Korean Government to Lead 6 Blockchain Pilots With $9 Million Fund

The South Korean government will invest 10 billion Korean won (or $9 million) to support blockchain development in the country, with plans to carry out six pilots using blockchain technology.

According to a report from CoinDesk Korea, the country's Ministry of Science and ICT published a blockchain development strategy on Thursday. The agency said the government plans to invest $9 million in total until the end of 2019 as part of the country's pursuit of "a medium- to long-term plan for expanding blockchain technology."

With that, the ICT ministry said it will take the lead to work with other government agencies to conduct blockchain pilots in the public sector. The works will focus on livestock supply chain management, customs clearance, online voting, real estate transactions, cross-border e-document distribution and shipping logistics.

The main goal, according to the document, is to improve the information sharing efficiency and transparency in these public services by using a distributed network.

For instance, the ICT ministry explained that it will collaborate with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to deploy a system that updates the information of livestock from their breeding, shipping to sales on a distributed ledger.

As such, each party on the supply chain that functions as a node on the blockchain can be informed more promptly so that in case of a problem, the follow-up period could be reduced from six days to less than 10 minutes, the document said.

Similarly, the blockchain pilot on the real estate industry will be carried out with the Ministry of Land and Transport. It expects that by integrating real estate, taxation and legal services with a blockchain, the real estate transactions can become more streamlined and efficient for consumers since their information can be shared automatically among different parties.

"We will establish a roadmap for developing blockchain technology and plan to secure 90 percent of the technology level by 2022 compared to the world's top countries," the agency said.

In addition, the ministry said will invest 800 million won (or $720,000) a year for up to six years to expand a blockchain research center. The goal is to educate students on the nascent technology and to nurture 10,000 blockchain specialists by 2022.

Seoul landscape image via Shutterstock