South Korea plans to foster 10,000 blockchain experts over the next four years to 2022, according to Vice Minister of the Science and ICT Min Won-ki Thursday.
In unveiling next year’s budget for the blockchain industry, he said the government would invest 40 billion won in fostering blockchain manpower, expanding state pilot projects and helping civilians initiate model projects.
Hong Jun-young, the chair of the Federation of Korea Fintechs, K-FiNNet, said the budget is too small in view of the importance of the blockchain. He said that the government needs to expand the blockchain budget by several hundred times.
Yun Suk-goo, CEO of Node Bizware, said the blockchain industry should rely less on the state budget and more on private capital. He also observed that South Korea has been heavily investing in research and development (R&Ds) while investing little in venture capital startups and angel funds.
A Korea Venture Capital Association report showed that the United States invests 420 times as much funds as South Korea although the U.S. economy is 12 or 13 times larger than the South Korean economy. In angel fund investments, the United States invests 25 times as much money as South Korea
