Introducing Ethereum Korea One

Transcript

Thank you. And from ECK? I'm Sose, leader of ECK. Lead of the Ethereum Korea Consortium and CEO of Nonce Classic, Youbin Kang. Great. Ethereum as a big picture is familiar, but how the protocol is being developed, how people take part in the ecosystem — many people haven't had a chance to learn this. Beyond institutions, we've been working to bring all this to the wider public.

It would be good to talk about how that got started. Youbin, could you take this one? Sure. First of all, Korea has plenty of Ethereum communities, and in the ecosystem there are many people working in it. Yet at last year's KBW (Korea Blockchain Week), there was no Ethereum event at all. That was a real shock to me. Ethereum matters a great deal in Korea too, and we can't go without something like this.

Other projects were getting plenty of exposure, and the fact that we had nothing left me with a lot of questions. So I went to the Ethereum Foundation. At the time, there was a director named Tomasz, and I proposed that an Ethereum Korea Consortium would be a good idea. Along the way, we met the people running ECK, then called The Ticker is ETH, the largest community of Ethereum builders, and we shared this idea with them.

So we set out with one aim: to launch a flagship Ethereum event that could stay visible in Korea year after year. That's how we got started. The consortium's aims: first, an event that represents Ethereum in Korea, and holding it every year, not just once. That's our goal. Second, as I mentioned, without a builder ecosystem on Ethereum, I don't think a healthy ecosystem can emerge.

So with the funds contributed by our consortium member companies, we put about half into a grant pool, as grants to support builders. That's how we're starting out. Third and last: so that Korean institutions, DB Securities and many others, can use the tools built on Ethereum and its use cases, we act as a connector for Korean institutions and policymakers, linking them with overseas foundations and projects.

Acting as that connector. Those are the three goals we launched with. Right. In Korea, there are a lot of Ethereum investors. Things like, "KOSPI passed 4000, so when do we hit 4000?" When a coin goes up, people give it one label, and when the price drops, another. But it's really not about that. It's about the ecosystem and the technology, cryptography included: how much research goes into it and whether it's published. I think that matters too, so I wanted to get those values across.

That's why today's program has so many technical topics. So you will hear a lot of those conversations here today. But take Nonce Classic. The hardest part in Korea, I imagine, is that talking policy with securities firms is genuinely hard. The language is different, so the technical things we talk about, like finality and slots, must be hard to get across. What's a better way to convey this?

Yes, that's a great point. If we start talking about smart contracts or zero-knowledge, people get put off, and the conversation never really gets going. But when we bring global case studies, institutions really sit up and take notice. BlackRock in the US has already launched BUIDL, a tokenized Treasury fund, with many LPs around the world participating. When we say it's time for Korea to start a tokenized government bond fund too, they think, "The US is doing this, and Hong Kong is about to. We should too."

That's how we can persuade them. So we take global examples, advanced overseas cases, you could say, and share them widely in Korea. On top of that, the data shows that over half of all RWAs today are on Ethereum. When we bring those in and explain them case by case, that's when people really start coming around. With policymakers, too, rather than the technical side, we first explain why public blockchains matter overseas. Some start on permissioned private chains, but why did the US SEC, through its innovation exemption,

allow tokenized securities on public blockchains? Once we explain that, they understand. Rep. Min Byoung-dug, who gave remarks at our event, and who introduced the Digital Asset Basic Act, said he should push this harder, and asked us to connect more regulators with people at the Ethereum Foundation. We're getting a lot of requests like that. I've found that leading with cases like these works best. Honestly, I'm interested in securities and the economy, but I think so much of this is technical and philosophical.

So how do you structure governance around Ethereum's decentralization, how do you build the specs, how do these things relate, and are they verifiable? I thought those questions needed discussing, but the room for those discussions keeps shrinking. I think technical progress like this is what lays down stable infrastructure that lots of people can use, and then building happens on top. That used to happen a lot in Korea, but now it feels like it's fading, with people moving to AI and so on.

It's disappearing. Are there ways to bring it back? As I see it, what matters is a place where global participants and Korean institutions, policymakers and builders can all come together, held consistently, not as a one-off. People need to gather for conversations to happen, for real business to progress, for something to come out of it. Look at how Ethereum itself started out: from a community, right?

It came out of the Bitcoin Magazine community. I think that as small communities like that keep growing, they become places where more sustainable societies and companies can emerge. Nonce Classic itself grew out of Nonce, which puts community first. We're like family with Nonce. And companies presenting here today, like Sunnyside Labs and Radius, are ones we made angel investments in and helped accelerate, building Korea's ecosystem together as a community. Seeing all that, I think what matters is good, like-minded people coming together

to collaborate and keep growing the community. A few people have brought this up. It'd be good to introduce the consortium members as well. Could you walk us through them? Sure. We currently have 13 member companies, in four categories. First is infrastructure, which includes Radius, Sunnyside Labs, Lambda256 and other member companies. Second is research and communications, with Four Pillars and Undefined Labs on board. Undefined Labs is a challenger known for "Teacher Deepvide."

Third, supporting our connections with institutions, is DSRV's CTO, and Wavebridge is taking part as well. And fourth, community, which we value highly: ECK, and Crypto Seoul. Erika Kang originally ran ETHSeoul, and she's one of our members too. Beyond these 13 companies, a number of others are waiting to join the Ethereum Korea Consortium, and larger companies will keep joining too.

DB Securities, here with us today, is also supporting us with policy advisory. This may be the last question. This is probably a first in Korea: working with regional communities like ETHGlobal, ETHPrague and ETHTokyo. What kind of collaboration do you see going forward? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Sure. ETHTokyo took place recently.

One of our members went, and Aya of the Ethereum Foundation, in a way, a very central figure in running the Foundation, had a chance to meet with them. There, they talked about how Ethereum Korea and Ethereum Japan could raise Ethereum's voice together in Asia, and discussed it at length. In the end, as I keep saying, it's about a venue where Korea's message can be heard, held every year, not just once.

Alongside that, global events: Jerome from EthCC, who's here today, and EthCC is the biggest Ethereum event in Europe. Organizers are here too, from ETHTaipei and elsewhere. Working with them, the first thing, as I see it, is co-hosting events that give Asia a stronger shared voice, with ETH Japan, ETHTaipei, ETH Hong Kong and others. That way we can think more from an Asian perspective, too. Beyond that, I don't think it has to be East versus West.

You could say Ethereum started in the West. So with groups like EthCC and ETHGlobal in the West, we want to create many more touchpoints abroad, so we'll keep working out how to create spaces where Korea and the global community can meet and talk. I'm not a developer by background, but using AI a lot lately, I can do a lot of what developers do.

With open source, I used to think it could never take root in Korea, but lately, with things done through AI, publishing under an MIT license has become so natural that Korean leaders can show people a lot more of that. Just like with AI, in Korea too, smart contracts, EIPs and so on: Ethereum is open, so quite a few people in Korea are active there, and some Koreans actually work in Ethereum. So we need more of those cases, so people see them and think, "I could try this," "I should get involved," "Who else is in?"

That makes it easier, and I hope we can create that through venues and events like this. Going forward, beyond events like this, we're preparing a lot more as Ethereum Korea, so please stay tuned. Thank you. Thank you.