Bringing blockchain to life on a metropolitan scale, South Korea’s second-largest city, Busan, is venturing to become a ‘Blockchain City’. The city is in the process of cultivating an Ethereum-compatible mainnet, bridging various blockchain-based services onto a unified platform at a city level. The aspiration is not only ambitious but reflective of the growing interest in decentralized technology globally.
In pursuit of this aspiration, Busan City has set aside a budget of a staggering 100 billion won ($75 million) for the development of a global standards-compliant open blockchain under the Blockchain Innovation Fund (BIF). With almost a hundred private companies identified as potential investors, the funding is largely to be raised from public financial institutions within the city.
Now, like every coin (crypto in this context), it has two faces. The city administration has been rigorously testing diverse use cases of blockchain technology in its trade-free zone. But here lies the problem, different business projects operating on separate blockchains resulted in a not-so-smooth experience. Hence, the city administration made a move towards adopting a public blockchain at a city-level compatible with global blockchain networks like Ethereum.
Additionally, Busan City is also involved in formulating the blockchain trust framework (BTF) technology standard led by the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA). The primary objective of this endeavor is to enhance private services’ quality and motivate interconnection between services by setting performance, security, and technical system requisites for blockchain.
However, the city’s blockchain development vision extends further. Its development plan includes the provisioning of a Busan digital asset exchange by the first half of 2024. Now imagine, an exchange where not only virtual assets are listed, but also tokenized securities inclusive of precious metals, raw materials such as gold, copper, and oil! Moreover, the administration hopes to tokenize and trade global intellectual property rights (IP) and carbon emissions rights in the future.
In conclusion, Busan’s decisive move to become a ‘Blockchain City’ is undoubtedly ambitious and commendable. It not only endorses the value of blockchain and decentralization but also compellingly illustrates the potential of this technology to revamp cities’ infrastructural fabric worldwide. However, it is worth remembering that the road to this change will not be straightforward. It necessitates proactive participation from both public institutions and private entities, along with regular assessments to ensure an inclusive, seamless transition into the blockchain metamorphosis.
Source: Cointelegraph
