The Korean government wants to indigenously develop core blockchain technologies that can compete with the likes of Ethereum.
The Korean-language business daily Herald Gyeongje reports that the Ministry of Science and ICT plans to submit in November an application for a KRW 550 billion preliminary feasibility project for medium-to-long-term blockchain technology development.
The final goal of this project would be to secure the domestic technological strength to compete with global blockchain technology.
An official from the ministry said that Korea currently lacks the technological prowess to compete with Ethereum, EOS and Hyperledger. The application seeks to correct that. The official added that the project wouldn’t build a platform, but rather research technologies that would rank alongside those possessed by the global biggies such as smart contracts.
In order to do this, the ministry has set a goal of achieving 100,000 transactions per second (TPS). To put this in perspective, this would be 25 times faster than the 4,000 TPS recently achieved by Klaytn.
The ministry official explained we need the network processing capacity to handle massive amounts of data should blockchain be wedded to the IoT.
The ministry should get the result of its application sometime before May of next year.
On Saturday, the ministry and Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP) released its final report on the current state of blockchain technology. According to the report, Korea’s blockchain technology was 76.4% of that of the United States, or 2.4 years behind. The report also said Korea was 1.8 years behind China, 1.3 years behind Japan and half a year behind Europe.
The report said now was the time to focus on the growth and potential of blockchain technology and suggested the crafting of regulatory guidelines that would activate company creation in the ICO sector and allow responsible projects to proceed while protecting individual investors against harm.
And also in the Korea blockchain space…
- South Korea’s SK Group Proposes Blockchain-Based Donation Platform and Two Tokens (By Richard Meyer, CoinDesk, Aug. 9)
The SK Group’s IT arm, SK Corporation C&C, will be using Ripple to build a blockchain-based donation platform. The solution will allow for “direct, low-cost and peer-to-peer (P2P) foreign-currency transactions, instantly settling free of intermediary institutions.”
- South Korea’s Ban On Crypto Will Choke The Special Blockchain Zone (By Davitbabayan, Bitcoinist, Aug. 7)
The fate of OkayCoin Core, which had its screening rejected because of regulatory restrictions, augurs ill for Busan’s special blockchain zone.
- Korean Fintechs Are Creating a Blockchain for Trading OTC Securities (By Richard Meyer, CoinDesk, Aug 8)
The IT arm of Korea Exchange, KEB Hana Bank, Hana Financial Investment, Daejeon Technopark, startup Amicus Lex and an association for accelerators are developing a blockchain-based platform for trading unlisted securities. This could correct a blind spot in Korea, where the trading of unlisted companies – often smaller companies that find getting listed prohibitively costly – is a laborious process that presents a bottleneck to innovation.
- South Korea’s Dapa To Create Blockchain Platform To Enhance Business Operations, Signs Agreement With 3 National Defense Institutions (By TokenPost, Aug. 6)
Korea’s defense acquisition body is developing a blockchain platform to enhance technologies related to the procurement of military equipment and stores, equipment logistics and fund appropriation.
- Samsung Now Offering 17 Crypto Apps in Blockchain Keystore (By William Foxley, CoinDesk, Aug. 5)
Samsung’s online DApp store, Blockchain Keystore, now has a grand total of seventeen DApps. It had only four when it launched in March. On the other hand, CoinDesk reports that Samsung’s blockchain wallet has only 30 reviews, compared to thousands for some other wallets on Google Play Store.
