Korea Blockchain Week draws crowds amid market turmoil

When the South Korean cryptocurrencies Luna and TerraUSD collapsed in May, their failures contributed to a $300 billion loss across the crypto-economy, public outcry for Do Kwon, the creator of the cryptocurrencies, to go to jail and multiple investigations. But that, and a broader “crypto winter” that is driving down prices across the industry, doesn’t seem to have dampened South Korea’s appetite for all things web3.

Korea Blockchain Week launched this weekend with more than 7,000 people registered to attend and over 120 speakers on the lineup. According to the event’s executive director, Jeon Seon-ik, this year’s event was one of the largest of its kind in Asia, if not the world.

Seo Sang-min, one of the keynote speakers who runs the Klaytn Foundation, a prominent Korean blockchain company, attributed the event’s popularity to a South Korean love of technology. “Despite the Luna-Terra crash, the nation is big on crypto and is one of the world’s tech hubs,” he said in an interview.

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder and chief scientist at Ethereum, the system that powers the world’s second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, also delivered a keynote speech, stressing the need to make crypto transactions more affordable for a wider range of users and promote the benefits of a decentralized financial system.

The cryptocurrency saw its first surge in South Korea in 2017 after the country’s largest conglomerate, Samsung, announced it would find a corporate use for Ethereum. Samsung SDS was the first Korean enterprise to join the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, which was launched in San Francisco earlier that year to facilitate business transactions.

Since then, South Korea’s crypto market has grown to become one of the largest in the world. The country’s crypto assets grew to 55 trillion won at the end of last year, worth about $46 billion at the time, with more than 15 million registered trading platform users, according to the country’s Financial Services Commission. A few years ago, the South Korean government took a more cautious stance on cryptocurrencies, even considering banning them. More recently, however, the government has moved to regulate the industry.

Mr Seo believes the government’s change in approach is a recognition of the industry’s potential. “The metaverse and web3 have the potential to be more than a vehicle for investment, creating new jobs and solving real-world problems,” he said.