The second round of projects for Busan’s blockchain regulation special zone are announced. The integrated exchange of Bithumb and Barunson Consotium are not on the list.

On the 14th, Busan metropolitan city held a ‘public conference on the Busan blockchain special zone development’ and announced the project applications that will be judged by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups(MSS).

It was considered that the timing wasn’t good for the integrated exchange platform that Bithumb proposed. The representative of the city said “For the case of Bithumb, majority thought it was premature so it will be postponed” and that “since our special zone will continue, it will be evaluated again next year.”

Without Bithumb and Barunson, the remaining projects include: ▲ blockchain-based medical mydata platform (AI Platform Consortium), ▲ blochchain-based real estate investment management services (Sejong Telecom), ▲ blockchain-based Cruise Smart DID Verification service (SamsungSDS Consortium), and ▲ blockchain-based data reward and transaction services (Glosfer).

The city plan on letting all of the listed projects pass. The shift in the government’s opinion on the telemedicine field, especially with the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, played an important part. “Because of COVID-19, the government changed their stance of the telemedicine which is a positive change for projects like Mydata,” says the representative.

The focus was met on Sejong Telecom’s real estate investment management services platform. It was pointed out that the service does not differ much from the KasaKorea’s model which has received the regulation sandbox.

Once the MSS reviews began, the discussion must be done among Financial Services Commission as well as the Ministry of Justice, which is another hurdle to jump. The representative said “there are still many things to consider and discuss, but we will try to get things done smoothly so that all projects can pass.”