Internet giant Kakao adds OKex to its blockchain

South Korean internet corporation Kakao Corp has announced that cryptocurrency exchange OKex is joining the Klaytn blockchain. For OKex this partnership will bring more trading volume, while Klaytn benefits from the exchange's size and reputation. The companies stated that the partnership aims to push mass-adoption of blockchain utility forward.

Kakao Corp's blockchain project is only a few months old. The company is already working with Samsung, Shinhan Bank and investment company IDG Capital. The internet corporation has also established a governance council for its blockchain project, which consists of companies like Binance, LG Electronics, Celltrion and Unionbank of the Philippines.

Until this point Kakao Corp and OKex had not much in common within the blockchain space. OKex was even rumored to be developing its own blockchain.

Both Klaytn and OKex are regulated by the South Korean government. The cryptocurrency exchange recently removed privacy-focused cryptocurrencies from its platform. OKex is in the top twenty biggest crypto exchange in the world. it has 22.2 billion dollars in trading volume per month.

Klaytn and Kakao Talk

The Kakao Corporation is an internet service company active in a variety of fields, like for example gaming, content services and mobility services. One of their biggest products is Kakao Talk, a messenger that's very popular in South Korea. On a daily basis the app has over 44 million users per day, which is over 80 percent of the South Korean population.

Klaytn is natively build into Kakao Talk. Because of this users can access a variety of decentralized services, including ticketing services, games and social media.

Blockchain and social media

Kakao Talk is not the only social media platform to embrace blockchain. In recent months Facebook has been trying to launch its libra coin, without much success. In addition the Japanese messaging giant Line has launched a cryptocurrency exchange inside its app.

The Russian social media platform VKontakte is also keeping its eyes on crypto. On top of that blockchain developer Block.One bought a domain name for 30 million dollars. Voice.com has to become a social media platform build on the EOS blockchain.