South Korea’s 2nd Largest City Aims to Become a Crypto Hub – Featured Bitcoin News

South Korea’s second largest city, Busan, is scrambling to become a crypto hub. Busan has been labeled an “aging” city by the Korean government, and its officials believe crypto could help turn things around by attracting young people, tech startups, and investors.

South Korean city wants to become a crypto hub

South Korea’s second-largest city, Busan, is scrambling to position itself as a crypto hub, Bloomberg reported Monday. The port city faces demographic challenges, having been designated an “aging” city by the Korean government, meaning more than 20% of its population is aged 65 or older.

Busan city officials believe that through the introduction of cryptocurrency young people, technology startups and investments from venture capital firms.

Park Kwang-hee, Head of Finance and Blockchaindepartment in Busan City Government, noting that younger people prefer to work in fields like crypto, and was quoted by the publication as saying:

We felt it was right to focus on digital assets and financial products.

Park noted that despite the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in November last year, Busan remains committed to its plans to become a crypto hub.

The city has signed letters of intent with several of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance Holdings Ltd., to launch the Busan Digital Asset Exchange by the end of this year. Binance said last August that Busan will “receive technical and infrastructure support from Binance” as part of the agreement, and the two exchanges will share their order books.

Busan Digital Asset Exchange also plans to venture into security tokens. The South Korean government is considering allowing the issuance of such tokens in the coming year, lifting its 2017 ban on all initial token coin offerings (ICOs).

Additionally, Busan’s quest to become a cryptocurrency hub includes attracting blockchain companies. In 2019, the city became a regulation-free zone for blockchain testing and related business development. It currently supports six projects from 17 companies. In December last year, 15 more blockchain companies moved into the Busan International Finance Center, bringing the total number of companies to 29.

What do you think of Busan scrambling to become a crypto hub? Let us know in the comment section below.

Kevin Helms

As a student of Austrian economics, Kevin discovered Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open source systems, network effects and the interface between economics and cryptography.

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