South Korea’s Telecoms Giant to Launch Online Mall Powered by Busan’s Crypto

KT Corporation is launching an online mall dubbed Dongbaek Mall. The Mall will adopt Busan City’s blockchain-based digital currency, Dongbaekjeon as its primary medium of exchange, according to reports on November 26, 2020.

Dongbaekjeom Use Case Extends

KT Corp (formerly Korea Telecom), South Korea’s first and largest telecommunications company, has announced plans to launch an online mall that will further extend the use case of Busan City’s local cryptocurrency.

Per sources close to the matter, the Dongbaek Mall, which is now in its pilot phase until November 27, 2020, will adopt Busan City’s digital currency as its primary medium of exchange and South Koreans will only be able to access the mall through their Dongbaekjeon wallet app.

Notably, the team has made it clear that the primary purpose of launching the Dongbaek online marketplace is to accelerate the use of the city’s local crypto and ultimately revitalize its economy by driving more sales for small and medium enterprises in the area.

Commenting on the project, Kim Jong-Cheol, head of the KT Blockchain Biz Center reiterated that:

“We are putting preparations in top gear to roll out additional services that will take advantage of the KT Group to activate the Dongbaekjeon service and support small business owners.”

SMEs Must Register to Accept Crypto Payments 

Reportedly, the Dongbaekjeon digital currency has gained huge popularity in Busan City since its launch in December 2019. As of last August, 850,000 people had used the digital currency for transactions worth roughly 920 billion won (about $831.4 million).

Interestingly, in a bid to encourage residents to use Dongbaekjeon, authorities in charge of the digital currency designed it in such a way that consumers will get a five percent cashback when they use the digital currency for large transactions and 10 percent for small purchases.

Also, Busan City authorities have revealed plans to launch QR code mobile payments for the digital currency, to make life easier for businesses and consumers. 

However, SMEs interested in accepting Dongbaekjon are now required to register with the relevant authority. This is part of Busan City’s plan to curb misuse of the digital currency since some merchants often slap extra charges on transactions or even sell the currency instead of using it for purchases.

South Korea remains one of the nations occupying the frontline of distributed ledger technology (DLT) innovation and Busan, it’s second-largest city is the crypto valley of the country, thanks to its multi-million dollar blockchain special zone.

Elsewhere, China’s CBDC has continued to gain traction in the country. As of November 2, 2020, the digital yuan had been used to facilitate a massive four million transactions worth over $300 million.