On 11/05/2020, an article about Won-beom Kim, CEO of Blocko was published on the official website of Blocko.
Meet the D Pioneer
19. Won-beom Kim, CEO of Blocko
“Our identity is an enterprise company that uses blockchain as a tool for innovation. We will create value in the industrial field by applying the strength of blockchain to expensive and troublesome enterprise software (software) and establish ourselves as a global software company representing Korea.”
Throughout the interview, CEO Kim Won-beom, Blocko, compared blockchain to a real estate registry and a wheel. By shifting the concept of the registry office into the digital world, it creates a democratic and reliable transaction and contract ecosystem that anyone can participate in, and as the wheel, invented thousands of years ago, changes every time a new mode of transportation emerges, the blockchain complements the inconvenience and limitations of digital technology. He said it will play a role in spreading values across society and industry as a whole.
CEO Kim said, “Operating systems, databases, and artificial intelligence have a clear winner, but blockchain is still non-jugongsan.”
Talk = Kyung-ae Ahn, Director of ICT Science
“It will be a blockchain company specialized in the corporate market” = CEO Won-beom Kim, who worked as a researcher at TmaxSoft, Tmax Data, and Tmax Score (currently Score), wrote a white paper on virtual currency by Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of the Bitcoin system. I read and fell in love with the blockchain. Having solidified his determination to start a business with blockchain, he began preparing for a business in late 2013 and resigned to the company. And he persuaded two friends to start Blocko in December 2014.
CEO Kim said, “2014~2015 was a period when startup startups were active and a new business model boom based on cloud occurred.” As it was, there were difficulties in establishing the foundation.”
After consideration, the cloud-based blockchain service model was later pursued and the strategy turned to finding opportunities in the enterprise software (software) market. It has maintained a global reference by persistently verifying and testing the enterprise system applying blockchain with major domestic companies. In recent years, BaaS (blockchain service), cloud, and DID (distributed identity authentication) have become familiar concepts, and as they spread in earnest, the company faced a full-fledged growth opportunity.
◇Blockchain, overcoming speculative controversy and becoming the main technology = Blockchain caused speculative controversy as the initial cryptocurrency emerged. Began to apply in earnest. Blocko’s strategy is to lead the market as it is a first-generation blockchain company and has the most customer and business experience in Korea.
CEO Kim said, “Even in the early stages of the business, the market asked three big questions about blockchain. The first is what a blockchain is, and the second is what can you do with it? The third was whether the blockchain could really solve the problem.”
There was a fundamental question about where the blockchain is used and what value it creates. In addition, there were doubts about whether it works stably when applied to a system that users use every day in the real world. I had to answer all of those questions.
The company decided that there was no guarantee that even people who were interested and friendly about technology would understand it well, so the only answer was to explain it patiently, build it, and show it through empirical testing. Efforts were made to build trust by demonstrating the use of technology-applied services. CEO Kim said, “Not everything is solved by applying only the block chain, but as hardware, software, and services must be developed together, we have formed a collaboration system with partners from the beginning.”
◇Applying blockchain to KSM= Although there was a strong dubious atmosphere, blockchain has been applied to large-scale enterprise systems over the past several years, and its stability and performance have been verified. Representatively, Blocko opened the KSM (Korea Exchange Startup Market) of the Korea Exchange on a blockchain-based basis and opened in November 2016. As a system for trading unlisted stocks of startups, the exchange decided to introduce innovative technologies by referring to overseas cases such as NASDAQ. As of the end of last year, 115 companies were registered in KSM and are operating stably.
A larger application case than KSM is Lotte Card. Since the end of 2016, blockchain technology has been applied to app card biometric authentication and payment, supporting the stable operation of large-scale services for nearly four years. The company has since cooperated with Lotte Information & Communication to supply blockchain technology. The Lotte Group is preparing to spread the blockchain to various fields including Lotte membership.
CEO Kim said, “Many other companies are promoting new business models using blockchain.” “Hyundai Motor Group has a supply chain connected with various affiliates and suppliers, so securing security is important. Blocks to manage compliance with information security We have built a chain-based pledge system.”
◇”Now we have to go to commercialization after the demonstration” = CEO Kim stressed that the time to commercialize the block chain is now enough as it has been sufficiently demonstrated. For commercialization, it is necessary to raise the performance and stability to the next level. A successful system was created by attaching a wheel called a block chain to virtual asset transactions such as bitcoin, but it is necessary to design a block chain suitable for the enterprise environment, just as a bicycle wheel cannot be removed and used in a car.
CEO Kim said, “We have completed the speed and performance required for the enterprise environment. It has a level of skill that is not lacking.”
Blockchain is not a completely new invention. CEO Kim explained that it is a technique that combines old techniques to give a solution to a problem. At the same time, he said, “not to reinvent the blockchain” about the reason to use the blockchain.
He said, “Getting a fixed date for real estate transactions is because it is the most accessible and economical, and it was created to solve the problem in the first place.” .
Blockchain is a technology developed to create value by creating trust between people and by collecting important data, including contracts, and it is an appropriate technology that can be applied immediately to necessary areas while having certain strengths in forgery prevention and security.
CEO Kim said, “Before the keyword “blockchain” came out, Google had already built and used a system with a similar concept, and PayPal used a similar technology.” “Blockchain is a wheel-like technology that has been used for thousands of years.”
Blockchain is a fundamental technology similar to the Internet, and is sometimes referred to as the’Internet of Trust’. A lot of things can be done by making a system such as a registry office accessible to anyone on the Internet using a blockchain.
CEO Kim said, “In the 1970s and 1980s, rapid communication between people was a privilege, and as the government and the military used it through a dedicated network and became popular with the spread of the Internet, blockchain would make a similar change to the Internet through the popularization of trust. I will.”
Applying Blockchain to Electronic Document Management= The company has begun activities to apply blockchain to creating and storing electronic documents. Companies need a service that guarantees the integrity of documents by external companies or third-party organizations such as certified electronic document storage and TSA (time point verification service) for electronic document management. In the case of a general legal contract, it can be said to be an electronic version of the registry office, just like using the registry office.
CEO Kim said, “Certified electronic archives have regulations on tangible resources such as manpower for document storage, CCTV, access control, and wall thickness. Blockchain is made secure with algorithms and intangible approaches, not tangible resources.” “For a company, it will be possible to cope with only SW,” he explained.
The company recently launched a consultative body called the DTT Alliance that helps companies increase the security and reliability of important data, including electronic documents, and monitor each other. There is a lot of demand for companies to safely store important documents or data created in their services or applications, and the goal is to create an ecosystem that supports them.
CEO Kim said, “One of the interesting things about blockchain is through the concept of’Merkle tree’, by sharing a hash value that can be called’the DNA of data’ even if you do not open your own data completely It can be confirmed that the data has not been altered or altered,” he said. “We plan to expand the DTT alliance to create a related industrial ecosystem not only domestically, but also overseas.”
◇Blockchain industrial environment improvement atmosphere= It is not an exaggeration to say that the initial spread of new technology is a’fight against regulation’, but opportunities are expected as the regulatory conditions surrounding the domestic blockchain rapidly change. The digital signature law abolished the accredited certificate, the electronic document law comprehensively recognized the legal effect of electronic documents, and the virtual asset market is also facing a change due to the revision of the special law. As the government promotes digital new deal projects, including data dams, the overall industry atmosphere is also improving.
CEO Kim said, “In the past, only public certificates were in effect, but now electronic signatures including block chains also have a seal effect, enabling various contract methods that were not possible in the past. In the past, digitalization is possible in places where it was difficult to digitize because it had to use a difficult means of public certificates.”
Until now, the validity of electronic documents has been recognized only for public power stations and TSA, but the meaning of blockchain increases as various types of contract documents and documents with legal effect are created in the Untact Era. The special law is also meaningful, and in the meantime, the issuance, operation, and transaction of virtual assets such as bitcoin and Ethereum have been carried out in gray zones outside the legal network, so financial companies and companies in the institutional sector can access.
CEO Kim said, “Blockchain and virtual assets are inseparable symbiosis. When virtual asset transactions enter the institutional sphere, things that have been done in the dark will be done in a bright world.” We are preparing a business related to custodial service.”
◇Power on cloud and blockchain convergence= The company is focusing on the convergence of cloud and blockchain recently.
CEO Kim said, “We plan to release BPaaS that supports enterprise application operation within this year through PaaS (platform service) fused with more general-purpose cloud technology, beyond BaaS (blockchain service) specialized in block chain.” When it comes out, it is expected that the distribution and demonstration of the blockchain will become easier.”
In the case of Lotte Card, a cloud-based blockchain was introduced, and CEO Kim explained that even if it is the same cloud, running blockchain software on it can have security integrity. It is said that the blockchain serves as a complementary material that enhances the degree of completion such as security issues of the cloud. It is a strategy to use these strengths to overcome the limitations of traditional enterprise IT systems.
CEO Kim said, “Enterprise software is still expensive and there is a lot of room for improvement from the perspective of users, but I believe that blockchain can bring a big change. “We will play a role as a helper so that many companies can enjoy the effects of blockchain in the industrial field.” “Korea has been a global leader in the hardware and manufacturing industry so far, but the reality is that SW has not much to be proud of.” He emphasized.