On September 21, local news said that the authorities plan to turn South Korean second-largest city Busan into a "Blockchain city" compatible with Ethereum and Cosmos. For this initiative, 100 billion Korean won ($75 million USD) will be allocated.
South Korean Blockchain city’s mission
The main goal of the project is to develop a platform that will serve as a framework for stable operations and data sharing between blockchains.
Previously, local governments across South Korea had been actively testing various applications of blockchain technology, especially within economic institutions and businesses. However, in most cases, participants used different blockchains, and the interactions between them left an unpleasant experience.
To address this issue, the focus has now shifted to creating a public blockchain framework at the city level, which is compatible with major blockchains such as Ethereum and Cosmos.
What exactly is meant by compatibility with Cosmos and Ethereum has not been disclosed. Probably, it is not about running the services directly on those blockchains, but rather using forks of them, as in the recent case of Maker DAO and Solana. Regardless, it is still a great recognition of the value of blockchain as a technology in general and of Ethereum and Cosmos in particular by the South Korean authorities.
Details and deadlines for the Blockchain city
The authorities have set aside $75,000,000 for the development and have enlisted 100+ companies to work together.
While no final date for the implementation has been announced, plans are underway to launch a digital asset in the first half of 2024. The exchange will facilitate the trading of not only cryptocurrencies but also tokenized securities, precious metals, commodities, etc.
Furthermore, Busan is actively involved in the creation of the Blockchain Trust Framework technology standard in partnership with the Korea Internet and Security Agency. This project aims to create a fast, convenient, and secure way to move government services to blockchain.
You might also like:
South Korean officials seize crypto for taxes
