Highlights from Korea Blockchain Week – Korea’ most anticipated event

The much anticipated Korea Blockchain Week took place in Seoul, South Korea, from Sep. 27, 2019 to Friday, Oct. 4, 2019. During the event, the city hosted blockchain luminaries, startups and entrepreneurs. The main conference of the event, known as D.FINE, took place between September 30th and October 1st at the Grand Intercontinental Seoul Parnas. While people like Vitalik Buterin and Mike Novogratz definitely made their presence felt, the event belonged to South Korean startup Terra who pretty much stole the show.

Korea runs on Terra

“Korea runs on Terra” was the rallying cry of the Korea-based stablecoin project. When they were done with their presentation, it was clear to everyone that this wasn’t an exaggeration. Terra, along with its payments dApp CHAI, expanded its reach throughout Korea via online and offline payments. During the event, they made four huge announcements:

• CHAI will partner up with BCcard, Korea’s largest payments processor, to create a new debit card called “CHAI card.” 
• CHAI will partner up with CU to enable offline payments. CU is Korea’s largest convenience store chain with over 14,000 retail stores all over the country.
• Korea’s number one hospitality app, Yanojla, will allow its users to pay via CHAI.
• Terra will partner up with Shinsegae (SSG) Duty-Free and enable global payments in Hong Kong. This is their first venture outside Korea.

Hdac and Friday

Headed by CEO Dae Sun Chung, Hdac is a blockchain company backed by Hyundai BS & C, the famous Automotive manufacturer. Hdac announced the creation of “Friday,” a new POS blockchain. They will also create a Blockchain Fund Expansion plan and have committed to invest at least $10 million in a bid to launch a fully-deployable testnet and mainnet, capable of supporting a dApps ecosystem.

Vitalik Buterin and Silvio Micali talk about the future of blockchain technology

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Algorand co-founder Silvio Micali gave sit-down interviews. 

• Buterin highlighted the need for grants for open source Ethereum projects. During his presentation, he also talked about the different blockchain applications. 
• Micali expressed his views on removing intermediaries in finance via the blockchain technology. 

Mike Novogratz and Thomas talk about the crypto market

Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital Holdings, was harsh on the current state of altcoins, saying that a majority of them are “junk.” He said:

“There were a lot of junks that raised a lot of capital but did not have sustainability. They promised a lot of protocols and an ecosystem they are going to build, and then they would attract users to the ecosystem making it a speculative asset. In order to keep a speculative market alive, you need fuel in the form of news and updates from time to time.  We must look at these tokens as venture bets.”

Thomas Lee, a Managing Partner at Fundstrat, gave an interesting insight into the price behavior of Bitcoin. Lee stated that Bitcoin and S&P 500 are both closely linked to one another. If the S&P curve breaks out, then further Bitcoin price growth may be expected.

Sum-up

While Terra grabbed all the headlines post-event, the fact remains that Korea has once again shown that they are the heart and soul of the global crypto market. As with every other year, Korea Blockchain Week has been a resounding success.