South Korea's unique and amazing crypto universe
Maybe it's the language barrier, or the walls that the authorities have put up to prevent money from leaving the country. But regardless, South Korea has built its own unique corner of the cryptoverse unlike any other place on the planet.
Doo Wan Nam, a MakerDAO delegate who co-founded research and advisory firm StableNode, laughs as he describes how wild speculation and crypto-gambling can get in South Korea. He says it is a country where the price of stablecoins like Dai or USD Coin can sometimes skyrocket because if the price starts to rise a bit above the $1 peg for some reason, speculators will engage in dynamic trading.
“They sometimes trade for $20 because they don't know it's a stablecoin,” he explains. "They say, 'You know, it was trading at $10, I bought it because it was pumping...I don't know, I didn't read, I just bought.'"
"So I think that kind of tells you if people knew what Terra was."
The spectacular $60 billion implosion of the Terra ecosystem, led by charismatic but ultimately deceived Korean developer Do Kwon, casts a cloud over the entire ecosystem.
Terra is also informative on some of the unique characteristics of the crypto culture in Korea, which places less emphasis on decentralization and places more trust in project managers like Kwon .
Crypto is huge in this country obsessed with the latest and greatest technology. The capital, Seoul, is a futuristic metropolis with huge high-resolution screens and fast internet everywhere. One in three people in the country owns a cryptocurrency, and the government has unveiled an ambitious plan to make it the fifth most metaverse-friendly country in the world.
South Korean technologyWhile English is taught in schools, few speak the language at a conversational level. This is true for many countries of course, but it helps explain why many Koreans aren't plugged into the same news sources as crypto fans in the US. Forget Western social media and tech giants like Reddit, Google, Twitter and Facebook: Google Maps barely works in the country and good luck finding an Uber.
Instead, South Koreans access the internet, chat, research, order food and request groceries using local giants Kakao and Naver.
"Over 90% of Koreans use (the social networking app) KakaoTalk every day," says Sangmin Seo, who prefers to be called Sam. the representative director of the Klatyn Foundation, the blockchain and metaverse arm of Kakao. “Naver is the most dominant search engine in South Korea. Google's share is around 10%-20% and Naver has 70%-80% of the search engine market share."
Founded in 2011, Kakao is now the 15th largest company in a country dominated by around 40 mega-corporations. Samsung, LG, Hyundai and SK together account for half of the value of the local stock market, while Samsung alone produces a fifth of the country's exports.
Zerocap analyst Nathan Lenga has studied the South Korean ecosystem in detail and explains that there are a whole host of other...
Maybe it's the language barrier, or the walls that the authorities have put up to prevent money from leaving the country. But regardless, South Korea has built its own unique corner of the cryptoverse unlike any other place on the planet.
Doo Wan Nam, a MakerDAO delegate who co-founded research and advisory firm StableNode, laughs as he describes how wild speculation and crypto-gambling can get in South Korea. He says it is a country where the price of stablecoins like Dai or USD Coin can sometimes skyrocket because if the price starts to rise a bit above the $1 peg for some reason, speculators will engage in dynamic trading.
“They sometimes trade for $20 because they don't know it's a stablecoin,” he explains. "They say, 'You know, it was trading at $10, I bought it because it was pumping...I don't know, I didn't read, I just bought.'"
"So I think that kind of tells you if people knew what Terra was."
The spectacular $60 billion implosion of the Terra ecosystem, led by charismatic but ultimately deceived Korean developer Do Kwon, casts a cloud over the entire ecosystem.
Terra is also informative on some of the unique characteristics of the crypto culture in Korea, which places less emphasis on decentralization and places more trust in project managers like Kwon .
Crypto is huge in this country obsessed with the latest and greatest technology. The capital, Seoul, is a futuristic metropolis with huge high-resolution screens and fast internet everywhere. One in three people in the country owns a cryptocurrency, and the government has unveiled an ambitious plan to make it the fifth most metaverse-friendly country in the world.
South Korean technologyWhile English is taught in schools, few speak the language at a conversational level. This is true for many countries of course, but it helps explain why many Koreans aren't plugged into the same news sources as crypto fans in the US. Forget Western social media and tech giants like Reddit, Google, Twitter and Facebook: Google Maps barely works in the country and good luck finding an Uber.
Instead, South Koreans access the internet, chat, research, order food and request groceries using local giants Kakao and Naver.
"Over 90% of Koreans use (the social networking app) KakaoTalk every day," says Sangmin Seo, who prefers to be called Sam. the representative director of the Klatyn Foundation, the blockchain and metaverse arm of Kakao. “Naver is the most dominant search engine in South Korea. Google's share is around 10%-20% and Naver has 70%-80% of the search engine market share."
Founded in 2011, Kakao is now the 15th largest company in a country dominated by around 40 mega-corporations. Samsung, LG, Hyundai and SK together account for half of the value of the local stock market, while Samsung alone produces a fifth of the country's exports.
Zerocap analyst Nathan Lenga has studied the South Korean ecosystem in detail and explains that there are a whole host of other...
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