November 23, 2024

• 

[THE INVESTOR] The worldwide craze for cryptocurrencies and blockchain, which started late last year, seems to have lost its luster as the prices of crypto coins have plummeted to their lowest levels in recent months.

Some prominent CEOs of blockchain firm have said that the shortage of useful services in real life is one of the main reasons, and industry players need to make concerted efforts to revitalize the market.

“The blockchain industry lacks real world use cases,” said Daniel Shin, CEO of Terra during his keynote speech at the Blockchain Seoul conference on Sept. 17, pointing out the disappointingly low daily active user rates of blockchain-based applications, often called as DApps.

Speakers at the Blockchain Seoul conference participate in a panel discussion.

Terra plans to link its blockchain payment solutions to existing e-commerce platforms, including TMON. By piggybacking on the existing services, he said, Terra’s solutions will be able to gain momentum at a fast pace like payment services Alipay and PayPal did with the help of e-commerce platforms Taobao and Amazon, respectively.

The Seoul-based blockchain company plans to issue a stablecoin -- a type of cryptocurrency that is less vulnerable to price volatility -- to reward its users as well.

Maintaining stable operations is as important as other factors, such as achieving high transaction speeds and scalability, to keep the momentum going in the blockchain sector, according to Park Seung-ho, CEO of blockchain solution startup FLETA.

“Blockchain companies should not only focus on improving transaction speeds but also running stable operations to handle the massive amount of encrypted data created on blockchain platforms,” said Park, adding it is vital to offer an optimal environment for developers to create DApps with ease.

Speakers at the conference touched upon other topics, including interoperability between different blockchain platforms and governance.

BOScoin CEO Choi Ye-zune said both blockchain firms and others have to carefully consider the cost effectiveness of deploying the technology in traditional industrial sectors as “not all the businesses need blockchain.”

The conference is being held on Sept. 17-19 at the COEX convention center. Entrepreneurs and investors from global markets are participating, including Oasis Labs CEO Dawn Song, Tezos CEO Katheleen Breitman and Bitcoin Gold co-founder Martin Kuvandzhiev, among others.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)