Cryptocurrency Payment Services Evolving

Korean blockchain and cryptocurrency companies are entering the already crowded simple payment market.

Korean blockchain and cryptocurrency companies are entering the competition in the simple payment market.

Dunamu, the company behind South Korea’s cryptocurrency exchange platform Upbit, plans to allow partner companies of its “Luniverse” blockchain platform to build a main net, or an independent blockchain network, and set up a token economy, or a cryptocurrency reward system, using Bitberry application programming interface (API).

A next-generation blockchain platform, Luniverse will be commercialized next month. It is developed by Lambda 256, a global blockchain research institute estalished by Dunamu, and Rootone Soft, a subsidiary of Dunamu.

Bitberry is a safe cryptocurrency wallet which allows users to send coins to anyone with a phone number.

Danamu says ordinary companies will be able to build a decentralized application (dApp) and a cryptocurrency wallet using Luniverse, which is a blockchain as a service (BaaS) platform, and Bitberry API.

Rootone Soft CEO Chang Sung-hoon said, “Bitberry API is being used by firms in about 10 sectors, such as peer-to-peer (P2P) finance, education, advertisement, commerce, entertainment, mobility and content, including blockchain-based augmented reality (AR) game developer Mossland. When an upgraded version of Bitberry API is applied in the first quarter this year, each partner company can directly connect its own services with the Bitberry account or use the cryptocurrency payment functions.” He added, “We are also planning to provide ‘key management service’ to partner companies which seek to realize its own cryptocurrency wallet without connecting with Bitberry in the future.”

Coinduck, a cryptocurrency payment service subsidiary of Chain Partners, is taking part in Samsung Electronics’ venture incubation project “Creative Lab (C-Lab)” based on its “Coinduck Payment,” a technology that allows users to pay in Ethereum at offline stores. It commercialized the technology in January 2017 for the first time in the world. It has also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Kolon House Vision to develop a system which allows users to pay rent in cryptocurrencies.


Cryptocurrency-based online and offline payment and remittance service “Bithumb Cash,” which is operated by Bithumb, one of the largest crypto exchanges in South Korea, is expected to create a synergy with Blockchain Exchange Alliance (BXA) to be participated in by exchanges in 12 countries, including Japan and the United States.

TTC Protocol, a social network based on a decentralized reward system, has launched its own simple payment service “TTC Pay.” Not only partner companies of TTC Protocol, which has secured more than 7.5 million users in South Korea alone, but also shopping malls, theaters and gaming companies can add TTC Pay in addition to existing payment functions when they install the TTC mobile software development kit (SDK).

Shin Hyun-seong, a co-founder and CEO of Terra and former CEO of Ticket Monster who attracted 300 billion won (US$267.26 million) from investors, is set to launch “Terra Project.” The project will allow users of such daily services as global shopping platforms Qoo10, Ticket Monster and Baedal Minjok to use blockchain-based simple payment service “Terra Pay,” tentatively named “Terra X.” The aggregate number of subscribers to the 15 e-commerce platforms in Asia taking part in the “Terra Alliance” comes to 40 million.

In addition, Terra has recently formed a strategic partnership with Ground X, the blockchain technology subsidiary of Kakao Corp., to conduct joint research on stable coin. The two companies are planning to integrate the blockchain-based payment system using Terra stable coin with “Klaytn” to be launched by Ground X in the first half of this year in order to create popular dApp services.

Copyright © BusinessKorea. Prohibited from unauthorized reproduction and redistribution