Bank of Korea Conducts Successful CBDC Pilot Test with Financial Institutions

Stella Chan, the chief operating officer of Phemex, a crypto derivatives exchange with a presence in Turkey and Singapore, recently provided details of the company’s unveiling of its Lending Protocol and SocialFi initiative Pulse Season 3. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Chan outlined that since the founding of the firm in 2019, the company has been evolving and working towards carving out a niche for itself in the industry. The executive confirmed that the exchange business has reached a point where daily trading volume now exceeds $2 billion across more than 300 trading pairs. Pulse Season 3Chan is also the co-founder of Phemex’s Pulse, a social trading platform that rewards users while attempting to foster a community spirit within the crypto sphere. As part of Phemex events held at Token 2024 in Dubai last week, the company announced Pulse Season 3, a SocialFi mechanism to incentivize community engagement. The initiative introduces casting and tipping features. Casting is a means through which community members can post up content. Meanwhile, tipping serves as a method through which other community members can acknowledge and reward high-quality community member contributions. Through this initiative Phemex is hoping to deliver an enhanced experience where trading seamlessly intersects with trending topics and insightful content.Photo by Shubham Dhage on UnsplashPhemex Lending ProtocolAlongside Pulse Season 3, the company has also launched the Phemex Lending Protocol, a feature allowing users to borrow crypto at competitive rates while earning interest. As part of that offering, all loans are safeguarded through the collateralization of the user’s digital assets. With an initial liquidity allocation of $22 million, this protocol has been established with an eye towards empowering traders to amplify their capital without selling their assets, while aligning in a more general sense with the user’s overall trading needs. Phemex is attempting to spearhead the transition towards greater user autonomy without compromising security. The Phemex Lending Protocol is central to that effort, offering users competitive borrowing rates and opportunities for passive income generation.  Standing testament to that, the platform offers interest rates on USDT starting at 3.57%. For those that hold vePT, the wrapped version of the platform's native Phemex token (PT), an additional 30% discount on borrowing rates is being offered. vePT is destined to act as a token which confers voting authority in the not too distant future, relative to Phemex’s governing decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The platform is further enabling capital efficiency from the service user’s perspective by applying very little restriction so that funds can be withdrawn and redeployed at will, with minimum delay. Coming off the back of these announcements during Token 2024, the company appears to be following through on that momentum. Taking to the X social media platform on April 25, Chan outlined details of a plethora of user experience (UX) upgrades relative to its Pulse offering. Future plansLooking ahead, Phemex envisages the offering of a broader range of products tailored to user needs. Plans for an automated market maker (AMM) protocol aim to provide users with passive earning opportunities by contributing to liquidity. Additionally, Phemex is exploring the development of an on-chain credit scoring mechanism, leveraging its soulbound digital identity token to enhance access to decentralized finance (DeFi).

SK Planet and Milk Partners to Propel Blockchain Ecosystem DevelopmentSouth Korean tech company SK Planet announced today a partnership with Milk Partners, the operator of MiL.k, a blockchain-based reward points platform, in order to foster the UPTN blockchain ecosystem. That’s according to a report by local news outlet Edaily. This alliance comes after conglomerate SK Group’s affiliate recently launched its new non-fungible token (NFT) membership program called “Road to Rich.”Photo by Karolina Grabowska on PexelsSK Planet’s NFT initiativeRoad to Rich is an initiative within OK Cashbag, SK Planet’s popular reward points system. In an effort to promote this initiative, the two companies will organize a Road to Rich event on the MiL.k app this month and enable users to exchange between OK Cashbag points and MiL.k points later this year.Milk Partners’ tech contributionMilk Partners’ parent company, Keyinside, has contributed to the development of SK Planet’s blockchain platform UPTN and has been involved in OK Cashbag’s NFT project, providing business consulting and technology development. UPTN, built on the Avalanche network’s subnet, made its debut through OK Cashbag’s NFT initiative, and a dedicated wallet based on UPTN was recently launched.Kim Kyo-soo, the head of the customer experience division at SK Planet, said that the company plans to build the UPTN ecosystem where customers can enjoy various services, including membership benefits, concert tickets, and shopping.Milk Partners CEO Cho Jung-min expressed enthusiasm about the synergies that can be achieved by participating as a major partner in the blockchain project spearheaded by Korea’s major corporate. He added that the two sides will work together to offer valuable and beneficial services to users.

South Korea’s cryptocurrency market experienced notable growth in the second half of 2024, as total trading volume climbed to 1.35 quadrillion won ($968.5 billion). This marks a 24% increase compared to the 1.09 quadrillion won ($782.7 billion) recorded in the first half of the year. The data was released on May 20 by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which operates under the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).Photo by Daniel Bernard on UnsplashTrading volume and market cap surgeThe average daily trading volume rose by 22%, reaching 7.3 trillion won ($5.26 billion), with a significant surge observed after October. According to the financial authority’s report, this sustained momentum was driven by a broader bullish trend in the global crypto market, led by Bitcoin hitting all-time highs. Growing institutional interest following the launch of multiple spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. and increasingly favorable crypto-related policies have further fueled the rise in asset prices. To evaluate the state of the domestic crypto market, the FIU conducted a survey of 25 virtual asset service providers (VASPs) during the second half of 2024. The survey covered 17 exchanges as well as eight entities providing either custodial or wallet services. By the end of 2024, South Korea’s total crypto market cap had surged to 107.7 trillion won ($77.55 billion), representing a 91% increase from 56.5 trillion won ($40.68 billion) in June. In contrast, the global crypto market grew by 60% over the same period, reaching a total of $3.59 trillion. However, the Korean market experienced a sharp decline in assets held by custodial and wallet service providers, which fell by 89% to 1.5 trillion won ($1.08 billion). This drop was largely attributed to a rise in business closures. Additionally, the number of users on these platforms plummeted by 99%, falling to just 1,300 customers who had completed Know Your Customer (KYC) verification. Performance and token preferencesDespite these setbacks, the 25 VASPs reported combined revenues of 1.22 trillion won ($878.5 million), marking a 15% increase. Operating profit also rose by 27% to 744.6 billion won ($536.2 million). However, capital adequacy weakened, with the capital-to-asset ratio falling by 12 percentage points to 36.5%. Meanwhile, Korean won deposits—cash held on platforms for trading—more than doubled, surging 114% to 10.7 trillion won ($7.7 billion). The number of employees at crypto exchanges increased by 18%, reaching 1,862, while staff dedicated to anti-money laundering (AML) efforts rose by 46% to 207 individuals. On average, fiat-to-crypto exchanges offered trading in 224 different tokens, an increase of 28 compared to the previous half-year. Among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap in Korea, six—Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Solana (SOL), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Cardano (ADA)—also appeared in the global top 10. Collectively, these accounted for 71% of Korea’s total crypto market cap. However, the remaining four differed: Korean investors favored Ethereum Classic (ETC), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Stellar (XLM) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), whereas global investors leaned toward Tether (USDT), Binance Coin (BNB), USD Coin (USDC) and TRON (TRX). User base growth and demographic trendsThe number of KYC-verified users eligible to trade reached 9.7 million in the second half of 2024, representing a 25% increase from the previous period. Individual users accounted for the vast majority, while corporate users made up less than 0.01% of the total. By age group, users in their 30s accounted for the largest share at 29%, followed by those in their 40s (27%), 20s and younger (19%), 50s (18%) and 60s and older (7%). The majority of users—66%, or roughly 6.37 million people—held less than 500,000 won ($360) in digital assets. In contrast, 12% of users held over 10 million won ($7,180), while 2.3% had portfolios exceeding 100 million won ($71,820).