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Stateful
Whether you’re a founder, investor, or simply blockchain-curious, Stateful brings you behind the curtain with the team that’s been first to nearly every milestone in the space.
Pantera Capital was the first U.S. institutional asset manager exclusively focused on blockchain technology, launching the first U.S. crypto fund when bitcoin traded at $65. Since 2013, Pantera has pioneered venture equity, early-stage tokens, and liquid digital asset strategies—backing more than 100 blockchain companies and 110 token projects globally.
Stateful
Why Blockchain VC's are Betting On Korea
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Franklin Bi and Jonathan Gieg (Pantera Capital) sit down with Steve Kim and Heechang Kang from Four Pillars Research to discuss why Korea is one of the most important and most misunderstood crypto markets in the world, and why Pantera just led their Series A.
Korea has the highest ChatGPT and Claude subscription rate per capita in the world. Kakao Pay just joined the X402 Foundation. Korean pension funds are considering Bitcoin as a portfolio diversification asset. And a new STO legislation passed in January is expected to become a major bridge between crypto and traditional finance. The institutional wave is coming.
Key Topics:
- Why the West misunderstands Korea: trading volumes overwhelm the narrative, but Korea is actually the world's most aggressive early adopter of new technology, from 5G and open banking to ChatGPT and Claude Code
- Agentic commerce in Korea: Kakao and Toss are already building payment rails for the agent era, KakaoPay joined X402, and pay-as-you-go AI payments are on the verge of exploding the same way subscriptions did
- The Terra shadow and the builder economy: Terra's collapse devastated Korea's crypto builder culture, but institutional adoption from firms like Mirae
Asset is slowly rebuilding credibility and drawing developers back in
- Four Pillars' APAC expansion: from Korea to Japan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia via the Asia Stablecoin Alliance, and why blockchain is the distribution rail that lets Korean fintech companies like Toss finally compete globally
00:00 Pantera Invests in Four Pillars from Seoul
01:00 Why the West Misreads Korea
04:30 AI Adoption and Agentic Commerce in Korea
8:30 Korean Crypto Regulation Before and After
12:10 STO Legislation and the Institutional Wave
16:20 Top Crypto Verticals in the Korean Market
32:00 What Western Companies Should Know Before Coming to Korea
36:40 The Terra Collapse and the Builder Economy
The views expressed in the podcast are those of the individual personnel quoted and are not the views of Pantera Capital Partners LP or its affiliates ("Pantera"). The podcast is provided for informational purposes only to provide market commentary and for general educational purposes, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. The podcast is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest. Please see additional important disclosures related to the content discussed in the podcast here.
Crypto in general, it allows this kind of a business to build a financial product that could be used by global users.
SPEAKER_03You don't have to be at the size and scale of Uber or Meta or Google to actually go global now.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to another episode of Stateful, a Pantera Capital podcast. I'm Jonathan Gee, Portfolio Growth Manager at Pantera, and your host for today, alongside Franklin B, our general partner. Today we have a very special episode. We're recording live from Seoul, South Korea, where we have just announced our investment into Four Pillars research. Joining us today is Steve Kim and I Chang Kang from Four Pillars, uh, some of the leading voices in the Asian digital asset space. Guys, welcome and it's great to have you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for having us. But before we begin, a quick disclaimer. This content is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial investment or legal advice. Please do your own research before making any investments.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, this is uh Steve Kim from Fall Pillars. Um, Fall Players is, as Jonathan mentions, uh, we are one of the leading uh research-driven companies. Now we're expanding to the validator and institutional services like advisory seminar. So we are also giving them a solution by connecting them to the one of maybe from their portfolio and other uh global protocols and pioneers. So that's our mission. And we are very glad that you know we got investment from Pantera.
SPEAKER_00It's a really honor to join this podcast and Langi Chang Kang from Fort Colors, co-founder and CSO of Leading Dollar Bowen Strategy on the Fort Colors.
SPEAKER_02Welcome. So our thesis in Korea really began with this, you know, overarching theme that Korea is one of the most important markets in crypto that the West really doesn't understand yet. And there are a few reasons for that. Um, but I wanted to get your opinions on maybe why that is. Why has Korea been harder to penetrate for Western companies and how is that changing today?
SPEAKER_04I think um it it is because of the um trading volumes actually overwhelmed everything. Uh like whenever people like perceive about Korea, okay, like Koreans are very speculative and they're uh, you know, they're investing tons of money for the meme coins or like whenever they would up it, they just trade a lot. But in reality, uh, as Franklin mentioned the other day, uh we have the number one subscription rate in terms of you know ChatGPT and cloud. And now we have a lot of local like meetups for like a cloud uh code and open cloud. So that means that we are not only like speculator, uh, we are we're not only speculative, but also we are very um sensitive to new technology. I mean, when new things come out, like Koreans are almost always there. They're always uh at the forefront of new technological advancement. So I think you know the reason why people misunderstand Korea is because Korea is just how aggressive they are in terms of trader, uh, that overwhelm everything. So I think that's the um one of the most reason why a lot of Westerners like misunderstand uh how like you know sensible Korea is.
SPEAKER_00Uh for me, I want to step back a little bit and just look into broader Asia. So there are many like countries where retail institutions are both like crossing. And Korea is a really unique country that retail institutions cross. They retail, they move really fast, they trade a lot, interested in new technology institutions, they have a big asset, they want to invest in somewhere, and also they have different new opportunities, not just to invest, but also to build. So looking at other countries like Japan, Hong Kong, or China, they're all interested in crypto. Uh, there are many countries where retail institutions pressure cuging for sale. That's why I like the thing like Korea is kind of a given move.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that that resonates with me a lot because I often hear this misconception, even from, I would say, top investors, sharp in the in the crypto industry, is that they think of Korea in this shallow way, right? That it is about just the focus on capital markets, the focus on digital assets. But actually, when you look at the history of technology in Korea, what really comes across is, you know, it's it's sort of what's happened with blockchain overall, right? That retail investors arrived at this technology before the institutions. Right. And I would say that's been the history of technology in Korea, where, you know, the first country to go nationwide with mobile 5G, the first to really adopt open banking uh across the whole country and accelerate adoption of that trend. Uh, and then some of the first financial super apps um in the world that have really, I'd say, pioneered just the new fintech UX. So when you actually look at um the Korean market, what you see is yes, there's energy, yes, there's passion, but it's really the curiosity and the open-mindedness about technology overall that's just made it such a pioneer for every kind of technology cycle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And and like Steve said, you know, Korea is one of the top markets for Chat GPT. It's one of the highest cloud usage in credits per capita. And what we're seeing at Antera is we're drawing a lot of parallels between the AI adoption uh to the early crypto adoption. And uh that sort of technology arc is is really impressive when you look at Korea and almost no other country in the world adopts new technologies as aggressively uh and at stale the way that Korea does. So uh it's a super interesting market. And uh maybe touching a little bit on AI, you know, with AI adoption so high, one of the major themes uh that we're seeing in investments is agentic commerce, right? That's something that's come out really bid in the next in the last six months or so. Uh, are you guys seeing agentic commerce sort of take its place in the Korean market? Uh is Korea still focused more so on uh, you know, the LLM aspect, uh, the chat GPT model of AI, or are you seeing that expand into the blockchain space as well? I think it depends on the company uh that we're talking about.
SPEAKER_04Like, for example, cacao, they are like vertically integrated. They have the old uh necessary sector to actually enable agent commerce. They have the you know, payment, they're the banks. So like I think cacao and other companies like TOAS, they are talking about how agent finance will take over uh the traditional commerce and traditional payment rail. I think Kacao Pay actually joined the uh the XFORs 4.2 foundation, uh founded by Rinux and Coinbase. And now like we are taking uh you know a lot of very aggressive steps to actually adopt uh you know payment rail that is you know suitable for agency era. So I think uh we are in a progress in uh you know those kind of um sectors right now. And I think very interesting to see uh all those fintech companies. Banks, I think it will take a little bit more time, but the fintech companies they're very aggressive to explore the ways to actually uh create the fine financial and payment rail for the for the agents right now.
SPEAKER_00Uh for me, I think you definitely grow bigger. But I think like Koreans, they're kind of very uh positive about the tech, but very conservative on the payment side because when we just look into the past history, like people didn't want to do uh or pay subscription. It was a big bottleneck, but people just wanted to watch it for free, just use the service for free, just watch the ads. Uh once the subscription uh mindset came into people, people started subscribing a lot to new services. They wanted to subscribe to new service and try it. And I think like age antique payment, like AI payment, pay as you go, kind of things, it's still a little like there's a kind of like uh Otulet there. But once people get used to it, I think it'll really explode and run really fast.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's fascinating because it triggers you know some of our pattern recognition around payments, right? Which is that when a new payment rail is born, there's the opportunity to build new types of business models around there, right? So I mean, gaming is a great example of this, where you know, going from the uh retail store and you know, buying a CB to take home to suddenly being able to connect on the internet and download the game, it changes the entire business model. And then obviously with mobile and free-to-play, opening up the entire games, the entire game model is built now around that payment model. And so I think it'll be fascinating to see, you know, when blockchain enables micropayments for agents, what will actually come out of that? The types of products, the types of financial services that will actually be built for agents from the ground up. And hopefully the Korean market is probably going to be one of the first to really witness that, just because of how high AI adoption has been. Um, I love I love to pick up on something, Steve, that you said, which is that you know, it seems like almost the hallmark of Asian markets in general that there's this verticalized business model, right? When something happens, it happens in a big way, like because it goes across the whole stack. But obviously, regulation is a big enabler of that. Sure. So, you know, I love to have our audience learn a bit about, you know, what is the before and after picture of uh regulation in the Korea market? What was it like before? What were the challenges? And then now what's happening with regulation?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, let's start from each and on this question.
SPEAKER_00Uh so for me, I think the biggest huddle for the adoption was what we in Korea called Kungadli. It means like separation between finance and crypto. So I think that was the reason why upbeat could never became uh Coinbase, because Upit they can't provide like custody services or prime beverage or other services that Coinbase provides to institutions. Only the trading was allowed. So that's why there were a lot of limitations, but I think this is getting more easy. And there have been a lot more uh easy on the regulation side in terms of like trading and also the license. So I think later this year and early next year, there will be a lot more discussions on the regulation side in terms of Sablecoin and other license. So I think that could really change a lot. But I think we'll have to see.
SPEAKER_04I think you know a lot of misunderstanding that Westerners and other outsiders have about Korea market is that Korea has a very strict regulation. But in reality, we don't have any regulations at all. Uh but we have in the gray area right now, like we don't know what to do and not to. But FIU and other regulatory bodies are giving us a lot of pressures and a lot of pressures to the uh existing businesses as well. For example, like when we started a company, um, it was almost impossible for us to open the bank account if I say that we're doing the blockchain businesses because they're worried about maybe four-pillers using our bank account for the uh money rendering or something like that. So we had to bring the investors in to prove that we are doing the rigid businesses, and then they finally open up the bank account for us. So there was no regulation. Like there was there's no like laws or regulation that says, okay, like four-pillers cannot open the bank account, but they're just they're having too much pressures from the regulatory body. So like nowadays, with the Genius Act being passed, a lot of um regulatory bodies in Korea, they also try to follow the trend of what's happening in the United States. So with the Clury Act, Genius Act, they're trying to catch up with the uh legation trend in the US. So they're now like, as He Tang mentioned, they're trying to soften a lot of regulation and a lot of you know uh huddles, legatory huddles, and they want to have a clear yes and no. So, oh, you can do this and you can you cannot do this. But that's why a lot of financial institutions are now like trying to move uh into the blockchain industry because before that, it was almost impossible for them to brainstorm some of the business strategies around blockchain. But nowadays, you know, a lot of even the president right now, he is pushing really hard on the agenda of blockchain because he will uh like a few months ago he mentioned why do we have to go um wait for like three days to actually settle the stock uh you know stock trading? And then one of the uh ministers said, okay, whenever we when you use a blockchain, we can settle instantly. So he said, okay, why not why not we do that? So a lot of discussion, a lot of positive discussions about blockchain and adopting the new technologies are being happening in in even in the blue house, which is a White House Korea. So I think that's a changing factor. And a lot of big companies are actually uh you know seeing this as a very positive sign about the regulations in Korea.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I guess the US market is not the only one. Is that friendly present?
SPEAKER_02And I was going to say, you know, it's very interesting to hear about the the banking woes, you know, being a US investor, having a lot of our companies based in the US, we're very familiar with uh frictions that have occurred at the banking level for a lot of our a lot of our companies.
SPEAKER_00Uh I want to highlight just one legislation. So STO legislation, I think that would be a really big bridge. Because that's tokenized securities. Yeah, yeah. It's usually called STO in Korea, usually SARD on May. And this law, the guy one has come out like three years ago. Uh there haven't been progress, but early this year, 15th of January this year, the legislation has passed and it's expected to be executed in this early next year. And because the secret firms can build organization infrastructure and then issue and make it and make a trade-off, I think that could be kind of a bridge between crypto and traditional finance, where the legislation wasn't in the uh clear zone. So I think that could be a big catalyst next year.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. Yeah, I think a major unlock and sort of what I call you know the perfect storm. Obviously, Korea has been a major uh beneficiary of the AI trade. Okay. Uh the KOSPI has doubled in the last 14 months, which was insane. Uh, it's experienced no other growth period like that in its history. Uh companies here that have invested into uh AI equities are obviously um up you know tremendously, right? And with the new inclusion of uh corporate exchange accounts and and corporations being able to invest a portion of their um of their treasury into digital assets uh that combine with you know companies being uh very successful from the AI trade, how much of that flow do you think is going to go into digital assets, you know, now that the the regulations are opening up?
SPEAKER_04I think a lot or not there is understanding about a Korean uh corporations not holding a digital asset. Uh a lot of people say, oh, like maybe they're not interested. Maybe they're interested in building a like financial rail using the blockchain tech, but they're they're not as interested as like micro strategy. When it comes to US players, they are heavily focused on focusing on the uh treasury uh strategy when it comes to crypto. But in Korea, they're more on a builder side. But reason the reason is it's not it's not about their interests, it's it's about regulation. Uh it is illegal, not illegal, but a lot of you know public listed company high pressures not to hold any digital asset at all. So after we have the clear clear role of how much percentage that you know public listed company can actually have uh Bitcoin or if as as part of their treasury, I think after that they're gonna have somewhat Bitcoin and some different form of ETH as well, maybe ETF or ETP. And the one thing that I um was very fascinated by, um, you know, Korean pension fund, um, they said uh they consider Bitcoin as a um not as a store of value, but more from a uh portfolio diversification perspective. So Bitcoin is just a different asset. It's not it's not NASA, it's not SP, it's not like tech company. It is just a whole different new asset. So in terms of uh portfolio diversification, it is worth investing some portion of their capital into Bitcoin because Bitcoin is a new asset and they want they want to have they want to have exposures on the new asset as well.
SPEAKER_00For me to add one thing, like I consider there are like three types, like digital tokens, targetized assets, and turkenized strategies. And I think for Korean institutions, they have exposure to the first two, and they can, if they are being able to invest in them, they can easily do it. But I think they haven't understood the potential of investing into turkenized strategies. I I also like consider uh Athena is their kind of a turkey strategy because it's the basic trading uh asset recognized and the EOs are distributed there. And I see a lot of teams building a new kind of a strategy value chain and providing what yields. And I think there's kind of like high EOs to be a fit uh catalyst for institutions to put money into.
SPEAKER_02I definitely want to get your guys' opinion on maybe what are the major themes that are most interesting to uh the Korean digital asset industry. Um I know stable coins is is very top of mind, tokenization as well. Um, what other things would you sort of rank in like, you know, your top four or five uh verticals within crypto here?
SPEAKER_04That's very difficult questions to answer. I'm gonna be honest. Uh so uh I think it is part of tokenization, uh, but Mirai Asset and all those asset managers are focusing on having a composable uh trading infrastructure where you can trade US stock and Korean stock and maybe stocks in like uh you know developing countries or at the same time crypto. So like I think blockchain enables uh people to actually do it because you know composability is one of the uh few characteristics of the blockchain. And and I think Amira in Hong Kong, they're trying to have like an infrastructure where just investors just can uh buy stock and sell and and and buy different stuff from different countries right away. Right now, if we try to trade stocks in Korean infrastructure right now, you have to sell it and then you have to convert that uh KLW to USD, and then you have to go to different market and you have to purchase some of the uh US stocks. It takes like four to five steps to actually convert um Korean stock to the US stocks. But with blockchain, I think you know, everything's gonna be like with one click. So that's what all the asset managers are super excited about because they will accelerate a lot of trading activities, not just in Korea, but also global market as well. So that's something that is part of globalization, but they are actually seeing much more broadly. I think they want to have the uh infrastructure where just people can trade everything. So that's uh something that I'm very excited about and very excited to talk to uh those asset managers as well.
SPEAKER_00I think in Asia, people have different perspectives on stablecoin compared to most stablecoin is not the kind of the final form or the target. I would say it's kind of a stack of targetized money. So the base is CBVC, the opponent is turkenized uh deposit, and there is a stable coin. And most of the Asian countries, they understand that uh KRW, JPY, or Hong Kong dollars or other like current local currencies are not as attractive as US dollar. So they're also kind of cautious about recognizing uh their assets and then like selling abroad. So they're trying to find some ways for these three assets to uh make synergies and really uh build an ecosystem around it. So in Korea, it hasn't been figured out yet. CBDC is uh getting into polish and expanding and it's working with banks to tokenize deposit and then uh do it. And State Point, it hasn't figured out how this piece would fit into this. So I think this year it'll be important for but like Bank of Korea and regulatories to find out how this could be uh fit in and then really pull it for you know, tokenization and sort of enterprise, you know, adoption.
SPEAKER_02Uh, what do you think are the major blockers right now uh for you know large conglomerates to come in and and really adopt these tokenized assets? Is it a purely a regulatory play right now? Is it um an education piece? Uh, you know, what what is the major blocker that you guys think?
SPEAKER_00So so two things. Like first, regulation. I think we have discussed a lot, so I'll skip this part. Second, it's business opportunities. I think stable coin insurers like Kether and Circle, they were able to generate a lot of profit by having stable coins uh issued a lot and then distributed. Uh, I think in the free market, it is not the same. The market isn't that big. It can't be $300 billion. And also the short-term bonds, it's not that big. So there are many like short-term bonds that could be used for stable coin. So I think like conglomerates and institutions are figuring out that uh just the stream care W stablecoin won't work. So there needs to be their own playbook for them to build a business around it. So some are trying to uh focus on the settlement and also orchestration platform because there are a lot of bands and also the users would need uh to like online file frame basically with various assets. So I think like for these institutions to figure out the business opportunities that could really bring them money and their growth would be uh the product catalyst.
SPEAKER_04And on top of that, I I think uh education and research, not because you know I'm from the research company, but you know, I think they lack of an uh like they they lack understand lack of understanding of um what technology should they use. Whenever I I talked to them, like they said, okay, like how do we use Cosmos SDK? And Cosmos SDK is good, but it's very outdated, right? There are a lot of different alternatives. Like, for example, Tempo, they're using uh a minimum consensus, which is brand new consensus. Algorithm. So I try to uh give them different optionality because um they're very um outdated on everything. So that's why you know I think it is very important for uh like a group like Pantera to come to the Korean market to enlighten them is because you know you guys have a lot of really great portfolio companies like on the finance and maybe Coinbase in Circle. And when Circle came uh to Korea two weeks ago, a lot of companies are just lushing in and they're just coming to the conferences to get the uh insight from Germany because Circle has a long experience of issuing and distributing the stable coin, and they want to get to know the know-how of a company like Circle has done it, right? And they they lack of that relationship, relationship with the global companies, relationship with the uh you know global protocols. So that's why we actually find it as the biggest problems when it comes to a corporation adapting on a blockchain technology. And it's it is our obligation to actually let them know that there are some different optionality. And I think you know, also like a lot of um VD guys are in in Korea and Asia, they're trying to sell their product. And obviously it's all biased. And whenever um they miss some guy, okay, like Avalanche is uh uh maybe the best chain to actually work on, which might be true, but I think um I want to give them more um, I want to give them more diverse optionality so they can use it based on their needs. So that's uh I think most important thing that that a lot of corporations and companies lack right now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it reminds me of uh you know where the market was in 2020, which was that, you know, the potential for DeFi, the potential for stable coins was all very clear. Sure. But the enterprises who are starting to engage obviously held back by regulation. But also these were the kinds of questions that they just didn't have the right kind of context on. So I think that's exciting for many of the companies who are building the blockchain space, because to come to Korea, what they can see is that number one, they have the ability to share their perspective and actually be received in a curious way. And then number two, when you think of all the potential countries where there may be good uh design partners, right? I mean, Korea would be top of mind, right? Not just for the consumer adoption that has so much potential here. I'm curious, you know, one of the things that I've also seen while we've been here is, you know, many of these technology companies, um, Navr or TOSS, they have global ambitions. Yeah. And I wonder if blockchain is a way for them to actually explore how they can bring their businesses uh globally to the rest of the world. Curious if you're seeing that from the types of work that you're doing, um, engaging with those types of companies.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think you know, TOAS definitely they have um like huge dreams and they they want to be listed on nonstop, right? So I think they consider boxing as a one way to um, you know, distribute their influences and you know, they have really great product. You know, I use TOS every day. I think you know, half of the entire Korean population use TOASE every day. My mom used it, my my dad uses it. It has a potential to be like a global app. So I I study in the United States, whenever I use apps in the States, I always compare the apps in the US and apps in Korea. And not to say, you know, I'm maybe I'm biased, but you know, whenever I use apps in Korea, it's much uh more uh friendly to the users, very, uh very um I think intuitive and very easy to use. So I always think that Korea builders like Tos or Kakao or other neobanks and internet banks has the potential to actually go to the global market and compete with the global players if they have the right distribution channel and right partner to work with. Blockchain itself has the uh you know global distribution power. So that's why they want to experiment around the blockchain technology so they can use it as a distribution rail to distribute their really like old-class and global uh high-quality product.
SPEAKER_00This would be the first and the last shot for them to be a global company. I think Korea, the local market is kind of big enough for a company to grow and also build business account, but not big enough to be a really truly global company that could build something really important. Uh I think like crypto in general, it allows these kind of like businesses to build a financial product that could be used by global users. And there are not many big huddles to that. So I think like for internet bans, there are like three in Korea: K-Bank and also Tosbag and Kakao Bank, and also like fintech companies, like Nairobi Financials and other like smaller ones. And I think these companies have a shop to be a truly uh global company. So I heard these companies uh build more aggressive things in crypto.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean in the Western market, you hear a lot about Robin Hood and Revolute with these kinds of ambitions, and it makes me think about how you know on the retail investor side, we tend to talk about blockchain as this democratizing technology. And it's true, it democratizes at every level, sure, right? And I would say at the fintech or enterprise level, it's democratizing in the sense that you know you don't have to be at the size and scale of Uber or Meta or Google to actually go gold global now. Sure, right? Because yes, they have built their infrastructure and their distribution around the world, but suddenly blockchain rails allow you to leapfrog ahead of that and actually compete at the same level. So, you know, I'm super excited to actually see you know some of the insights that Korean companies have around consumer tech uh and actually compete at at the global stage. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And, you know, one of the reasons, you know, we decided to invest in four pillars. Obviously, we think you're the premier uh digital asset advisory firm within Korea, but apart from that, we think you're the premier digital asset advisory firm in Asia as well. Your your reach goes outside of Korea. Um, you have ambitions to be, you know, a more global company uh on the research front. So tell us a little bit about uh maybe some expansion plans to other countries. What is super exciting for you um in the APAF region?
SPEAKER_04Thankfully, you know, I think blockchain itself is born to be global. So I think we can all land interests among the global players. So we're talking about blockchain. So when so as long as we can translate into different languages, we don't have to change the context, we don't have to change the topics because topics are global and everyone knows what Bitcoin is. So uh with the AI, thanks to the AI, like we can translate our research support to the all different languages. Now, like, you know, we have experiences. We actually we uh were one of the um exclusive research partners for the MoneyX conferences, which was hosted by SBI and CoinPlus. And a lot of government officials from Japan, they actually joined and they read our paper. It's all written in Japanese, and we talked about how the Japanese regulations is going and how we see um how we see the Japanese market at all. And and that actually gave us a lot of opportunity to actually talk to a lot of conglomerate in Japan and also SBI as well. I actually gave him like my business card and I had the opportunity to talk to him, and it was um it was surreal because SBI is such a huge group, and I got to you know talk to the chairman of the SBI is the surreal experiences, and I think you know we are gonna do more in Japan. I think maybe in the future, maybe we're gonna be the research partner for the WebEx and more conferences in the pan and Hong Kong as well. We are also directly working with the Ant group. Uh they're uh one of the leading out of rate tokenization um companies in Hong Kong and China. So we have the Asia um Stablecomb Alliances, uh, which is formed by four pillars and then layer zero. So we are also trying to host some sessions in Hong Kong as well, because Hong Kong is one of the few countries where they're very aggressively doing a lot of things about stable coin out of the rear and all that. So that's the current plan. So we are gonna focus on the Asia first. Maybe with the further, we can we can go to the Middle East as well. We can help a lot of Korean and Asian institutions to do their um pilot or POC in the Middle East first. And then whenever we have the regulatory clarity, then we can bring that to the Korean country so they can actually do the real product. So that's just something uh that we are actually uh planning right now, and maybe Dijan can elaborate more here.
SPEAKER_00I was the one who co-founded the Asia Stablecoin Alliance at WordPress uh with Alex from uh Layers Air. So I'm in Mercedes, uh single coin insurance clear is in the Asian market, and I think like tier one is created at Japan and Hong Kong. The institutions are there, the retail is also there, and for Hong Kong, the Hong Kong dollar is kind of packed to US dollars, so it makes sense for them to expand their single coin business. So I think these three countries are really important. So Fort Pillars is trying to expand there as well. That's why we participated in Money X and also like here to Southeast uh Asia countries, they also have very different approaches by each country. And they have a big retail, but institutional size is kind of like slow, so I think it'll take a little more time. In terms of like Central Asia, Kazakhstan, they have a very interesting approach. CGDC is at the very fourth prime on uh stable coins and making those payments and also making crypto trading uh incorporated into C B D C. So there are a lot of interesting approaches out there. I think like for us, we will be focusing on tier one countries and then expand to other countries. So yeah, that's our goal for now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I just spent some time in Hong Kong as well. And you know, I think just being there and now being in Seoul today, it makes me realize just how important it is to be here in person, to spend time here and to understand, as you said, Jean, the markets can't be painted with the same uh paintbrush. Right. Every market has a different history and a different culture, different traditions of how they partner between the government and private companies and uh consumers. And so each one I think is going to reach a slightly different conclusion, right? I think what's amazing about that is you get to see these policies develop in multiple ways and understand what are the the trade-offs and the costs, the benefits of each one. Uh, and so, you know, I think it's so valuable actually to have the perspective that Four Pillars brings, right? Because when you establish yourself as um a source of truth and a source of expertise uh for policymakers and for companies, you really get such a better perspective around what people are exploring. You know, I'd love to hear a bit about um, you know, as you as you think through uh the future of blockchain in Korea and um, you know, more and more sort of Western attention comes to the market. What do you think would be the the one thing that they should internalize before their first trip here?
SPEAKER_00Western companies are generally just curious about the Asian market. Uh I think the most important thing that would later come up is whether there will be business uh being able to build upon here. So the reason why these companies are trying to come to Asia is because they are trying to build business upon it and generate more profit here. Uh I think most of the companies have curiosity but not have like specific plan or target. So uh having this like target on whether they want to increase the trading borders or whether they want to partner with institutions for them to invest or trying to bring this capital, or if you want to like partner with institutions to build uh financially infrared with uh like blockchain technology, I think that could be also a goal. So I think the goal should be really specific.
SPEAKER_04I think on on top of that, um, I think one of the they should not misunderstand about the Korean market in the first place. Uh, you know, Koreans are not only very aggressive traders, but they're very aggressive users. They're very aggressive consumers. If you look at the usage of cloud and usage of ChatGPT right now, if there is a good product and good product is being introduced to Korean people, they're more than happy to spend a lot of money for actually using them. But a lot of protocol I met uh these days, they always treat them as a trader. So, oh, how how can I get listed in Op-Ed? How can I get listed on Bitum? Which is quite a big milestone for them, for sure. I understand that. But at the same time, Korean people are they're they're eager to try new things. And if they are confident about their product, introduce your product first. Whether their tokens are being listed on some biggest exchanges in Korea or something, they just uh introduce how how good your product is and then let them use it. And and Koreans are gonna use it and they're gonna their willing willingness to pay is super high. So look at you know how the Korean users right now are paying tens of thousands of dollars for their AI infrastructure right now. I think cloud is really thankful for Korea, and even like Sam Altman is really, really uh thankful for uh Korean usage. Even like Elon Musk was um very um, he was very grateful about uh Korean people like trying Tesla and driving Tesla as well. And he said, you know, uh Korea is one of the near very few countries that uh that are always like way ahead of other countries uh in in the global market. So I think we are only adopters and we are uh very aggressive users. So treat them as uh as a user and client rather than rather than traders. I think that would be the most important thing to actually do it first. And the second advice is just go through us, you know, not just talk to us and and and we we're more happy to help how to use Korean properly, right? So also like the culture is also something that they should learn. Whenever they go to like Yo-Yo Do or those Wall Street of Korea, they always wear the shuten tie and not uh act properly. And because you know, we have like an Eastern culture, right? So understand the cultural difference is also something that they should actually learn as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, my advice would be to plan to come in person. You know, I think for all a lot of Asian countries and Korea in general, there's a very high value that's placed on meeting in person and and shaking someone's hand, especially when it comes to business and trying to conduct business with um with Asian countries from from overseas over Zoom calls, it it's very fragmented and it's not optimal. So uh yeah, plan to come in person and uh I think you'll have a much better time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That's really such great advice. I mean, just to come into the market with intentionality and then introduce your product first. Yeah, truly, I think that is the right takeaway from at least the time I've spent in Korea so far. Um, it's a very special place where, you know, I think the the leading companies around the world, especially in blockchain, should look at it as one of their highest priorities. Sure. To understand and then ultimately to bring into their their strategy.
SPEAKER_02Um at Pantera, you know, 40% of our capital goes overseas. And outside of the US, uh, the country with the most amount of our founders is is actually Singapore. Uh I wanted to talk a little bit about the builder economy here. So uh on the startup side, you know, maybe why or why haven't we seen a ton of uh builder activity? What would it take to unlock uh a lot of the entrepreneur sort of spirit here? And maybe we'll see a Cambridge explosion of startups out of Korea. But I'm curious your thoughts on the builder economy.
SPEAKER_00To be frank on this, there were a lot of crypto builders in Korea that really produced innovative things, tried new things, and put on a lot of great things. But I think the terror was really debastrous in the Korean uh builder ecosystem. After Torah Colas, if you say you're building crypto, you are considered a little kind of a scam developer. So that kind of like culture really makes Korean developers and people to not build here. They care about uh being building something important and being really like getting credibility for that is important, but I think the past predeceans wasn't that good. So I think the builder culture has shrinked a lot. But I think like as more like Korean stable coin also RWAS is common chains and more institutions engage on it. I think more developers will have more incentives to come and do something important here.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think I think names are really important, and Korean people care a lot about how other people perceive them. So after Tara, as Hin Chang mentioned, whenever I say, Oh, I'm in crypto, and my father said, Okay, like, is it okay uh to be in crypto right now? And I said, Yeah, like you know, uh he said terror is like a biggest scam uh on like human history ever. And no, like I try to explain like how terror class and and all that, so like people's perception changed drastically after Tara. Um, because Top Wan, he was the um he was Korean founder, and a lot of the Terraform Labs teams were Korean. So that actually changed um our perception about crypto really in bad ways. And there were a lot of scam projects or the NFT and metaverse booms in as well. So crypto is a very easy tool for um scammers to actually leverage. So Korea, there have been a lot of scammers who actually produce a lot of NFT and sell them like at super high prices and then just you know do nothing else. And I think we have to change that perception. And in the order for us to do it, it's not just four PLS can do it alone. We have to bring the institution in because let's say like whenever Mira asset, the biggest asset measure in Korea, they're now taking blockchain very seriously. And whenever we see that, we can add, we can actually convince people that blockchain is actually tangible and it actually can change things in really good ways, in positive ways. And it is more, it can make things much more efficient. So, like all those use cases and case studies, I think we have to have more of that, and then we can actually amplify that to the Korean retail and Korean people so okay, uh, they can actually understand, finally understand uh blockchain is a very useful technology, and then we can bring more developers in, more engineers in because they care about how their father and their mother and their families and their friends perceive their job. Let's say, like, if I work at SK Heinex, then you know they're they're gonna consider me as like uh one of the richest people uh in in Korean society. But when I say I say that, oh, I'm the founder in crypto, they still have very cautious uh okay, like, oh, okay, whether you know I'm doing bad things or not. So we have to bring more people in and more institutions in. And like, you know, I think Frontier investing in Korea is that use is also uh is a huge news for for a Korean retail as well because Frontier is very long known. You guys have very high annuals. So like that can be the fact one of the factors that um Korean retail can perceive blockchain industry in a more positive way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it goes back to you know, good actors eventually bad actors, right? And so I think it's so important for us to be present in the market in this way and to be partnered with high quality uh partners like Four Pillars, is when good actors can partner together, it creates sort of an immune system, right? And bad actors start to realize okay, it's not so easy anymore. Um, and so I hope I hope that we are at that inflection point now.
SPEAKER_02That's that's funny, you know, a personal story. Um, my girlfriend's grandfather here here in Korea. Um, he's you know 85, and and when he first found out that I worked in crypto, his his first statement was, I thought that was a scam, right? And so you're totally right. And it's really a perception problem and how you change that, like Franklin said, is bringing in the good actors, it's engaging with the firms that people can't ignore, right? The conglomerates, the enterprises, the corporates, uh, the names that are uh core to the Korean economy coming into blockchain is inevitable, and and that change will eventually trickle down to public perception as well. So I think you know that's uh that's a huge unlock and and something that we're super excited to see.
SPEAKER_03So look, we're we're super grateful to be uh in Seoul, to be partnered with with Four Pillars, um, and to be able to uh have the privilege of of uh leading the Series A round for for the company. Um I'm so optimistic really about where this market is going. I know this is going to be a decade-long partnership at least. So, you know, this is just the beginning of it all, and uh, I'm glad we could have a little chat today and hopefully uh bring some of these insights to uh a bigger audience.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's it's pretty surreal for me as well because you know I started my journey in crypto in 2018. And even back, even back in the day, uh Pantera was one of the biggest crypto funds. And never thought that I'm gonna work with Pantera. Right? Now like it doesn't come true, right? And then, you know, very honored to actually work with Pantera to actually make our industry better. Of course. And especially industry in Asia better. So very excited about this. And you know, we're gonna do a bunch of really good things, and I'm very excited to do maybe a lot of a lot of different in-person conferences and a lot of um things to bring uh global standards to the Asian market.
SPEAKER_00I just wanted to say that we love this industry. Like four pillars, all of us really love this industry, whether it's a bear market, bull market, we really think crypto will be the final uh final form of financial infrastructure. So we want really good actors, good institutions to build something really important and then really benefit people's life. So we really want to partner with the best out there. So it's really an honor to partner with uh Pantera and start working on the things that we can do together.
SPEAKER_02Thanks so much. Thank you guys so much.