As the world continues to witness another edition of the premier crypto and blockchain event – the Blockchain Week, bringing together the brightest minds of the industry to discuss, redefine, and celebrate the future of finance. This year’s edition was held between August 7th to 14th in Korea tagged Korea Blockchain Week 2022.
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder and one of the keynote speakers at the conference has stated that with the fast-growing blockchain industry, cryptocurrency payment will become mainstream after Ethereum becomes cheaper and more accessible to a broader user base.
Buterin disclosed this during a session at Korea Blockchain Week 2022 in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Monday. In his words: “The upgrade of Ethereum (which is scheduled in September) will dramatically cut the current cost of transaction fees that are around $1 to $20, by making improvements to efficiency and accessibility of the crypto.”
He further emphasized that the rollup which combines several transactions into one is one of the other strategies used to lower the transaction price. “Even after rollups, cryptocurrency transaction costs typically range from $0 to 25 cents” (per transaction). However, with more advancements, it might drop to five cents or even below,” he explained.
However, according to him, making blockchain more widely available means lowering the cost of transactions. He noted that consumers in Zambia currently have to pay $20, or the equivalent of five hours’ income, to complete a single transaction. Meanwhile, Buterin went on to say that low-income nations experience significant inflation because their financial systems are inefficient and they are not well connected to the economies of richer nations.
“Many people around the world are quietly using crypto for international payments already. For lower-income countries, a lot of opportunities for crypto payments lie ahead as well, which have the benefits of digital technology — efficiency and safety.”
Factblock, a South Korean blockchain business, has been the Korea Blockchain Week’s host since it was founded in 2018. Participating in the event were gaming behemoths Wemade, Com2Us, Nexon, and Kakao Games, who shared their perspectives on their blockchain services and business plans. Other well-known speakers include Sandeep Nailwal, CEO of Polygon, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, Animoca, Yat Siu, and Kevin Sekniqi, co-founder of Ava Labs.
