Latest news on next-gen tech trends in Korea (June 11, 2021)
Tags: Nft, Blockchain Application, Omnione, Blockchain, Techinkorea

Latest news on next-gen tech trends in Korea (June 11, 2021) RAON Follow Jun 11 · 9 min read

Ministry of Science & IT to invest over KRW 113 billion in blockchain technology

The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), in which one of the missions is to develop and promote blockchain technology and related applications, announced on June 3rd that it has completed the selection of operators for the ‘blockchain technology development project for the data economy’ and initiated the development of related technologies by investing a total of 113.3 billion won within the next five years.

Among 27 consortiums (formed of universities, research institutes, companies, etc.) that have applied for the project, 9 consortiums (representing a total of 53 companies) have been selected and will receive support from the MSIT on R&D over the next five years. It is expected that the technologies resulting from this project will be used in the Korean industry to enhance technological competitiveness.

Through this initiative, the Ministry of Science and ICT plans to support 9 technologies divided in four main areas:

(1) Fully decentralized high-performance consensus technology

(2) Smart contract security technology

(3) Personal information processing and identity management blockchain

(4) Data sovereignty guaranteed blockchain and data management technology.

(1) To solve the scalability problem and allows the blockchain to scale in a linear fashion as the number of participants in the network grows, four tasks will be developed regarding technology that can secure stable performance of services even if the number of participants increases while maintaining decentralization effective.

(2) To prevent vulnerabilities linked to the execution of smart contracts that can lead to critical damage to the end-users, the MSIT will support technologies that automatically detect and defends security vulnerabilities in advance while simulating them in virtual environments.

(3) To protect personal information on the blockchain, the MSIT will promote two tasks: one is linked to a DID management technology and the other one will emphasize on privacy protection technology in the process of data utilization based on blockchain data encryption.

(4) As for the data sovereignty, a Korean government-funded research institution will develop a technology that uses a blockchain platform to manage large amounts of data and analyze them to strengthen the utilization of blockchain services.

The Ministry of Science and ICT will strive to improve the competitiveness of blockchain technology in Korea with the launch of this ‘blockchain technology development project for the data economy’.

Our view: With the launch of this project, the Ministry of Science and ICT wants to lay the groundwork of a secure blockchain ecosystem in Korea. Looking at the projects (or tasks) that the government is targeting, it seems that the government wants to enhance (and create?) a new blockchain technology that can ensure not only a high level of scalability so that blockchain applications can run smoothly even with million users but also a high level of security so that smart-contract enabled blockchain can be leveraged for improving everyday life. In this regard, the CBDC project could be a reason for the government to enhance security as the adoption of such services will require high level of scalability and security. This is also worth noting the importance the MIST is giving to data protection and DID researches, which reflects the willingness of Korea to be at the forefront in terms of technologies providing high level of protection for user’s data.

Source: https://www.edaily.co.kr/news/read?newsId=02358326629078112

DID-based technology to be actively supported by the Korean Government

The 2nd Vice Minister of Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), Kyung Shik Cho, met with major blockchain companies on June 3rd and reiterated the willingness of the Korean government to look for representative blockchain applications that the public can experience. This declaration reflects the policy of the Korean government that is planning to invest, through the Ministry of Science and ICT, over 113 billion won in security and authentication technology using blockchain (including decentralized identity-related technology) within the next five years, as mentioned in the previous topic.

Vice Minister Cho recently visited the headquarters of RaonSecure in Seoul where he discussed blockchain technology development and industry nurturing plans with leading companies in the blockchain and DID (Decentralized Identifier) space such as RaonSecure.

RaonSecure is a pioneer in terms of DID deployment as the company is providing its DID technology OmniOne to a variety of government pilot projects ranging from DID-based simple authentication to blockchain-based digital credentials while collaborating with leading institutions. Thus, the leading IT security and authentication company in Korea is collaborating with the Ministry of Security and Public Administration (MOSPA) in the development of a nationwide mobile drivers’ license. It also collaborates with the Military Manpower Administration for building a blockchain and DID-based digital wallet project promoted by the MSIT and the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) under the ‘2021 blockchain pilot project’s program. The Mobile ID Card service for public officials introduced earlier this year was also built by RaonSecure. Once all the projects abovementioned will be operational, related services using the underlying DID technology developed by RaonSecure could be used by over 30 million drivers and people who have served in the military or will perform military service in Korea.

More recently, RaonSecure has partnered with SK Telecom to participate in the vaccine passport development project hosted by KISA. While discussions on the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) ‘s vaccine passport project and the interoperability with this project are still ongoing, it is highly likely that RaonSecure technology will be deployed to vaccine passports that will be used by the public in the future.

The underlying blockchain and DID-based authentication platform used for such public services is an authentication technology that binds Personally Identifiable Information (PII) with a public key that is stored in a DID Document (a set of data describing the DID subject). Here is where DIDs come in as they resolve to DID Documents containing public keys and service endpoints. In this scheme, only DIDs and DID Document will be stored on-chain after being encrypted, not the PII. In plain English, this new authentication technology enables users to authenticate themselves without losing control over their PII that will stay on their devices. Also, the authentication platform enhances security, in particular it prevents from hacking threats given that the PII are only stored on the secure element of devices that are only controlled by end-users, who own and control the private key (such as password) associated to them.

During the meeting with the Ministry of Science and ICT, RaonSecure asked the vice minister to encourage the government to more actively support the discovery of businesses that use blockchain authentication for the development of the blockchain industry. Although the scale of the current pilot projects led by the government is not small, a broader adoption of the technology can be further fostered by a constant increase of the number of deployments.

“Continued support is needed so that the pilot project promoted by the government can be activated as an actual service that the public can experience, and not just remains a PoC” claimed Jung A Lee, the COO of RaonSecure. She added that she “hope[s] that the government will provide benefits when companies apply for new authentication technology.”

The Vice Minister Cho assured that the Korean government will look for representative applications that can be applied to real life while proactively adapt regulations to help the industry flourish.

Our view: The visit of the Vice Minister Cho in the headquarters of RaonSecure is a great sign of the involvement of the government in supporting Korean innovative SME. This meeting has shed some lights on the ambition of the government that will keep encouraging companies looking for enhancing security and convenience of authentication technologies. It also provides some hints in the stance of the government vis-à-vis the blockchain industry, which has been recently criticized due to the high level of volatility impacting digital assets-based blockchain projects. Even in such context, the regulations should stay favorable to the adoption of blockchain. In this regard, RaonSecure will continue providing innovative DID solutions and services closely connected to our daily lives while collaborating with public institutions.

Source: https://news.mt.co.kr/mtview.php?no=2021060314552510750

[Bonus] Overview of NFT market in Korea

As global auction companies such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s have entered the Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) market with highly mediatized sale of CryptoPunk NFT or the one of the Beeple’s collage, Everydays: The First 5000 Days, NFT has become a familiar word to the public.

Source: Beeple’s collage, Everydays: The First 5000 Days — the most expensive NFT up to now

According to NonFungible.com, an NFT market analysis company, NFT transactions worth $2 billion were made in the first quarter of this year. This is a 22-fold increase from $93 million in the previous quarter.

NFTs are blockchain-based tokens with intrinsic and unique value that are not mutually interchangeable. While a Bitcoin is a means of payment that is interchangeable with another bitcoin like a dollar, NFTs are mainly used to prove intrinsic value and ownership. In particular, NFTs enhance the process of ownership and transfer of ownership that can be permanently recorded on the blockchain. Based on standards such as the ERC-721 released by Ethereum, NFTs enable the digitalization of any kind of assets such as game items, limited edition souvenirs, autographs of famous people, physical or digital painting, sports cards, etc. It can also be applied to large assets such as buildings.

Provided that NFTs can be applied to a variety of use cases, Korean blockchain companies are also entering the NFT market by developing services targeting various industries such as games, sports, real estate and art. In particular, companies considered as the first-generation blockchain companies in Korea are starting developing NFT-related services.

Among the NFTs-related applications developed in Korea, there is a collectible project based on NFT card storage that has been released since last year and that can be bound with a digital asset wallet, enabling user of the wallet to manage NFTs issued by services based on an Ethereum-based blockchain network. The company that developed this service also launched a new service that allows anyone to easily mint (create) NFTs on the blockchain, enabling the Korean NFT ecosystem to grow. Based on the same blockchain, an NFT project related to sport has also been released. The latter enables the digitization of collectibles (such as autographs or items used by the players) of active football players that can be purchased in a global NFT market place.

In addition, the growth of the Korean NFT market will be supported by the launch of a platform for NFT issuance and peer-to-peer NFT trading within this month by another blockchain project. NFT trading also starts being supported by some Korean virtual asset exchanges that are supporting the NFT industry growth by enabling the purchase of NFTs on their platforms.

There are also various initiatives taken in Korea in order to apply NFT to entertainment and art. In this regard, a Korean company is developing a project enabling artists to communicate with their fans through NFT. Another one is building a project to develop NFT products for artists, with the aim to allow fans to form a new kind of fellowship by owning NFTs related to their favorite artists online.

Our view: While NFT is not a new technology, the first quarter of this year put a spotlight on it, through its applications on digital art. That said, NFTs are not only about digitization of art or painting but also about digitization of any kind of assets with intrinsic and unique value. In other words, NFTs scope is huge and it can be applied to a variety of industry. Since the Korean government is promoting the applications of blockchain while supporting the discovery of new business models related to the technology, it’s odds on that related public institutions will support the development of a use case based on NFT in the future.

Source: https://www.fnnews.com/news/202106071356158309