Sure, the resort island of Jeju might have lost to Busan in its bid to become Korea’s first blockchain regulation-free zone (well, kinda regulation free, anyway)

But that doesn’t mean Jeju’s giving up on the blockchain industry.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

The island province announced last week that it’s establishing the Global Blockchain Hub City Development Research Service, the goal of which is to establish Jeju as another Korean blockchain hub.

The province will join hands with Seoul-based virtualization specialists Tilon to analyze blockchain solutions for Jeju and develop a model for the island. In order to achieve its goals, Jeju hopes to leverage its unique self-governing status, which allows the island a great deal of leeway in local administration.

Indeed, the island has even toyed around in the past with using said status to circumvent the national government’s de facto ban on ICOs.

On Sunday, we learned that Jeju will host a four-day Klaytn hackathon in November. Though the island hosted one last year too, the province is talking with Ground X about providing incubation and support to participating projects. An official from the Jeju Creative Economy Innovation Center said the province is attempting to turn itself into a space sought out by digital nomads.

Speaking of Jeju blockchain services, weBloc – the first blockchain company to relocate to Jeju – also recently released its JUBJUB service, which allows users to earn WOK tokens for checking into the island’s cafes. Steve Cho, the company’s Head of Global Business, discussed the service in a July interview with The Iconist about the company’s P-Rep campaign.

Also in the Korean blockchain space…

(By Eileen Brown, ZDnet, Aug. 13)

Interesting fact about the blockchain-based payment app Terra: “Three out of four users (74.04%) are women in their late 30s and early 40s. They are paying with Terra the most, even though men dominate the larger blockchain and crypto industry. The most frequently purchased items are coffee, baby wipes, clothes, and other necessities.” 

(By Jack Martin, Cointelegraph, Aug. 14)

And speaking of Terra, they’ve added popular Korean streaming service Bugs to their payment service alliance. Terra co-founder Daniel Shin also took a moment to complain about regulatory uncertainty in Korea, telling CoinTelegraph, “Before, it was crypto ‘no’, blockchain ‘yes.’ Now it is more like blockchain ‘yes’, private crypto ‘yes’, public and listed crypto ‘no’.”

(By Richard Meyer, Coindesk, Aug. 13)

The Bitcoin premium has disappeared, once again. According to one local paper, this has to do with the fall of the Korean won, which has lost 3 percent against the greenback since the end of July. But Korea’s intensifying regulatory environment may have something to do with it, too.

(By Jhoo Dong-chan, Korea Times, Aug. 14)

Shinhan Bank continues to bet on blockchain, inking an MoU with Ground X and blockchain developer (and ICON P-Rep candidate) Hexlant to develop a private key management solution for its banking system.

(By Crypto.IQ, Aug. 16)

Samsung has extended support for Bitcoin on its DApp store, Blockchain Keystore. You may recall that the S10 smartphone initially supported only Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens. Well, now it supports Bitcoin, too. And Klaytn.