Korea to host string of global blockchain tech conferences this month

South Korea will be hosting a string of global blockchain technology conferences this month, including the inaugural Korea Blockchain Week aimed at bringing together blockchain experts and investors from around the world to discuss the distributed ledger technology and its future.

Kicking off the list is the Korea Blockchain Summit taking place on Thursday and Friday of this week. It is the first Seoul-based event organized by the India-based non-profit Global Blockchain Foundation.

The two-day conference will bring together more than 500 local and global blockchain leaders, including speakers Chin Dae-je, Chairman of the Korea Blockchain Association and Blockchain Program Initiator and Program Officer at the Dutch Government Marloes Pomp. 

The following week will mark the start of the Korea Blockchain Week from July 16-20, which will consist of industry meet-ups and networking events as well as the flagship Beyond Blocks Summit Seoul conference.

Beyond Blocks Summit Seoul will be held at the Shilla Seoul on July 17-18, and feature speakers including Michael Novogratz, the CEO of Galaxy Digital Capital Management and the creator of the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index.

Dominic Williams, president of the US-based Dfinity Foundation, Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, as well as Han Jae-sun, CEO of Kakao’s blockchain subsidiary, will also be speaking at the summit.

Session topics include striking a balance between governance and initial coin offerings, investor interests in blockchain, blockchain’s path to mass adoption, payments on the blockchain and the key to successful ICOs.

Korea Blockchain Week is being co-hosted by Beyond Blocks, Factblock and Korea-based cryptocurrency fund #Hashed. Main sponsors include the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Bezant.

The month will be wrapped up with the Blockchain Partners Summit taking place from July 21-22 at the Grand Walkerhill Seoul. The event aims to bring together blockchain industry officials from East Asia, which boasts one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency trading volumes.

Main speakers will include Changpeng Zhao, CEO and founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Bitcoin.com CEO Roger Ver and Qtum CEO Patrick Dai, among others, according to organizers.

Blockchain is a distributed ledger database that records and shares transactions among all participants in the network. As a self-operational network, it doesn’t require a third-party intermediary to verify the transactions. It’s a technology fueling the development of diverse decentralized apps and services today.

A primary application of blockchain has been cryptocurrencies -- which are digital tokens, such as Bitcoin, that can be digitally traded without the need of a third-party intermediary to verify the transaction such as a bank.

In the past year or two, initial coin offerings -- issuing a new crypto coin and selling them to interested investors in exchange for cryptocurrencies of immediate liquid value -- have emerged as a popular way for companies to raise new funds and to introduce new cryptos to the world.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)