Justin Kim, Head of Asia at Avalanche, sat down with BeInCrypto forward of his look on the Hong Kong Consensus 2025.
Avalanche’s current achievements in Asia have been notable – it grew to become one among solely 4 cryptocurrencies authorized for buying and selling by Hong Kong authorities, alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Chainlink. The platform has established vital partnerships throughout the area, from monetary establishments in Singapore to gaming firms in Korea and Japan. On this interview, Kim discusses Avalanche’s distinctive structure enabling purpose-built blockchains and shares insights into varied enterprise implementations throughout Asia.
Avalanche has achieved quite a few profitable implementations throughout Asia. What’s the key behind this success?
The secret is our distinctive structure that allows purpose-built blockchains. Not like conventional blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum, which function on a single shared community, Avalanche permits firms to create their very own devoted chains. This solves two main challenges: scalability and regulatory compliance. Corporations can management who validates their community and the place knowledge is saved, making it significantly enticing to enterprises involved about privateness and regulatory necessities. We’ve a pipeline of over 100 blockchain tasks, and whereas the technical setup takes simply 5-10 minutes, we spend 6 months to a 12 months consulting with every shopper to optimize their blockchain.
The Alipay-Seize partnership in Singapore seems to be a major milestone. May you clarify this undertaking and what challenges Avalanche helped overcome?
Since November 2023, Alipay and Seize have been utilizing their devoted Avalanche blockchain for cross-border funds in Singapore. For instance, Korean guests can use KakaoPay at Seize-affiliated shops, with transactions processed by means of stablecoins as a substitute of conventional banking channels. The important thing problem was knowledge privateness rules, which we solved by permitting them to create a Singapore-only validated blockchain. This MAS-approved system eliminates banking intermediaries and their charges.
Each Alipay and Seize have a presence in a number of nations, but they selected Singapore for this implementation. Why Singapore, and are there different vital monetary tasks there?
Singapore, significantly the Financial Authority of Singapore(MAS), actively helps blockchain innovation. Moreover approving the Alipay-Seize cost system, they’ve endorsed a number of main tasks. JP Morgan is utilizing their devoted Avalanche chain to tokenize non-listed belongings like VC shares and actual property, whereas Citibank carried out a blockchain-based FX buying and selling system to enhance transparency and scale back dealer dependency. Singapore is positioning itself as Asia’s premier monetary hub alongside Hong Kong, and their regulatory openness makes it a really perfect testbed for blockchain innovation.
May these profitable Singapore implementations with JP Morgan and Citibank be replicated within the US market?
With JP Morgan and Citibank efficiently implementing their blockchain options in Singapore, they might probably advocate for comparable tasks within the US. Till just lately, such improvements had been difficult as a result of US regulatory surroundings. Nevertheless, with the altering panorama and our current authorities undertaking with California DMV, we count on to see elevated curiosity from US monetary establishments utilizing Singapore as a profitable check case.
Avalanche additionally has gaming partnerships like Nexon’s MapleStory in Korea and Konami in Japan. What makes the gaming sector significantly profitable for Avalanche?
Gaming and finance are the 2 sectors the place blockchain can present essentially the most worth. In gaming, “Off The Grid” demonstrates this completely – they reached 13 million concurrent customers throughout PlayStation, Xbox, and PC inside three months utilizing their devoted Avalanche chain. Conventional single-network blockchains couldn’t deal with this scale of customers or cross-platform integration. They even topped the Epic Video games Retailer of their first week, surpassing video games like Fortnite, displaying the potential of purpose-built gaming blockchains.
Off the Grid is a blockchain recreation constructed on Avalanche.
Suntory, one among Japan’s oldest alcoholic beverage firms, adopted a singular implementation of Avalanche’s blockchain expertise. May you introduce the case?
Suntory carried out NFC chips on their premium whiskey bottles that work together with blockchain in two phases. When prospects first scan an unopened bottle, it generates an NFT confirming authenticity and possession. When the seal is damaged and scanned once more, it creates a “tasting NFT” recording consumption. This helps observe their premium whiskeys’ world distribution – as an illustration, if bottles offered in Tokyo are being opened in Paris, suggesting market demand. It’s reworking their knowledge assortment and advertising and marketing technique.
What’s Avalanche’s strategic imaginative and prescient for 2025, significantly in Asia?
The pattern of purpose-built blockchains is rising considerably throughout Asia. We’re seeing sturdy curiosity from monetary establishments, gaming firms, and enterprises eager to create their very own devoted chains. In Korea, we’re working with main cost firms to broaden our cross-border cost options. We’re additionally strengthening our presence in Hong Kong’s monetary sector with a number of partnerships beneath dialogue. On the upcoming Hong Kong Consensus, we’ll be showcasing profitable implementations throughout varied sectors.
