Recapping the best of Korea Blockchain Week 2019

Terra and Hdac make exciting announcements, Vitalik Buterin comments on the future of the blockchain technology, Thomas Lee observes the correlation between Bitcoin and S&P 500.

From Sep. 27, 2019, to Oct. 4, 2019, all the eyes of the global crypto community were firmly on Seoul, South Korea. The city held its annual and much-anticipated Korea Blockchain Week. This time, the event hosted Vitalik Buterin, Silvio Micali, and Mike Novogratz and some up-and-coming Korean startups. Two of these startups – Terra and Hdac – has gotten everyone talking.

Mike Novogratz calls altcoins “junk”

Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital Holdings, believes that not all altcoins will survive in the long-term. 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, observed that the Bitcoin and S&P curves are both closely linked to one another. As such, it is possible to predict the price movement of one of these curves by carefully studying the other.

Hdac new project

Hdac Technology (“Hdac”), which was founded by Hyundai BS&C CEO Dae Sun Chung, announced its new PoS blockchain project named “Friday.” The POS-based consensus algorithm will be called “Friday Consensus.” It will balance the three central values of decentralized platforms – scalability, security, and decentralization. The projected launch date for the Testnet and Mainnet is November 2019 and Q1 2020, respectively.

Vitalik Buterin on the future of blockchain

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Algorand co-founder Silvio Micali shared the stage during a sit-down interview. Buterin highlighted the need for grants for open source Ethereum projects. During his presentation, he also talked about the different blockchain applications and the importance of Defi.

Terra owns Korea

Terra is a price-stable cryptocurrency that aims for mass adoption via its payments dApp CHAI. CHAI is one of the fastest growings apps in the Korean market. It is already available in multiple online platforms including TMON – one of the largest eCommerce platforms in the country with 10 million users and $3.5 billion in GMV. 

During the event, the company made four announcements that have greatly expanded Terra’s reach: 

• CHAI will launch a debit card with BCCard, the largest payment processor in Korea.
• CHAI will enable offline payments with CU, Korea’s largest convenience store chain.
• CHAI is now available on Yanolja – Korea’s number one hospitality app (think hotels.com).
• Terra partnered up with Shinsegae (SSG) Duty-Free and enabled global payments in Hong Kong. This is their first venture outside Korea.

Conclusion

The Korea Blockchain Week has been a resounding success. While all the startups involved have had a great showing, it will be hard to argue with the fact that Terra may have come out as the biggest winner of the event. With these partnerships, they are set to take complete control of Korea’s economy. Hdac has also grabbed a lot of eyeballs with their “Friday” announcement. All-in-all, South Korea was again able to show why they are a step ahead of the rest when it comes to technological innovation.