Bitcoin Forum

‘Big Four’ South Korean Bank Enters Blockchain Pact with Telecom Giant KT

South Korea’s second-largest bank Shinhan Bank has entered into a partnership with the country’s second-largest telecoms provider KT Corp for the purpose of developing a new blockchain-based platform.

The Korea Times reports that the new platform is intended to build on recent moves by regional governments across the country to introduce digital vouchers.

Useful Competencies
In July, CCN reported that KT Corp launched a commercial blockchain capable of handling 2,500 transactions per second, in the process becoming the first mobile carrier in the world to build such a platform. The network further announced that it planned to expand the transaction capacity to over 100,000 per second by the end of 2018.

Shinhan on its part will bring its considerable commercial banking experience to the table, with its 2017 assets totaling $302.6 billion.

The aforementioned government program permits digital vouchers to be spent like cash within certain locations. The partnership between Shinhan and KT comes ahead of the planned rollout of an economic stimulus program that includes the digital voucher scheme.
https://www.ccn.com/big-four-south-korean-bank-enters-blockchain-pact-with-telecom-giant-kt/

Well, though not directly connected to bitcoin, still a nice news considering most people unfamiliar with bitcoins automatically associate "blockchain" with "bitcoin".

I'd say the Korean banks are very forward thinking. In my country I think it's just only one bank that is trying blockchain and the project seem to be geared towards connecting rural banks.

As far as I know South Korea is one of the most hi-tech countries in the world so I think they have pretty will chances for the success. However I am wondering how the new blockchain will affect on the prime assets like bitcoin and ethereum and unfortunately while I do not have my own opinion about the new blockchain and its features and perspectives. I just may suppose that some cash flows from South Korea will be turned into the new blockchain and currencies based on it and it is not positively for bitcoin and ethereum because investors from South Korea are quite active and rich enough to affect on market.
Anyway I  suppose that developers will not complete all their works just in time so I am not waiting that the new blockchain will be ready at the end of 2018.

Hmph… 😏🙄all these has nothing to do with Bitcoin, they just want to collaborate with each other and build a platform that is totally different from their main business which will be running on the Blockchain and that is a way for them to profit from Blockchain, so that has nothing to do with Bitcoin at all and I don’t even think it will make price go up cause any money invested in that project they are running wouldn’t go to Bitcoin.

This is interesting from the perspective of anti-trust laws.

Imagine if google, apple, goldman sachs and lockheed martin joined forces to create and manufacture a product or buyout a market. With their collective wealth, expertise and influence they might easily dominate and gain a strong monopoly over emerging markets or technology.

In the united states and europe there are anti trust laws which are supposed to serve as anti monpoly regulation.

However these laws are non-existent in asia and other parts of the world who are typically obsessed with building the largest and most powerful super corporations which are humanly possible.

If google tried to do what this south korean bank and telecom giants are doing, they might be sued by the EU for $5 billion dollars. However asian nations can typically get away with that type of large scale collaboration as anti trust laws do not apply to them. This creates an interesting dilemma for the future of anti trust laws, and the current state of affairs where google and microsoft are commonly targeted by anti trust while corporations in other countries are perhaps not held to the same standard.

Again there is no way to make sure these news sources are independent.

If the news is true, it reveals the intention of some governments to use blockchain "as network" in their transactions rather than to use cryptocurrencies "or great new one".

As I understand from the article, it aims to create digital vouchers capable of dealing with 25,000 transactions per second.

Generally, the whole article does not carry anything new that is answered in this section.

And that is the opportunity for the community in this country. Many things are attractive, awaiting the beginning of the preparation for the financial spirit. There will be more challenges for the community. But hopefully this will be a favorable condition for their country to start adopting this technology.

It's also true. Arguments are just conjectures and discussions. No return is right. The work of the government or the nation is doing and applying is done already. It is hoped that investors will not be disadvantaged and have many benefits.