ltd. and virtual asset provider OK-BIT Co. Ltd.

Related: Crypto.com obtains regulatory approval from the Cyprus SEC

The move means they have now secured the Electronic Financial Transactions Act and Registration of Virtual Asset Services in South Korea. However, the company did not reveal whether this means it can offer its full suite of crypto trading services in the country.