PANONY’s CEO Alyssa Tsai interviewed Aston CEO Seungki Kim to learn more about the CEO’s thoughts on his company and the Korean blockchain industry. Aston is a document distribution platform built on blockchain technology. Kim discussed his viewpoints on the Korean regulatory landscape and shared his insights about funding in the blockchain community.
According to Aston’s CEO, the largest problem facing blockchain projects is not funding or the bearish market. Rather, the Korean government’s bans on the ICOs are the single-most influential barrier to the growth of blockchain projects. Rather than focusing their efforts on building new applications and technologies, Korean blockchain companies have turned their attention to the issue of resolving or mitigating legal issues.
Further, the interviewee suggested that the bearish market would be good for the industry in general by eliminating bad actors from the blockchain community. Kim said “this is the time to distinguish the bad ideas from the good ideas.” In short, for Kim, the bearish market will disincentivize “scammers” from hurting the reputation of the overall industry.
The interview concluded with discussion about a new project and the future direction for the interviewee and the company. One promising development is a new blockchain application that is being developed on the Aston platform. HEX is a new DAPP that will allow users to share their medical information. As for the company’s future goals in the coming year? Seungki Kim would like to accelerate the development of junior members and encourage the development of more apps on the Aston platform.
Interview Transcription
What are the bottle necks for enterprise blockchain adoption in Korea and globally?
Legal problems are the biggest issue. Korean government banned ICOs, so Korean blockchain companies are focusing on addressing the legal risks associated with ICOs rather than developing new business or technologies to advance the industry
What are Korean companies’ sentiments in adopting blockchain technology? Is the interest level still the same after the recent bearish market?
Although the government threatened to crack down on this industry, there is no officially released document detailing this view. We are still passionate about the projects we are working on but have much difficulty conducting business purely due to increased legal risks.
We are also looking forward to further government announcement and developments on cryptocurrencies and ICOs. The government only provides answers to these questions twice a year. So far, the general atmosphere seems positive.
Who will provide these answers?
That’s one of the key problems facing enterprise blockchain in Korea as well. There is no particular department that is in charge of cryptocurrency or blockchain issue. The Blue House should answer to this question. In my opinion, it will be the Office of Planning & Coordination or Financial Services Commission that ultimately provides some response.
So you have ETH. Is it hard to fundraise in this financial climate? It seems like many projects are looking for institutional investors or equity
We are looking for other investors too-- about $8,830, and it’s true that we need funding.
Aston is doing a platform business, and we gathered 25,000ETH with ICO. Starting from January, one DAPP Hex which uses Aston will be function. People will be able to share their medical information.
I don’t think it’s bearish market. This is the time to distinguish bad ideas from good ideas. If the projects are not doing well, they are scams. The market is difficult due to those scams. If a new player has a fresh idea to enter this market, that’s enough.
A fresh idea is enough?
Public-sale looks difficult to the public, but having an MVP and a good pitch to a VC can still work well.
What is the minimum viable product for Aston?
A working product or protocol that blockchain developers can build a working platform on
How do you define whether a DAPP is successful? As you have seen many projects, how do you analyze whether a project/dapp will be successful?
A project is successful if the team can execute the goals outlined by the whitepaper roadmap. My definition of success is to make money to increase the value of the tokens that our teams have.
What are your future plans?
Personally, I’d like to accelerate junior members, and want more DAPPS to build on our Aston platform.
