{"id":55464,"date":"2025-10-04T21:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T21:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/55464\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T21:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T21:26:08","slug":"korea-blockchain-week-2025-field-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/55464\/","title":{"rendered":"Korea Blockchain Week 2025: Field Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: Field Notes<\/a> is a series where we report on the ground from significant industry, research, and other events. In this edition, we round up quick team observations from Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) 2025<\/a>, which took place September 22-28 in Seoul, Korea. The a16z crypto team was also present there last year, where founding general partner Chris Dixon spoke at the kickoff event and launched<\/a> the Korean edition of Read Write Own<\/a> (written up here<\/a> by Korean news agency Yonhap).<\/p>\n

The big picture<\/p>\n

Korea has massively modernized and grown its economy in previous decades, yielding a consumer base that\u2019s digitally native and excited to adopt the latest technology. The country also currently hosts one of the largest centralized cryptocurrency exchanges (UPBit) in the world. Koreans don\u2019t currently face capital gains taxes on crypto, which may incentivize higher trading volumes and speculation<\/a> there, especially since gambling is illegal for Korean citizens. (One team member reported their Uber driver trading perps while stopped at a traffic light during KBW2025.)<\/p>\n

S.Y. Lee \ub2d8, CEO and Co-founder of Story Protocol<\/a>, pointed out at Origin Summit<\/a> that, according to Kaiko, Korean Won is traded against crypto more than any other currency including the U.S. dollar:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

[There\u2019s even a phenomenon called the \u201ckimchi premium\u201d that refers to tokens trading on Korean exchanges at premium to other international exchanges due to the amount of demand.]<\/p>\n

During KBW2025, Naver \u2014 South Korea\u2019s largest internet portal \u2014 also announced its acquisition of UPbit (which was completed in a comprehensive stock swap between NAVER Financial and Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, as confirmed to Blockworks). This is one of several moves the exchange has been involved in towards becoming a superapp<\/a>. They\u2019re reportedly also exploring a stablecoin<\/a> in the local currency, KRW.<\/p>\n

The opportunity <\/p>\n

Not only does Korea have a young, extremely online consumer base that fuels adoption of new tech products, but as summarized by S.Y. in his presentation, Korea has the 2nd<\/a> most-paid ChatGPT subs in the world behind only the United States. And more broadly culturally, the country has: the #1 YouTube video of all time, #1 boyband, #1 rated movie, #1 most viral soundtrack, and #1 show on Netflix.<\/p>\n

The intersection between the crypto industry and broader culture was reflected at Korea Blockchain Week, with k-pop stars, sports players, and others (including the directors of KPop Demon Hunters) attending events. Relative to other conferences, there were also lots of local attendees \u2014 not just the traveling crypto community attending conferences \u2014 at KBW2025.<\/p>\n

Notes on going to market <\/p>\n

Since Korea is very supportive of Korean-native businesses (c.f. the ubiquity of Naver over Google Maps), having a presence on the ground and making an effort to align with the local ecosystem is important to successfully launch products there.<\/p>\n

Founders will need to come in person to Korea for business development as well given the focus on local culture and connections. There is also less talk about the technology behind the underlying protocols \u2014 and more focus on legitimacy coming from partnerships<\/a> and local product launches.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also worth emphasizing that more traditional marketing is important in Korea since so few users are directly onchain currently. There are clearly many Koreans interested in crypto, spanning age ranges and genders; but many women also control the family finances, and aren\u2019t on Crypto Twitter.<\/p>\n

On the marketing front, giveaways \u2014 swag, collectibles, tokens, etc. \u2014 are tremendously popular in Korea. Every booth at KBW2025 was oriented around a giveaway or raffle, and attendees all very patiently queued for these. Korean crypto users similarly expect airdrops<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Founders have a great opportunity to spend time in Korea, get to know the culture and consumers, and make their products available there. We are also supporting<\/a> our portfolio companies to expand in Asia through regional partnerships and community development.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (\u201ca16z\u201d) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the current or enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. In addition, this content may include third-party advertisements; a16z has not reviewed such advertisements and does not endorse any advertising content contained therein.<\/p>\n

The views expressed here are those of the individual AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (\u201ca16z\u201d) personnel quoted and are not the views of a16z or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources, including from portfolio companies of funds managed by a16z. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, a16z has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the current or enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation. In addition, this content may include third-party advertisements; a16z has not reviewed such advertisements and does not endorse any advertising content contained therein.<\/p>\n

You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by a16z. (An offering to invest in an a16z fund will be made only by the private placement memorandum, subscription agreement, and other relevant documentation of any such fund and should be read in their entirety.) Any investments or portfolio companies mentioned, referred to, or described are not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by a16z, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results. A list of investments made by funds managed by Andreessen Horowitz (excluding investments for which the issuer has not provided permission for a16z to disclose publicly as well as unannounced investments in publicly traded digital assets) is available at https:\/\/a16z.com\/investment-list\/.<\/p>\n

The content speaks only as of the date indicated. Any projections, estimates, forecasts, targets, prospects, and\/or opinions expressed in these materials are subject to change without notice and may differ or be contrary to opinions expressed by others. Please see https:\/\/a16z.com\/disclosures\/ for additional important information.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: Field Notes is a series where we report on the ground from significant industry, research, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,41631,41632,85,46],"class_list":["post-55464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-field-notes","tag-go-to-market","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}